tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35820000611428467042024-03-14T05:30:14.522+00:00Slightly South of SanityYou know that saying 'if I didn't laugh I'd cry'? Well that's the story of my life. Which is the fodder for this blog. I had a dream....it wasn't this.... but, in a funny kind of way, I'm bloody glad it was.Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-78084780119021045442014-11-30T16:25:00.003+00:002014-11-30T16:25:38.990+00:00The Naked Pedalo IncidentOk so about 100 years ago I promised I would be back tomorrow with The Naked Pedalo Incident but then, basically, a lot of things happened and it turned out I lied.<br />
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My grandad died, my mum upped her Batshit Crazy Level from 'moderate' to 'legendary' and I had to write the world's most boring piece of academic work ever. What with raising young minds, working, keeping the laundry mountain below fatal landslip level and falling over in pools of cider whilst trying to perfect slut-drops, I just kind of never got round to it.<br />
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So anyway going back to the pedalo. Way back when I decided to flex my credit card and take the kids to Ibiza. As you do when you have 2 children - one whom needs a calm, structured routine every day and 1 whom generates more volume than your average Death Metal band (we know this as we ran an experiment in the car). <br />
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Whilst on this holiday, eldest child became absolutely obsessed with taking the pedalos out. It allowed for complete control of a vehicle in a potentially very hazardous environment. I sunbathed on the back while he beat his younger brother for taking us too close to a shipping lane and muttered about currents and sandbanks and million pound yachts.<br />
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The good thing about the pedalo is that it takes you far away from other people and you can a) stop worrying some body is going to call the Spanish equivalent of social services and b) get naked.<br />
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Let me explain. The paradox of life is that when you are a teenager with a banging body and no stretch marks you will probably hate everything about it, spend hours of existential angst pinching your thighs, living on a diet of Diamond White and crisps and write to This Morning asking them to do a make over on you so you can reach your full body potential (I actually did this, handwritten from the same pad of paper I wrote poetry about my dead pet chickens. I think it was Rosemary Connelly I asked to change me life. She never replied. Probably for the best). THEN - when you are a 30 something mother of children with loads of stretch marks and thighs about twice their teenage width you won't give a flying fig and will take the attitude 'if i make it to 80 I will regret not sunbathing naked'. Plus don't forget - I lived through Beaver Creek. After that you're not going to worry about people seeing your tits.<br />
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Ever. <br />
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So anyway on the back of the pedalo I started off sunbathing topless (eldest son only agreed to this on the grounds we went nowhere near any other living human beings EVER) and then decided that whilst he lectured his brother on the nuances of wave formation and how he was basically an idiot and continually proved his idiotness, that I would go for a naked swim.<br />
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Ah the freedom. The lack of inhibitions. The sea surrounding you. The feeling of peace and joy and happiness and salt water. The pedalo heading rapidly towards some rocks……<br />
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Oh oh dear.<br />
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And thus distracted by his 'idiot brother' the pedalo got washed up on a rocky outcrop at the base of some cliffs. <br />
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Now you can pedal as hard as you like but if your rotors aren't in the water you aren't going to go anywhere (you could probably make that into one of those inspirational quotes and get it on your wall in swirly script - I will take full credit). I swam over and tried to haul it back into the sea but i physically couldn't. Eldest son was by this point hysterical with rage at the incompetence of both his 'idiot' co-pilot and also at me as apparently I'd said it was safe to go near the rocks and he knew it wasn't (he has a point here - I had told him to just get over it and stop worrying and now look where we were…… all washed up with nowhere to go. And some of us with no clothes on). <br />
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So I was only left with one choice. To haul my naked form out of the sea and up on to the rocks and push the pedalo back in. I couldn't touch the bottom and the rocks were steep and I had to do this completely replying on my upper body strength. Which, it appears, is frankly shit. <br />
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After some considerable amount of time grunt, straining, swearing and thrashing I finally came ashore.<br />
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You know the bit in the Bond Movie Dr No where Ursuala Andress rises from the sea in her white bikini and comes gracefully ashore?<br />
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Well it wasn't like that.<br />
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It was like the point in Blue Planet where the gigantic male walrus hauls himself onto the ice flow and making a guttural rutting/fighting noise flops towards to his mate.<br />
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And it was at this point - OF COURSE IT WAS AT THIS POINT - that several Spanish fishermen appeared at the top of the rocky outcrop clutching snorkelling gear and long stick things (probably spears who knows).<br />
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If eldest son was ashamed of his idiot brother/out of control naked mother before, well now he was spiritually broken. <br />
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The surge of adrenalin the fishermen (and their potential spears) gave me allowed me to refloat the pedalo in one hefty move and leap back into the sea (I couldn't get back on to the pedalo as my upper body strength wouldn't allow for this - I had to ask the children to pass down my swimwear and swim the whole way back to the pedalo man). <br />
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I took comfort from the fact that I didn't live there, nobody knew me and nobody was holding a camera phone (nobody needs their naked pedalo exploits go viral - least of all me) and left the incident to die away as folklore (the tale of the gigantic swearing mermaid with bad strap marks). <br />
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That was until the kids went back to school and eldest's communication book came back home with the words 'glad to hear you had a good holiday, I've heard all about the naked pedalo incident and the fisherman! Sounds fun!'.<br />
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Shoot. Me. Now. Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-44756832450957991112014-09-15T09:52:00.002+01:002014-09-15T09:52:46.113+01:00It's been a long time coming…..….but a blog post is gonna' come….<br />
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I thought I hadn't blogged for over a year but, lo, it turns out it's more like 11 months so I feel positively virtuous now.<br />
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How are things with me? Well much like they were 11 months ago - only kind of on steroids. Or psychotropic drugs. Or both. <br />
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The giant dog is even bigger and ate my mother's Chesterfield sofa. We threw a blanket over the gaping wound and kind of pretend it never happened. <br />
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The cats now number 3 but this number is subject to rapid change at any one point pending road accidents, kidney disorders or children finding kittens they simply MUST adopt.<br />
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The guinea pigs now number zero (sad times) following a massive accidental population explosion followed by a mass escape (they would regularly pop up on local news feeds on my Facebook page under titles like 'FOUND in the taxi rank' or 'this guinea pig was in our recycling bin this morning - anyone know it?' and I'd have to go and reclaim them but often people adopted them so that was kind of a novel way to rehome them) followed by my penning in all the remaining critters only for a stoat to get in one night….. The rest as they say is history. As are the guinea pigs. First time I've been without any in living memory and every time I take the leaves off a cauliflower and have nowhere useful to put them I get a little pang. <br />
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Eldest child knows even more about trains than he did last time I blogged and had a lovely holiday sat by the pool in his socks reading 'Railways Illustrated' before befriending a large cat which sadly resided in a bar called 'Striptease Discotech!' which ever more sadly was next to 'Beverly Hills Swingers Club!'. This led to some interesting conversations about appropriate places to hang out with cats. Or not. <br />
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Younger child is still so loud he breaks windows (well actually he broke a window at a Stately Home with a stone rather than his voice but we won't dwell on that mainly due to my highly mature response of 'holy fuck, RUN!!! EVERYBODY RUN TO THE WOODS…..'). He's draped his socks over my tele in the hope of luring out Santa early and has taken to role playing a 'bee on fire that is crashing to earth and dying'. Restful it is not. <br />
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My mum is an ongoing crisis - I'll will demonstrate this in a moment when I tell you the tale of the Stella and Mr Woody. <br />
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I'm single - by choice. I could tell you many an entertaining story involving plants of love, golliwog gifts (I kid yeee not) and anal love beads (unopened but non-returnable) but that would be cruel so lets just leave it that I don't have time to be involved with anyone in a manner that involves any kind of energy. <br />
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My life is one going blur of 12.5 hour shifts, commuting, children, pets, logistical childcare nightmares and laughing so I don't cry. <br />
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And with that let me get back to my mother.<br />
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So on my birthday we went on a coach trip to the Sea Life Centre through a local charity. It wasn't my actual birthday dream to return to the scene of Beaver Creek (see previous blog post) or in fact stare once again at various fish (although I do rather like the Garden Eels) but it was on, it filled a hole in the summer holidays and it happened to be on my birthday. <br />
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Things didn't get off to the best of starts. Mother turned up late and we almost missed the coach. She was shaking hard and appeared in the grip of terror. God knows why - if anyone should have been shaking it was me as my youngest child was in a hyperactive frenzy, had put a straw bag over his head and for reasons known only to him was shouting about Afghanistan. Eldest child had a face like thunder and was repeatedly informing me that he hated sea creatures, it was windy (which he hates), there would be queues (intolerable), there would be no trains or in fact heavy industry of any type and the coach wasn't even going on the motorway so this was basically THE WORST DAY OF HIS LIFE.<br />
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Happy Bloody Birthday. <br />
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About half way there I asked mother if she had actually bought me a birthday present? Oh she said appearing startled 'Happy Birthday darling!' and with that she whipped out a can of Strongbow from the bottom of her picnic hamper. <br />
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A can of Strongbow.<br />
On coach trip for children with special needs.<br />
At 10.30am.<br />
As a birthday present.<br />
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Much as I was tempted to down it there and then I decided the day was probably going to get worse before it got better and I'd save it as long as I could. Like a kind of watered down cyanide pill.<br />
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By lunchtime eldest child was kind of banging his head repeatedly against hard objects in abject distress over the endless parade of aquatic lifeforms so I decided we should all sit down in the Toddler Splashpool area and have lunch. <br />
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With this Mother, to my complete dismay, cracked open a can of Stella and without warning or explanation bellowed across the frisking semi-naked toddlers 'why HELLO MY WOODY!'.<br />
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The children, startled, looked to me for reassurance that I just could not give.<br />
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I'm sure my dad spun in his grave.<br />
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'Mother!' I demanded 'what ARE you doing!'.<br />
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'Talking to that Wood Pigeon darling! Look he's just over there with his fine lady wife!'.<br />
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And with that she shouted 'MY TOE HURTS BETTY!'.<br />
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People who had been nervously glancing after the Woody explosion were openly staring now. Really staring. Eldest child was just about self combusting with shame. <br />
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'MOTHER!!!' I demanded 'WHAT IS THIS!?'.<br />
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'It's the cry of the Wood Pigeon darling! MY TOE HURTS BETTY MY TOE HURTS BETTY MY TOE HURTS BETTY!'. (I've since googled this and it's recognised bird thing but still, that doesn't make it any better, or appropriate).<br />
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'Grandma!' exclaimed my eldest 'never in my life have I heard a bird say that!'.<br />
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'MY TOE HURTS BETTY!' Mother continued to yell 'waving her can of Stella aloft in rare moment of seemingly unbridled joy. <br />
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And with that I decided it was time to crack open my birthday can. <br />
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If you can't beat them then at least meet them half way. <br />
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Argh it's good to be back and debrief this shit.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow I'll tell you all about the Naked Pedalo Incident. <br />
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<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-15366205085104120002013-10-19T15:16:00.002+01:002013-10-19T15:41:23.800+01:00Beaver Creek<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well I'm feeling very productive today, I have already made a curried parsnip soup (that tastes like actual farts) and a syrup sponge (that rose up to touch the top of the oven, turned black and promptly collapsed into a kind of a shuddering blob), so lets get blogging! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Been away for a while and in my absense I have almost 300 items of Spam waiting to be approved (or not as the case will be). I will certainly know where to go if I need a fake Louis Vitton handbag, a Calafornian Divorce Lawyer, raspberry ketones (??) or indeed 'natural cookery experiences in Vancouver' (oh yes, I NEED THAT IN MY LIFE). This offer though has left even my slightly left-field brain puzzled:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-left;">Narrow blood vessels lie alongside the intestines of the earthworm and they absorb the nutrients from the alimentary canal feeding the rest of the body. I believe my exact words were "I don't want to be your dirty little secret. The buccal cavity is a small cavity that has neither jaws nor teeth. Also visit my blog post - funny pub quiz</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hmmmm. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hope everyone is well out there and survived the summer holidays. I did - just. More of that another day but lets just say the caravan holiday with my mum, both kids and 2 dogs involved actual blood, actual sweat, actual tears, a lot of rain water, a toxic jellyfish or two, several wasps and copius amounts of talcum powder. And cider. A lot of cider. But we had a 'jolly good time' (that reminds me - must remember to reorder my psychiatric medication).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today I'm going to concentrate on another day of the summer holidays - the day that has come to be known as Beaver Creek. The SINGLE most humilating day of my life. And those of you that follow this blog will know that this really must mean it is very extremely hugely embarrassing. For those of you that are on my Facebook it's old news - but hey, I'm sure you can cope with hearing it again (or maybe not). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here goes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This summer my ex-husband and I decided to do a day where we took a child each and gave them a day without their sibling indulging in their one true passion. This was mainly to stop the one with Aspergers killing the extremely hyperactive loud one but I digress. So he took the one with Aspergers to look at trains and engineering things and I took the extemely hyperactive loud one (quelle surprise) to the SeaLife Centre in Weymouth as he loves sea creatures (see, it makes sense). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was a lovely day and I was quite excited and about my big day out with my smallest child and I got dressed up in a lovely floaty summer dress, cork wedges and (this bit is relavent) a pair of knickers that happened to be those of French Short variety. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And off we went.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Half way through our day we came across the Crocodile Creek log flume ride. Small boats (that hold 2 people) move slowly round on a lazy river and then climb up a steep incline and splash down the other side. So we queued for the ride (god even typing this my palpitations are coming back).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To get on to the ride you have to jump in to the moving 'crocodile' boat from the platform. I jumped in first - sort of squatting as there isn't really a proper seat and the bloody thing was ankle deep in freezing water and of course my bloody stubborn arsed child wouldn't follow...... He stayed on the platform noisly protesting as the crocodile sailed forth..... So, in a fit of desperation I grabbed him and dragged him in.... Only of course he freaked, knocked me backwards into the boat so I was flat on my back with my legs spread wide and my knees bent. He was firmly seated on my stomach/chest gripping on to my neck (presumably in terror but may have just been trying to finish me off) and in his mad scramble had managed to bring the floaty summer skirt of my dress up with him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I was sailing forth, away from the platform and around the sweeping bend, with my skirt WAY up over my knickers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was made infinitely worse by the fact that around 50 members of the general public were stood around the sweeping bend either queueing for the ride or taking photos or VIDEOING IT. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">BUT (and this is the very very very worst bit) it was made infinitely worse by the fact that not only was my skirt hitched up, but the stupid French knickers (that look comfy BUT NEVER ARE) were not, how can I put this, sitting centrally. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">No no my dears. The entire gusset had moved from the area it is designed to cover and sharply to the left. So that all the material was bunched in the crack between the upper reaches of my left thigh and, lets be frank here, my genitalia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So lets get this straight - I am pinned on my back and cannot (and boy was I struggling by this point) get the leverage to sit up as I have a heavy 6 year old child thrashing around and screaming on my chest/stomach. I am sailing forth VERY SLOWLY towards a thronging mass of the general public including doting grandparents and fathers with video cameras and....... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">......and well my muff is on show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I now understand the true meaning of the word hysteria - after a while I gave up struggling and just started to emit shrieks of sort of terrified laughter followed by small sobs. I felt like I had gone out of my body and was watching a kind of ultra cringeworthy uncensored pornographic version of Mr Bean. Where I am Mr Bean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eventually I managed to right myself (and my knickers), the ride finished and I fled to a bench near the penguins where I continued to emit strange noises and sweat a lot. Somewhere during this the strap holding my cork wedge snapped off, so I was also only wearing one shoe. But let me tell you people THIS BARELY REGISTERED in comparison to my shocked state and the fact that I was becoming increasingly aware that people would be going home and having conversations along the lines of 'you WILL NOT BELIEVE what we saw at the Sealife Centre today!' or, in fact, viewing video footage or photographs of their little darlings...... with my vaginal lips in the background. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As we left the attraction a lady at one of the stalls that flogs fridge magnets and the like of you 'enjoying' their rides with your family, stopped me and asked if I'd had any professional photographs taken that day. No, NO I hadn't I said before fleeing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Nobody needs THAT on a fridge magnet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We drove home and I promptly drank 2 bottles of wine in order to cope with the trauma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The other child had a marvellous day out and nothing even slightly odd or embarrassing or weird or involving exposed genitalia happened at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">No of course it bloody didn't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway I've told you now. My shame is shared. And if any of you were actually there and happen to have photographic evidence - please don't put it on the Internet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thank you. </span></div>
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Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-1735635688554358612013-07-31T15:02:00.003+01:002013-07-31T15:05:31.548+01:00Lets go to the beach, beach.....<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ok so the holidays are here and, up until just about the time the kids broke up from school, we were experiencing a 'heat wave' (it's now a normal British summer where if you go out for the day you need to pack everything from Factor 50 to a full set of waterproofs and possibly some waders) but, whatever the weather, at this time of year many British families are propelled towards the beach. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now I go to the beach quite a lot. I'm very lucky. I have a range of beaches about an hours drive away and for this I am highly blessed and make the most of them. So I have quite a lot of beach experience. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And by this I mean REAL beach experience. I love the beach but I have what I would call 'realistic expectations' and looking around me on some beaches, at the amount of marital disharmony and general stress, I think it's time that I brought expectations down a little. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The problem is many people are drawn to the beach with expectations derived via commercial propaganda in the form of advertising. This has seeped into their sub-conscious and over-ridden their own, real, previous experiences. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back when I was a child, what you expected from the beach was some (if not all) of the following: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- a long trip in a hot car with no air-con, a trip during which your thighs would become actively sealed with the car seat covers resulting in searing pain every time you moved. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- a rug to sit on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- sandwiches full of sand even though the beach you were sitting on was usually made of pebbles or grit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- sandcastles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- horrific blisters from the jelly shoes that 'saved your feet' in the rock pools. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- an ice-cream if you were very very lucky</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- a go on the 2p slot machine thing if you were even luckier and it was a beach with 'facilities' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- sunburn/windburn/hyper-thermia/delete as applicable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But nowadays? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well people are shown images such as this: </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q2bMLL1vvxk/UfkNCaf82wI/AAAAAAAAAP4/62Loxb9muII/s1600/13WSUM_WB042_PEW_M03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q2bMLL1vvxk/UfkNCaf82wI/AAAAAAAAAP4/62Loxb9muII/s320/13WSUM_WB042_PEW_M03.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
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And this: </div>
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And this: </div>
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And this: </div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and I think that for some of them this is what they sub-consciously hope for. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me just give you a gentle reminder of what is wrong with these photos......</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The top one - we will forgive her the flat stomach and lack of stretchmarks and instead focus on the fact THERE IS NO SAND ON HER TOWEL. This never actually happens. Within minutes the whole thing is a sea of sand. As is your bikini gusset and ear holes. There is also nobody else sat near here. In real life, as soon as she had cracked open that Kindle, 6 lads on the beers sporting horrific sunburn and playing some tinny music on an iPOD would have rocked up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The next one (which I stole from the The Celtic Sheepskin Company who do make very nice clothes yadda yadda yadda) is even more misleading as it makes out that your 'beach essentials' are a pair of flip flops and a nice cotton outfit. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. If you have children you will need about 30 others things too - mainly enough food so that you don't have to keep leaving the beach to source more. However - be careful not to take the 'be prepared' thing a bit too far here. I have noticed a recent trend for people to arrive at the beach and pretty much set up what appears to be a fully functional camp, complete with catering facilities and basic navigation systems. This does seem to slightly defeat the object of going to the beach in the first place but hey, who am I to comment if you feel a 60ft square secured area is necessary for a bit of sunbathing, a few sandcastles and a hot dog? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The third one down - cheesy family in the sea. Where do I start? It won't be like this. I've actually noticed that unless men are actively doing something on the beach (like surfing or trying to start a fire or drinking 8 cans of Stella before mid-day) they are not particularly good at it. They don't like just sitting around. This can lead to tensions. I saw a magnificent example of this recently. Couple with small child paddling in the sea..... words were had about how cold it was and her whinging about not wanting to go in.... more words were had..... she stalked off in a big humph.... he screamed the immortal words 'THAT'S IT, YOU JUST FUCK OFF BACK TO YOUR FUCKING PHONE AND YOUR FUCKING CANDY CRUSH'. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh how I laughed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Happy holidays. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Although shortly after that karma took me down when a large wave rolled me over, skidded me along the shingle and dumped me at the feet of a shocked looking man. I subtly returned my left breast to my swimwear, rolled over as gracefully as possibly (i.e. not very gracefully) and crawled off in a nonchalant way which screamed of 'yeah, and of course I MEANT to do that'...... (whilst silently crying into my sand-encrusted beach towel). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And finally the last picture. Well where does one begin with this? Don't study the picture too hard, the 'dad's' teeth are so white they might blind you. But the thing is that 'family' in the picture give you the false hope that a day at the beach is effortless. And here's the thing.....unless you fly to the Maldives, Mauritius, the Caribbean or some such other place - this is VERY UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN IN THIS COUNTRY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What is more likely to happen in this country is this: </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wCGWyzhDO50/UfkNcHRb1rI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/peaOz94-tdk/s1600/IMG_0464.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wCGWyzhDO50/UfkNcHRb1rI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/peaOz94-tdk/s400/IMG_0464.JPG" width="400" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is a real life photo of a real life family (well two families. Kind of) on a beach in Cornwall this year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That's right - it is not a refugee camp. It is a day out on a British beach. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The family is mine and my friend Emma's (Emma's the one who got drunk and bought something like 350 silver foil take-away cartons off Ebay, just 'because'). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We love this photo so much because a picture really does speak a thousand words. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I will add some words anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So first things first, our cars are parked behind the white building you can see on the far horizon. About a mile away. A mile is a long way with whinging children. It's a fucking long way with 6 whinging children. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The second thing is the actual sea is about a mile in front of us. The tide is out. Right out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The third thing is when we left our cars to search for the elusive sea it was beautiful sunshine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The fourth thing is that it is not now beautiful sunshine and a large cataclysmic storm is rolling in across the ocean. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Note that we have no need for flip flops, beautiful cotton beachwear or fluffy beach towels. We have no need for Kindles, or Ray Bans or string bikinis. Me may actually be in need of a deck chair or two but we could never have carried them there. Our beach towels are those crumpled wet things covered in grit under the big bags. The big bags are full of crisps and sandwiches - there was also cheese but we lost it in a battle with an over enthusiastic Golden Retriever. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The child in the clashing outfit on the far left is my eldest son - the one with Aspergers - who looks happy enough counting waves and no doubt pondering the statistical risk of us all being hit by lightening. Still - it should be said the same happiness level could be achieved by sticking him in a window which overlooks any reasonably busy highway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> The child sat on the rock has been to search for sea caves, in which we can shelter from the storm in order not to die. He has returned with the news that he has found one but it is quote: 'not family sized' so we are going to have to pick who we take and who we leave behind in the great lightening escape......</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The woman in the purple hood is Emma and she's having strong words with one of her sons who is somewhat hysterical about the prospect that we are all about to die and is begging for a right to enter the sea cave. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The one with the shovel is mine and probably plotting who to knock out with the shovel in order to secure a sea-cave ticket. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The tallest child, holding some shoes, is a teenager and probably wishing he was at a foam party in Ibizia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hell actually I'm taking the picture and I wish I was a foam party in Ibiza.......</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I honestly can not for the life of me remember what happened after this photo was taken - but we are all still alive so it wasn't a lightening strike. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And with that I'm off to stay on a British beach for a week with my mother, both kids and 2 dogs - in a small caravan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">May the Lord have Mercy on us all. </span><br />
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Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-39589118537405998652013-07-25T15:38:00.000+01:002013-07-25T15:38:08.918+01:00Notes from a Small Foggy Island<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erm hello (wanders shyly onto Internet blog-stage, staring at the footlights and hoping my skirt isn't tucked into my knickers). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How are you all? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Glad I came back - it appears I have 288 blog comments that need authorising. No really. Here's a typical example: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-left;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What Share Of Men gratified by the spouse; or that as much as 70 per cent of cleaning women ne'er arrive at orgasm with their manlike mate? Before sexual copulation, I similar to use a char's sentiency of sight and and your execution of having sexual sex act without ejaculating ahead of time increases more. I matted up a fiddling to a greater extent centred and not ingredients aim to increase the output of spermatozoan. Feel free to surf to my homepage; penis advantage penis advantage review penis advantage reviews penisadvantage penisadvantage review penisadvantage reviews</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did you get that Internet People? If you want to get 'matted up a fiddling to a greater extent' then you need PENIS ADVANTAGE PENIS ADVANTAGE PENIS ADVANTAGE. And a 'manlike mate'. Wow - not actually a man then, 'man like' will do......</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just imagine If I'd never come and shared that with you? You're lives would have been all the poorer. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amen. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No really I'm glad I came back because it makes me sad when I don't blog - it makes me feel like something is missing, some weird connection, some part of who I am is gone and I'm failing. So why don't I do it more often? If it feels good and it's free and it doesn't hurt you why don't you do it more? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't really tell you - I can give you reasons, I can tell you that I'm so busy, so tired, that very often as soon as my children are upstairs I go to bed myself. I can tell you that for a large chunk of my life I work for the NHS and talking about anything to do with that on a public forum could easily get me struck off - and quite rightly so - which makes me paranoid about everything less I slip up and end up in Daily Mail. I can tell you that I feel oddly vulnerable and disjointed and like I just don't want to come out and play a lot of the time. That I swing between fear and loathing, ecstasy and joy and very often just inhabit the safe ground of the island of exhaustion between the two. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But all of those things are only part of the picture. I think the bigger picture is that, like all general nutcases out there, I'm a failed perfectionist and thus my thinking goes along the lines of: 'must blog that - what a crazy day' (too tired to blog....) 'oh god I failed, I didn't blog, well there's no point carrying on now, everything is ruined, people will have given up me anyway.......'.... and so on into a spiral of self-defeated hatred repeating the same thought pattern day after day because you don't have the energy to do anything else. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That looks ridiculous written down but I know there will be loads of you nodding along because you do it with other things - diaries and fitness plans and diets and keeping your house tidy and all the other best intentions which aren't really grounded in a reality suited to the real you. If you aim for perfection all you will ever do is fail HARDER. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So anyway I felt a bit crap and then yesterday I read something which kicked me up the arse. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ages and ages ago on the amazing blog that is Hyperbole and a Half there was an, in my opinion, timeless piece about depression: </span></div>
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<a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Best blog ever on depression </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then she never came back. And I often wondered what happened next and it generally made me feel rather anxious and sad. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then 18 months or so later she came back with this (yes that was in May, but I've been under a rock since May so I only just noticed): </span></div>
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<a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next bit </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I read that last night. Then I re-read it 4 times this morning and it's just genius. The bit about the dead fish. Genius. Sad but genius. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I thought if she can come back after 18 months of hell then why am I letting this little gap stop me forever? Just because my mum used the May Bank Holiday to watch the snooker without my (dead) dad and drink so many Rusty Nails she fell down the stairs to be found a day later and escorted by me to hospital where she cried and wailed to a rather alarmed Triage Nurse..... 'it was Ronnie....Ronnie O'Sullivan! It was because of him! I fell........the snooker, my husband is dead, bloody good match, waaaaaaa, Ronnie, waaaaa'.... Well you can't let these little events stop you can you? Even if they do rather unsettle you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once upon a time I wrote that grief is like a moth. It waits on the wall in the corner of your peripheral vision, almost part of the furnishings but you do know the moth is there, even when you don't acknowledge it. And then suddenly, now and again, it rises up, clattering and flapping into the light and right into your line of vision and there is no putting the moth to the back of your mind until the lights go out and it settles back to the corner where it came from. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well I think for some people the grief has never retreated to the moth stage. They are stuck in it still being a fog. A thick dense black fog. It's never retreated to their peripheral vision. It's what they wake up to BANG every morning and then try to grasp, but can't, as they struggle through the day, as it slips through their fingers and leaves them disorientated, scared and very often lost. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it's what they go to sleep to - what they breathe in and breathe out and what lies up against them in bed when there is no one else. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think for some people living like that is pretty much intolerable and the only way they get even a moment's respite is to drink. But then all to soon the fog comes back denser and thicker and even more choking and the days merge into one long hopeless field of nightmares. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I think that's what my mother's grief is - between the days when the fog lifts a little and the warmth of the sun can briefly be felt - in the main that is what she lives with - a swirling sea of thick dark fog, lost and confused and utterly exhausted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it is exasperating and infuriating and frightening to be amidst it - to be expected to step into the fog when all you've ever craved is sunshine and be there for the other person and it's easy to get lost in a world where you just sort of survive (again) and forget to take time to do things you enjoy, like blogging. Or your fear that you have nothing worth saying and doubt you could ever write a decent blog again. But then one day - like yesterday - something jolts you out of it and you find the strength to do it differently - to pick up and carry on........</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So even though I've very tired and even though I'm rather irrational and even though I often find myself moribund with panic as my brain does this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">'get dressed</span> <b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">do hair</b> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">boil kettle</span> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">feed animals</span> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">feed children</span><b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> clean up dog wee</b> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">load car </span><b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">find those forms</b><i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> find some shoes</i> <i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">charge phone</span></i> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">remember to turn washing machine on find bank card</span> <b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">remember I need petrol</b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> what is the point of life </span></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><i>what if someone else dies</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: xx-small;">when is this going to get easier</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> <strike>what if it never gets easier</strike> now what's the dog eaten<b> why does the fridge smell </b><i>when will I be able to buy a freezer</i> have the kids spent too long on Minecraft </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">did ALL the escaped Guinea Pigs get eaten by that escaped ferret or are some still living wild</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><b>is my mum lying at the bottom of her stairs </b></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">what is my bank balance </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">what shit have I bought off ebay</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> <b>how will my guttering ever get fixed</b> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">we have no food but if I go to the supermarket I will have a panic attack, fuck it we can all life of brioche and apples... AGAIN </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>WHY ARE THERE SO MANY BIGOTED IDIOTIC PEOPLE IN THE WORLD AND SO MUCH INEQUALITY AND WILL ANYONE EVER SORT IT OUT</b></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> if I water the plants will it rain today thus making my actions pointless <b><i>if I just drink tea all day and don't eat will that mean I'm back in control and that everything will turn out fine and everyone will be happy</i></b> try not shout try not to damage anyone or anything</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"> breathe and breathe again</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">'</span></div>
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about every 30 seconds, on repeat until I go to work and when I get back from work my brain does this</div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">'ffffffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz BED'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even though I constantly get told I move mountains but only ever feel like I'm under them, even though I can't save anyone but feel like I at least have to try, even though all of these things, I need to get over the mental blocks and just write shit down. Because let me tell you - despite everything there is some bloody hilarious shit that goes down here. And I have a duty to share it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And anyway, here comes the summer holidays........(raises mug of tea and prays for salvation or failing that PENIS ADVANTAGE). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love ya, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x</span></div>
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Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-64990057567593051022013-03-30T20:38:00.000+00:002013-03-30T20:38:27.199+00:00Back to the Planet(s)Woah - where have I been?<br />
<br />
Gawd - I'm so sorry. I don't really know. I think I went into a kind of hibernation.<br />
<br />
You know what I reckon?<br />
<br />
Sometimes so much happens so fast in your life that you don't know where you live anymore. But you just carry on and exist in this strange new world (like I have for the last few years). And then one day it hits you that it wasn't all a dream or a nightmare or a weird experiment or part of a plot - it's your actual life forever. For better or worse and all that shit. <br />
<br />
And whereas 'once upon a time' you had a life like THIS you now have a life like THIS. And that might very well not be a bad thing at all. BUT it might make you feel a bit weird and a bit vulnerable and it's winter and it's SO FREAKIN COLD DAY AFTER DAY and you never see daylight and you go out on placement in hospitals and live in the twilight world of 13 hours shifts (16 hours some days) and night shifts and then you get flu - proper flu where you lie in bed and think 'god if I was old I'd be dead by now' and then you get better and you go back to the twilight world and you life in a way where you have no time or energy for very much else but somewhere in the back of your mind is your blog and all the amazing and fantastic people who have stuck by your story for so many years and then guilt sets in ...... I need to write, I need to tell them..... but on you go falling through the days and thinking 'I'll do it tomorrow' when everything feels normal again.... but then you realise that you never actually feel normal and that's what this blog is actually about and who it's for - the people who get it - who never really feel quite 'normal'. So you get your arse in gear and when you are supposed to be writing a 3000 essay you crank up itunes and get back to that thing you love - writing from your heart (rather than writing from 'Evidence Based Research' - excuse me while I fall into a pit of puff adders and think it more enlightening). <br />
<br />
So here I am.....<br />
<br />
I stuck at this blogging through thick and thin, for all those years, but I needed a break. A break where I stopped telling a story and faced it. And you know what? It's a wonderful story - I just hope it carries on being wonderful and uplifting and as hard and shitty and 'weep into a pillow and 5 pints of Strongbow' as it can be I hope it keeps opening doors in my mind and challenging and giving me this amazing ride. For better or worse.<br />
<br />
So where were we were? Ah yes I think it was Christmas and I had a very long motorway built the length of my house by my eldest son. Out of Lego you understand. Not actual tarmac (yet). I did manage to erect a Christmas tree around it - there were negotiations about the new route but I won my planning application. The Christmas tree wasn't the most erect though and actually fell on my head whilst eating my dinner somewhere between Christmas and New Year. There is a photo somewhere on Facebook to verify this - I'm seen peeking out beneath bauble lined branches and smiling grimly into a plate of turkey curry. <br />
<br />
And then it was Easter (as quick as that!?) and I tidied my whole goddam house (this is worth writing about as I don't think it's ever actually happened before on a real scale, only a 'sling stuff in the cupboards scale' - let us call it the 'Innagrual tidy') yet within moments I have what is apparently 'The East Coast Mainline' built through it. Complete with Lego constructed overhead power cables. It even had a 'first train of the day' and 'last service to Edinburgh Waverley'. All very marvellous but IT'S THE GROUND FLOOR OF MY GODDAM HOUSE. <br />
<br />
For those of you who don't quite get this, my oldest son as something called Aspergers syndrome.<br />
<br />
Aspergers is about being somewhere on the Autistic spectrum. If you want to know the official line on this syndrome then Google it - I'm not sure what they say but what I say is that you are a different kind of normal. You don't 'get' peer pressure. You don't fall for advertising hype. You don't give a shit about the 'latest craze'. You still think Thomas the Tank Engine rocks at age 10 and you have huge admiration for Mr Bean. You'd rather make something work properly or perfect a system than any kind of frivolous activity like making glitter pictures or doing crafty shit with bark rubbings (I long ago packed the 'children's craft activities' away in a cupboard marked 'fail' and let him get on with constructing the First Great Western rail network out of drinks straws whilst everyone else got pissed in the bar). <br />
<br />
Biggest lesson of parenting I can give you? Don't try and make a cat into a dog and vice versa. Please. Just don't. <br />
<br />
Now I've never spoken about my children's real names on this blog as I think they deserve their privacy as I write about my life so frankly it could all turn out jolly unfair (after all, they might not want their school mates knowing that mummy pissed in her jeans and that Grandma's springer spaniel ate Mummy's special rope.....) but we have a nickname for him - the Eggman (because he had a head like an egg when he was born - obviously) and so I will now call him that from now on. <br />
<br />
His brother meanwhile is known (by EVERYONE) as Spuddy (can you guess why?? Yup head like a potato - good job I'm done at 2 or we'd be on to melon heads). <br />
<br />
Anyway back to the Eggman.<br />
<br />
Those of you who have read this blog long and hard will know he has always occupied a somewhat other universe where he is resolutely sane and the rest of us are bonkers. He likes structure and pylons and days out to nuclear power stations and motorways and maps and trains and is saving up to go to Hamburg. <br />
<br />
Hamburg I hear you cry!? Yes Hamburg - home of the world's largest model railway - 'Wunderland' - oh the hours of that we have viewed on You Tube (yes the hours that cost me £89 because I had minimum data tariff... oh dear). <br />
<br />
Other kids dream of Disneyland... maybe one day we will get to take a train to Hamburg. <br />
<br />
The thing is I had never had a child before I had him. <br />
<br />
How was I supposed to know that this wasn't 'normal'? I just thought the education system was inflexible and teachers are pushed into this shit because it presumes everyone learns in the same way and Ofsted is a pile of crap..... (oh hang on.... I might have a point there). And I thought I was really bloody lucky because I had a kid who didn't want ££££ spent on him going to Alton Towers - he wanted to drive down the M5 and view the 'at least 5 consecutive miles' of pylons stretching across the flat lands somewhere north of Junction 23.<br />
<br />
I had a kid who breathed a sigh of relief at traffic jams and could stand on a bridge for 4 hours. WAIT!!!! I HAD THE BEST KID EVER!! (Ok I'm ignoring the fact I'm often found screaming PUT YOUR SHOES ON BEFORE I KILL MYSELF or WE CAN NOT SPEND OUR WHOLE LIVES ON THIS GODDAM BRIDGE - MOVE!!!). <br />
<br />
And then 'they' told me there was something 'wrong' with him. <br />
<br />
'What are you doing Eggman?' said the paediatric consultant<br />
<br />
'Building a motorway' said the Eggman from the floor (where he'd been for the whole hour long appointment)<br />
<br />
'Where does it go?' enthused the paediatrician, filled with 'what kids like' jollity and enthusiasm<br />
<br />
'Erm from that side of your room to the other side of your room' said the Eggman rolling his eyes and looking at the doctor like he was the one needing help.......<br />
<br />
And I thought 'well the Eggman has a point and you know what I'm trying to cope with my whole life imploding and the fact that the rest of society finds it odd that my child can draw maps of everywhere he goes from an aerial point of view and loves pylons and trains and thinks jolly phonics is pointless frivolity and can direct you to Carlisle even though he's never been there but YET can't write a sentence you can read but GET OVER IT - on the scale of world problems this is not actually me and the Eggman's problem. Why do you hold writing higher than BEING FUCKING AWESOME?!?!'. <br />
<br />
But as any parent of a child with different needs will tell you, the older they get, the more difference shows. <br />
<br />
I watch him walk into school - he hitches up his trousers so they are ALWAYS 2 inches higher than the top of his socks. I don't actually know how he does it - it doesn't matter how long his trousers are he makes them look like crazy people's trousers (because I suppose they are 'crazy people's' trousers now..... and then he has his hood up (whatever the weather)... and then he asks a 9 year old if they want to play 'selling train tickets' and then a reception age child wrestles him to the floor and he looks up at them and raises an eyebrow and says 'just WHY would you do that? This is MOST unsatisfactory'. <br />
<br />
As more than one person has said to me 'he's like a smaller wilder looking version of Jack Dee'.<br />
<br />
And let me tell you people - the world needs more smaller wilder looking versions of Jack Dee. <br />
<br />
It could save us all. <br />
<br />
And god I love him. I think he's freakin brilliant. I think he has the key to a better, less consumerist, non 'keeping up the Jones's' way of being where we aren't sold down a river of debt in the name of progress.......<br />
<br />
But anyway back to Easter. Where according to the Eggman Jesus was killed by an Inter-City 125 (followed by much chortling at the sheer hilarity of such a concept) and for those of you who still need to know more about Aspergers here is a real life Easter-themed practice based learning exercise provided to you courtesy of The Eggman:<br />
<br />
A class of school children are told they will all being getting a real life chocolate egg once they have designed a box for it - they can design ANY BOX THEY LIKE!! Think of the possibilities!! Think of the creativity!!! Think of fun you can have!!!!<br />
<br />
So the class get to work....they make dog kennels and JCB buckets and nests and Justin Bieber's thong (ok I made that one up but you get my point....someone probably did)...<br />
<br />
...and one boy made a box.<br />
<br />
Just an egg sized box.<br />
<br />
A box with a best-before date and a weight and a bar code and ingredients list.<br />
<br />
And when asked why he didn't do 'more' he simply stated that somebody else had already designed the perfect Easter Egg box - it fitted just right onto supermarket shelves and into lorries and complied with the law. So what on earth were the school playing at making them waste time on this nonsense?<br />
<br />
And I'd like to publicly thank the amazing Sian (you know who you are) who told me ages ago that I'd need to change his school and gave me the boost to actually do it and put him in a place where they GET his awesomeness. And don't just say 'your child is like a Sloth'. <br />
<br />
I spent all those years unknowingly having my vision of childhood deconstructed... and I built a new one around the amazing planet Aspergers but I didn't know it had a name and I didn't know that society didn't think it was 'normal'. I thought it was just the way it was........ which in the Eggman's case it is...... and then I got given another child...... a child who I never tried to do 'normal' stuff with.... because I thought it was all a con!! And then the other child (the one with a head like a Spud) got madder and madder and the official people told me the original child was 'different' and I thought 'ahhhh so THIS is a normal child!! The one I thought was bonkers!!!'. But by that point the 'normal' one wasn't being quite so normal anymore.... if he ever was goddam normal......<br />
<br />
And then the Childminder said 'have you ever considered that your Spud child has ADHD because I've never come across a child more boisterous and crazy and risk loving and bloody MOTOR MOUTHED before - he is incredibly hard work. You do know that don't you?'. No I thought - I didn't - I just thought that being a parent is incredibly hard work (because it is!). <br />
<br />
And then I thought 'oh shit, don't tell me the one I thought was bonkers and was then persuaded was normal is actually bonkers after all? Just LET ME REST!'. <br />
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But then as several people have pointed out..... he's not got a 'disorder' love, it's just that YOU'RE his mother. Whether he does or not he's who he is and he is also frikkin awesome (at this point I'll leave aside the bit where I said to my mum 'Jesus - for the way this whole child raising shebang is going I may as well have kept on drinking and taken up Crack for the way these two have turned out). <br />
<br />
And Amen to that.<br />
<br />
And all the people who don't fit the box.<br />
<br />
And to all the people who embrace the way of being we have inside our head as good enough. <br />
<br />
And to all the people that challenge society with regards to it's values of what is 'a good life' or what 'adds value'. <br />
<br />
The world would be a far poorer place without people who gain pleasure in staring at rows of pylons.<br />
<br />
If you don't believe me then you are missing out.<br />
<br />
Life would be freakin dull if they didn't exist. <br />
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<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-6678631512070412962012-12-20T11:09:00.000+00:002012-12-20T13:18:44.413+00:00Welcome Back to My LifeWhich is as normal as ever. (Laughs bitterly but wouldn't have it any other way. Probably).<br />
<br />
Sorry I've been gone so long - I'm fine, I've just had loads and loads on, been very exhausted, had to have the MMR vaccine which, joy of joys, made my arm swell up like I'd been bitten by a venomous snake and made me feel awful. The kind of awful where you have to sleep on the sofa because if you roll over in bed and the duvet touches your arm, you cry..... Needless to say I wasn't allowed the next instalment, with medical opinion being it would probably result in my arm dropping off (maybe), so that particular whole exercise of pain was somewhat pointless. And... well and I've just felt quite odd. I don't mean like depressed or anything - far from it (I say as someone with an all too up close and personal relationship with depression) but just kind of 'weird'. Like even more in a parallel universe that normal. Like my life was/is so kind of surreal I couldn't find the energy to talk about it. As someone who normally loves to share it this was quite odd and not very welcome.<br />
<br />
But last night, again, my kids had me roaring with laughter and shaking my head at the same time and I thought 'get back in the ring girl, you gotta share this insanity!'. <br />
<br />
So here is the last 17 or so hours in my life for your digestion:<br />
<br />
So yesterday I broke up for Christmas (well I didn't really but today I've made the 'informed decision' not to attend what I'm supposed to attend today). I'd been struggling with a migraine all day and was kindly dealt some prescription strength codeine by a fellow sufferer. <br />
<br />
If I felt other worldly and somewhat messed up before I took the codeine....Well afterwards I was flying. My eyes were kind of half shut and I kept forgetting what I saying half way through words. <br />
<br />
And it was in this state I rocked up to collect my little darlings.<br />
<br />
As we emerged from the school gates, me clutching a Darth Vader lunch box and screeching 'carry your own coat if you're not gonna wear it' I noticed that, bad timing or what, a funeral was taking place in the church right next door. They were in fact, right at that moment, unloading the coffin.<br />
<br />
Right on cue, eldest child (the train nut Aspergers one) stops and announces...<br />
<br />
<br />
'Oh wow LOOK - one of those extraordinary vehicles they use to carry those special wardrobes they put dead people in'. <br />
<br />
GROUND. SWALLOW ME NOW (and what's with the wardrobe analogy son??).<br />
<br />
'It's called a hearse, a hearse, now COME ON' (dragging his curious brain away from scene of mourning).<br />
<br />
Youngest child (lunatic, doesn't have Aspergers, does have obsession with dead things/death etc etc) pipes up...<br />
<br />
'WHAT!? <span style="font-size: large;">WHAT!? </span>There is a REAL LIFE DEAD PERSON in there!? For like actual real life!? <span style="font-size: large;">DEAD!!?'</span>. <br />
<br />
Me: MOVE, NOW (drag children down street in an un-gentle manner). <br />
<br />
Get home. Answer a lot of questions about death and wardrobes. Go to my friend's house for 'Sausage Wednesday' (this is what happens when it's Wednesday and we all have sausages). Eat enough almond thins to kill a man. She burns chips and desiccates sausages. We laugh. Children describe food as gross (well my eldest describes it as 'somewhat over-done') and sate their nutritional needs with icecream and Haribo (well it's nearly Christmas - apparently). <br />
<br />
Get home from friend's house. On journey purchase a scratch card (I don't know why - blame the codeine giving me a feeling of being intensely blessed) and win £5. Spend £4 of this on a 4 pack of Stella. <br />
<br />
Truly believe I AM intensely blessed.<br />
<br />
Get home and decide that as it's the end of term (for me) and I've feeling jolly to crack open the Stella. <br />
<br />
Find out that if codeine messes you up, codeine and Stella is a whole new planetary plane. <br />
<br />
Have row with eldest about TV viewing. I do not want to spend my evening watching 'The Great Trains of Europe' or indeed a documentary about the history of lawnmower development. <br />
<br />
Youngest child announces I have to take chocolate cakes to school tomorrow for their party day, as my name is on a list somewhere, but whatever I do I mustn't put nuts in them or 'somebody will die' (this is ever since my kids joined the school after everyone else and the school forgot to inform me they have a serious nut allergy problem..... I sent the younger one in with peanut butter sandwiches causing a mass panic and exclusion zone situation. What can I say - you live and learn). <br />
<br />
I get kids to bed (somehow) and end up making (non-nutty) Rocky Road whilst dancing round the kitchen to old-skool Prodigy wearing fluffy boots and flying on a codeine-Stella Christmas trip.<br />
<br />
The cakes turn out surprisingly well. <br />
<br />
Decide to take today off to recover from migraine (and, erm, Stella) as it will do me the power of good....<br />
<br />
Wake up to find....<br />
<br />
1. 5 year old asleep next to me having somehow entered my domain and stolen an entire King-size duvet<br />
<br />
2. A 3 foot stuffed Iggle Piggle staring into my eyes. If you've never experienced this - it will shit you right up.<br />
<br />
3. A cat ON MY ARSE kneading it as if it's its furry cat mother's milky bosom (this says rather too much about the pillow like qualities of my arse, although I can assure you it is NOT furry).<br />
<br />
4. A naked 8 year old, sat cross legged next to the bed, holding my charging i-phone and muttering sweet nothings to You Tube videos of freight trains leaving Crewe. <br />
<br />
5. The crumbs of some Rocky Road all over the pillow. <br />
<br />
Immediately regret deciding to take day off. <br />
<br />
Somehow get everyone downstairs and whilst making lunch boxes, cutting up cake, putting on make up la la la etc etc etc, eldest child decides to build a frickin German Autobahn the ENTIRE WAY through the ground floor of my house. <br />
<br />
This will be the house I need to drag a Christmas tree through as some point and, err, live in.<br />
<br />
He solemnly declares that the road system absolutely 100% MUST still be there on Christmas Eve for Father Christmas to see.<br />
<br />
I can assure 100% that is won't be but, for today, it lives.<br />
<br />
You think I exaggerate?<br />
<br />
Here it is sweeping across the lounge floor (see that bay window - that's where the sodding tree needs to be erected)....<br />
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And into the dining room (excuse the woodworm)......</div>
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And into the kitchen......<br />
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It then enters the bathroom but I don't think you need to see any more (or my dirty smalls all over the floor) to know what it looks like. </div>
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These three pictures do quite a good job of summarising the dichotomy of my life. The kind of chaos that comes from obsessive order. Sigh. </div>
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I then have to get the buggers out the house, during which youngest child drags his goddam coat, THROUGH the autobahn. The obsessively ordered autobahn. <br />
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ARGGGGHHHH.<br />
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Eldest child can not physically leave house until it's all put back exactly as it was. <br />
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Youngest child can not physically leave house because he's been slam dunked into the shoe cupboard with a roar of primal 'you've just fucked up my motorway' rage.<br />
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I'm just standing outside trying not to beat my head off the wheelie bin by this point, shouting 'MOVE, JUST MOVE OUT OF THE FRONT DOOR, NOW, OR I WILL RUN AWAY AND LEAVE YOU ALL' (well not the last bit - don't want the neighbours to get false hope....). <br />
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Get to school wild eyed and wishing I was sat in rush hour traffic somewhere near Bristol.<br />
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Eldest child remembers it's Talent Show Day (I'm informed that in honour of Jesus's birth a number of children will be performing 'Gangman Style').<br />
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The one thing he hates more than choirs and church is talent shows. Even though he will not even be watching the darn thing (he will be sat reading a book about trains I imagine) it sends him into a frenzied fit of anxiety. I think the very thought of organised 'fun' is enough to finish him off.<br />
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I walk back from the school making a promise to buy all those who work with my children a bottle of wine for Christmas and to get back to blogging......<br />
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AND BREATHE ;-)<br />
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<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-80374633269898531212012-11-01T21:27:00.001+00:002012-11-01T21:27:14.726+00:00What 30-Something Women Do in BedYay - first blog post from SHINY NEW FULLY WORKING LAP TOP (from which children are banned and thus it will never be graced by endless You Tube videos of freight diesels leaving Crewe Junction or be forced to simulate a Welsh Mountain Railway climbing from a perilous valley - and for that I am sure it will be eternally grateful). <br />
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Now that I have a lap top which doesn't take most of the morning to fire up and keys which don't crunch on crisp crumbs and small fragments of custard creams, I shall be with you more frequently. Promise.<br />
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Anyway - I need to confess something.<br />
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I need to talk to you about what I do in bed when I've had one to many drinks and have no company. <br />
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Ok here goes.<br />
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I end up on Ebay and bid on <strike>random crap</strike> essential bargains.<br />
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This habit started during a very lonely bored period quite some time ago and the realisation that with the Ebay app on a smartphone you were only 3 CLICKS AWAY from mountains of 99p tops which would <strike>smell of someone else's life and not fit</strike> arrive in the post like a gift from someone that loved you and add cheer to your day. <br />
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You can imagine my surprise when I confessed this to a close friend, who we shall call Emma (because it's her name) and found out SHE DOES EXACTLY THE SAME THING. We'd probably been bidding on the same slightly mishapen stripy jumper from New Look, hearts racing as we topped the £2.40 mark. <br />
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I felt reassured that others shared my secret shame - I used her behaviour to normalise my addiction.<br />
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We became co-dependants. <br />
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Sucking each other down into 99p used clothing hell.<br />
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And then, when dark night I went to far and everything changed for ever.<br />
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It was Christmas and I got extremely drunk and woke up to an Ebay alert informing me that I had been 'Outbid on the Leopard Print Velour Suit'.<br />
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The WHAT!?<br />
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WHHHHAAATTTTT!!?<br />
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I don't know what surprised me more - that I'd bid on it or that someone else had.<br />
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Imagine if I hadn't have been. <br />
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Imagine if I had just torn open a parcel one day to find myself face to face with Jonathan Ross channelling Patsy Stone crossed with velour roadkill. <br />
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It could have done permanent damage. <br />
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Anyway since 'Velour-Ville' things have calmed down and I broke the habit (you know, went so close to the Ebay edge and pulled back before things spiralled into something Peter Stringfellow might wear). <br />
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When I went to see Emma recently I asked her how habit was these days. Under control?<br />
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Errr no she said, through a glaze of pure shame. And then she pointed at her kitchen worktop.<br />
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There, on the kitchen worktop amongst the normal paraphernalia of a life raising 4 small boys (i.e tonnes of crap) was a large stack of silver foil catering containers. You know - like the ones your Pork Balls come from the Chinese in.<br />
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'Huh?' I said, thinking I'd missed something.<br />
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I hadn't. <br />
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In her 'wisdom' Emma had bid on and 'won' a large amount of silver foil takeaway containers on Ebay. <br />
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Why?<br />
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Your guess is as good as mine which as good as hers. <br />
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WE HAVE NO FREAKIN IDEA.<br />
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I suggested she open a 'One Night Only' takeaway before rolling around laughing and being quite mean about her container collection for the next week. <br />
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But my gloating smug laughter was misplaced. <br />
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Oh yes sireee. <br />
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Less than a week later I received the following email:<br />
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'Your 2013 Scottish Deerhound Calendar has been dispatched'.<br />
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What?! WHAT!!!?<br />
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And, lo, so it came. A large photographic calendar of very big dogs standing around in desolate Highland landscapes and, during some months, accompanied by big hairy men in kilts and maybe a large weapon or two. <br />
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And I will have to gaze at it for an entire year.<br />
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A constant reminder of my impulsive, spontaneous <strike>proper batshit crazy</strike> moments in the bedroom.<br />
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Sometimes I even scare myself. Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-78081986536742360442012-09-24T11:42:00.003+01:002012-09-24T11:43:50.200+01:00LET'S GET COOKING!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well it's Monday morning and it's pouring with rain and I am supposed to be doing housework as I have a day off (for this read 'I am planning to carry the laundry upstairs and then get the Hoover out and inevitably suck up about 400 Lego men's head)....therefore I am blogging. </div>
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It occurred to me earlier that we haven't talked about cake for a while. The Great British Bake Off is back on BBC2 and currently provides me with my highlight of the working week when it comes to evening entertainment. I'm saying nothing about the fact I get over-excited about whether or not someones creme brulee resembles a pool of snot other than 'oh my god I'm turning into my Mother'. </div>
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Some of you long time followers may recall my adventures in baking Iggle Piggle - which bizarrely ended up on the first page of Google if you searched for 'how to make an Iggle Piggle cake even though it emphatically told you how NOT to make one. Go figure. If you need to explore this adventure in food dye, icing that resembled a placenta and Lambrini it's here: <a href="http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/how-not-to-make-iggle-piggle-birthday.html">http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/how-not-to-make-iggle-piggle-birthday.html</a></div>
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Anyway several birthday's have passed since then and thus several cakes. </div>
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Last year I made the younger child a cat cake - this became known as the Psychotic Pussy. I don't have a picture (I can't think why) but I seem to remember him crying when he saw it and people looking awkward. The cat looked angry. VERY angry. And it was covered in silver balls and jelly tots. My ex was still living in the house at this point and I think the cake, in retrospect, may have kind of channelled my inner feelings. And no doubt I decorated it after drinking 4 cans of Stella. This was the same birthday that I realised late the night before I had no wrapping paper and had to wrap his presents in wallpaper samples. First and last jigsaw puzzle he'll ever get wrapped in Laura Ashley's 'Kimono Duck Egg'. </div>
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This year his dad made him a Russian tank. It was far less alarming.</div>
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For the older child last year I had the idea of baking a volcano. As you do. If you want to make a volcano cake here are your instructions:</div>
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1. Get a jug (kind of dome shaped) and cook a sponge cake in it. By a jug I mean a Pyrex type one. If you use a plastic one you will end up with a smell akin to the one I once experienced when a friend's younger brother put a Lego mat under the lit grill pan......</div>
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2. When the cake is cooked take it out the oven (always helps) and cut out a cone from the middle. This is to make the bit the lava rises up through and spills out of. The 'vent'. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-djRQN73H8aU/UGAt3bOPPFI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/l2Airdnft4U/s1600/volcano1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-djRQN73H8aU/UGAt3bOPPFI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/l2Airdnft4U/s400/volcano1.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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You will note from this photo that the part removed from the cake has an unfortunate resemblance to a sponge penis. But this is the shape you are looking for. You can do as you wish with it - it isn't needed for a grander plan. I ate it. </div>
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3. Decorate the cake so it resembles <strike>a huge pile of dog vomit after a dog ate some ball bearings and mustard and bled internally</strike> an erupting volcano (and yes that IS icing, it is NOT ketchup and mustard).</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bIwWmcd88Ns/UGAw1lcWCLI/AAAAAAAAAOk/OXBTXh2Ox8E/s1600/volcano2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bIwWmcd88Ns/UGAw1lcWCLI/AAAAAAAAAOk/OXBTXh2Ox8E/s400/volcano2.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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4. Realise that unless you do something bloody quick nobody is going to have a clue what the bloody thing is <strike>other than a tragedy in carbohydrate form</strike></div>
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5. Stick a plastic Jurassic looking tree and a surprisingly camp dinosaur (tragically out of scale) on it and VOILA - A VOLCANO CAKE!! Or dinosaur standing over a fresh kill...</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uT63gT7XnEM/UGAw3TWpQ2I/AAAAAAAAAOs/3ijHwvmpMxY/s1600/volcano3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uT63gT7XnEM/UGAw3TWpQ2I/AAAAAAAAAOs/3ijHwvmpMxY/s400/volcano3.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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This year, not to wanting to turn away from a seemingly winning formula, I cooked another cake in a jug and made this......</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e0vRLR2Mkxk/UGAw7V1FFoI/AAAAAAAAAO0/Ko9BTOrxNrc/s1600/tornado.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e0vRLR2Mkxk/UGAw7V1FFoI/AAAAAAAAAO0/Ko9BTOrxNrc/s640/tornado.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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What do you mean you don't know what it is!?!</div>
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It's a tornado.</div>
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Obviously.</div>
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There were originally more chocolate fingers 'whirling' round it to symbolise the winds but some, erm, went missing. Down my throat.</div>
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By the time I served it there was 4 left. </div>
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The only warning I'll give you on this recipe is that if you stick small things in the cake to resemble storm damage be careful of accidentally swallowing something like a Playmobil guinea pig. Nobody wants that coming out in their poo. Least of all Mary Berry.</div>
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<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-87287016600709415832012-09-14T10:52:00.000+01:002012-09-14T10:57:14.896+01:00Back to Reality <div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm baaaaack.</div>
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Sorry - as usual never a dull moment. </div>
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I had a lovely holiday with both kids - it can be summed up by hot, funny, amazing food and drink which means I can't do my bra up properly....(presumably due to weight gain rather than smuggling large amounts of pastries home down my cleavage), kids acquired an inflatable boat and spent large tracts of time 'taking the bridge', met someone from the Internet in ACTUAL REAL LIFE WHO READS THIS BLOG (woah!!) and was staying in same hotel, may have ended up drunk on stage lying down and showing my knickers to a 50 year old man from Guildford (sadly they were the neon pink Anne Summers ones), small child enjoyed fresh tuna and olives, bigger child enjoyed, erm, chips and icecream, one child got heatstroke and I had to borrow a buggy from reception so we could still go the harbour and <strike>drink cider </strike>sight see - sadly the buggy was pink. Well that was a debate I'm surprised hasn't made it onto the Trip Advisor reviews (as in 'holiday ruined by screaming child in lobby being forced into pink buggy by aggressive rough looking woman who we'd earlier seen on stage showing her vile knickers)......but I got him in it (by telling him all children in Spain have pink buggies). Anyway all went well apart from: </div>
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- getting locked on my own balcony whilst both kids were in the swimming pool. I'd only nipped up there to get a towel (which stank of piss anyway as one of the children wet the bed and kindly got up and padded it all out with our beach towels.....). I know I know - I think too much Rose at lunch affected my judgement. This lead to me hanging off the balcony in my bikini shouting at my eldest 'DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE RECEPTION IS? NO? ITS THE PLACE WITH A DESK AND A LADY. YOU NEED TO GO THERE AND TELL THEM YOUR MUMMY IS STUCK IN ON HER BALCONY. DO YOU KNOW OUR ROOM NUMBER BECAUSE I DON'T? OH GOOD WELL DONE (thank god for amazing visual memory). AND TAKE YOUR BROTHER AS HE CAN'T ACTUALLY SWIM'. </div>
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- the 9 hour flight delay on the way home. With no money left. I have never been so relieved to get on a plane and see a steward who would accept credit cards. 'What would you like madam?'.....'well first things first 2 cans of Magners'....(he laughed knowingly). Youngest child promptly knocked can of Magners over himself....so he was stinking of cider with matted accidentally dreadlocked hair and as soon as the seatbelt signs were off standing on the seat shouting at the kid behind 'you are ACTUALLY a nutter'. To be fair he had a darn good point. At one point this child had been threatening to punch his mother because she wouldn't buy him a KitKat. She looked at me with pleading eyes and said 'I don't know how you do this on your own'. I smiled whilst thinking 'well maybe because my kids don't threaten to punch me over shit confectionary' but she looked somewhere past breaking point so I left my thoughts unsaid. </div>
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This wonderful journey peaked when I got to Luton (as it naturally would). Eldest child began to cry (as you would if it was midnight and you felt sick and found yourself in Luton) and promptly collapsed on the floor in the arrivals bit and fell asleep on a rucksack whilst clutching a stuffed guinea pig (as in a soft toy - not an actual product of taxidermy). Of course at this point younger child began hopping from one foot to the other shouting 'I need a wee, it's coming now'. Now I'm pretty chilled but even I baulk at leaving a small sleeping sickly child alone in the middle of the floor while I go to a toilet in a completely different part of the building. I stood there thinking 'help' when a graceful lady swept upon me and said 'I have been watching you....'. Oh great I thought....but she guarded the guinea pig clutcher whilst I took the other one to the toilet. Thank you - whoever you are - thank you. </div>
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Some time later my friend turned up and I went to try and find the bags. Of course at this point eldest woke up, sat up, and rained forth vomit across the guinea pig, bag and a large portion of the floor. </div>
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Is it wrong that my first thought was 'shit - whose going to tow the other suitcase now?'. </div>
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When we got to the taxi youngest child refused to get in due to the booster seat being pink... at this point I 'may' have screamed 'do you want me to pull down your pants right here right now and spank your butt IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE? NO. Well GET IN THE CAR THEN' (I don't smack him - I just reached the point of being 'that' mother people glance at then go home and write outraged Internet threads about). And he got in the car and fell asleep within 3 minutes. </div>
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So now I'm back and it did me the power of good getting away and the very next day my children started a new school which touchwood is so far FANTASTIC and they embrace my lovely, interesting, mind blowing older son as an individual who has different learning needs to the majority and does not have (quote old teacher) 'an attitude problem' which 'makes life very hard for himself'. </div>
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He's only been there 2 weeks and already the difference in him is amazing. He's even broken his lifelong 'huge routine to say goodbye that if it's broken results in total panic and inability to do anything all day'. Walks in with his amazing Support Worker smiling and laughing!! MIRACLES DO HAPPEN PEOPLE! If you kick enough arse and befriend other arse kickers...... Don't get me wrong a lot of shit still happens but we need to celebrate the victories. </div>
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So new start, new school and on Monday I start a new career...... wish me luck people....it's gonna be a hell of a ride. </div>
Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-58328845242717073822012-08-01T17:22:00.003+01:002012-08-01T17:22:59.628+01:00My Head Hurts<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Woo - blogging fail. Managed to get through the whole of July without posting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sorry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Will do better. Promise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not a case of nothing happening - it's a case of too much happening. I wrote it all down for someone the other day and nearly blew their mind. So I'll give you it bit by bit. The words 'you couldn't make it up' tend to some up my daily existence. But anyway I am back and it hit me today that it's: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">a. August </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">b. I only have a matter of days left until I hit my mid-thirties. Gulp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Obviously as soon as I hit my 'mid-thirties' I will magically transform into a mature and sensible adult woman who doesn't forget she's stored the cat food in the oven and accidentally ignite it (true story - don't ever do it. The smell is something nobody living in a world with refrigerators and far far removed from apocalyptic genocide should ever have to suffer). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I will also be able to source matching bed linen and keep socks together. And remember to send people birthday cards. And not have a car interior that resembles the bottom of a budgerigar's cage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But don't hold your breath or anything. Just in case you know, it takes another year or something to properly grow up....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, so it's August which mean school's out for the summer. It also means I'm mainly home with my kids because I walked out one of my jobs (the very dull one involving 2000 pieces of paper a day) in order to spend 'quality time' with them before I go off on my new venture in September. Conveniently enough for them I also acquired some kind of throat problem which limits my shouting abilities. Which is probably how I ended up in bed with a migraine for the last two days.... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yesterday was the pinnacle of the pain so I lay in a darkened room going in and out of sleep while they came and went informing me of gem like facts such as... 'I've done a giant poo' or 'my brother keeps looking at me'. I was highly grateful for this information. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">No really. I was. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not sure what they did all day other than fight over whether to watch Kung Fu Panda or 'Freight Trains Around Crewe' (a real DVD - one of many supplied by Dave's Railway Films <a href="http://railwayfilms.co.uk/">http://railwayfilms.co.uk/</a> - I note his top seller is "A cab ride from Hull to Leeds". Get it while you still can.....) and recreate Narnia using rice crispies but full credit to them for not drawing blood or setting fire to anything. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway after making them suffer the kind of school holiday Monday I remember (being shut in a living room for long periods of time watching strange daytime TV which always seemed to include Saved by the Bell and something involving Jacque Cousteau's underwater world - with maybe a touch of Colombo post lunch) I promised that today I would take them out. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am frankly in no fit condition to even face daylight - let alone drive a car - so the only activity I could consider needed to involve being seated and being in the dark - so that meant the cinema. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So this morning I managed to get dressed and get them in the car. For reasons only known to me (and actually not even known to me) I decided to forgo my standard flip flops and put on a really high pair of heels. I can't fathom why? Maybe because I looked so shocking I thought raising myself up to the height of Lily Savage and staggering slightly would stop people clutching their children to their chests as I approached. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, somehow we got to the Odeon and found ourselves waiting in the foyer with several dozen other families. Only they all looked kind of 'subdued' - my children NEVER look subdued. Particularly in large open spaces. They rolled up and down the disabled ramp and ran around shrieking whilst I slumped against a pillar with bed hair and stupid shoes on pretending they weren't mine. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then the small one stopped and proclaimed, loudly, 'When I grow up I'm going to find David Cameron and kill him'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh god. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now I need to put this into context. He's not actually plotting an assassination and I don't want to find the police at my door arresting me for 'hate blogging' or whatever. It's like this... There's a place near here that they used to like to go and play and it's been shut and they are building houses, more bloody houses, all over it. Houses that will be 4 bed executive homes - so not actually do anything for the people that are trying to bring up families in tiny little flats or still having to live with their mums until they are 48 even though they work hard etc etc. Anyway the kids were pretty peed off about this and asked why it was allowed to happen so we had this big conversation about councils and back handers and how the economy works and growth and all that kind of stuff and I said the government likes to keep houses being built as it provides jobs yadda yadda yadda and he asked who is in charge of the government. So I said David Cameron. And now he wants to kill him. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Simple. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He's 4. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He might grow out of it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He might not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Up the revolution. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I digress. Anyway I told him not to say that (quite so loudly) and gave him a ball of blu-tac that was in my pocket. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He promptly stuck it on his forehead and proclaimed 'I AM IN AN INDIAN LADY'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I confiscated the blu-tac and turned his attention back to over-throwing the government. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then we went to watch the film - which for the record was The Lorax. Which there is no point in me reviewing because: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">a) I have a severe aversion to Dr Seuss and all that sail with him. Ever since I was a small child The Cat in the Hat et al have given me 'The Fear'. This is no doubt a vastly unpopular school of thought but there we go. I remember hiding Green Eggs and Ham at nursery school in an attempt to remove it from my psyche. I preferred those stories about a dirty dog called Harry who did stuff like dug holes. He was the real deal. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">b) I have an even more severe aversion to musicals (with the exception of West Side Story - which is dramatic and involves passion, drama and people getting stabbed). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This turned out to be a Dr Seuss musical. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But anyway I got to sit in the dark for two hours - it was shame to have to pay £18 to sit in the dark for two hours (EIGHTEEN QUID!!) and cringe but there you go. At least nobody is trying to build a housing estate on me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And then I suffered the ironic torture of having to take both kids to Sainsbury's in order to purchase more migraine medication from the pharmacy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I queued at the counter one child hung to the underside of the trolley emitting a high pitched beeping noise and the other swooped a large pack of Canesten Combi Thrush Treatment from the end-of-aisle discount display (that's right ladies! Suffering the joy of a summer time vaginal yeast explosion? Well you can pay slightly less for the joy of having soggy chalk in your knickers for the next few days if you get down to Sainsbury's!) and shouted to anyone who would listen 'LOOK THIS IS SECURITY PROTECTED! SO DON'T STEAL IT'. He's very into security protection at the moment. Sadly. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The pharmacist handed me the brain-pain pills and chuckled 'and I wonder why you need these?'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I stared back with glassy eyes filled with echoing depths of agony. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another lady came over and said 'this is the hardest job in the world and nobody ever says well done - now YOU BOYS GET OFF THE FLOOR AND LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR MUM SAYS'. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And that's not a migraine hallucination, she really did exist and she really did say that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jeez. I really must look like shit......</span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-2336333376654667372012-06-27T16:09:00.000+01:002012-06-27T16:12:42.375+01:00We're All Going on a Summer Holiday<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hello People. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cripes - what started as a debrief about my daily random life, for the entertainment of my local friends, has now had over 80,000 hits. God. All those people knowing about the time I weed in the turn-ups of my jeans and my chemically burnt public hair. Gulp. But thank you - all of you. I love that my life doesn't just make me laugh. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway best I get on with the blogging show. I've been somewhat absent recently for two reasons....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">1. Firstly I had to calm down a bit. All is fine but I found myself having to restrain myself from strangling a woman in Halfords and had to go to the doctor before I ended up in local paper for assaulting someone with cheesestring in Asda. More of this in another blog post. But I'm fine. HONESTLY. Better than fine. It's just you don't ride this rollercoaster life without, eventually, needing to rest up and walk on mental crutches for a while. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">2. Secondly I am drowning, yes DROWNING, in paperwork. Every hour I'm not at work I seem to be filling in forms. I have more forms on my table than I've had hot dinners. Granted I seem to live off slices of ham, pickled eggs and Hula Hoops but you get the idea... One of these forms is FORTY TWO PAGES LONG. It's the MacDaddy of forms. Every time I start it I have to open a box of chocolates or a bottle of Strongbow. And then I have to go to bed before I finish it. Maybe I'll tell you all about it one day. Long story. It's not a happy form.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But anyway two of these forms were applications for my children's first ever passports. Yes folks - MY CHILDREN ARE GOING TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY. With me of course. This means that, for the first time since my honeymoon, which was something like 9 years ago, I am going on a foreign holiday. Woo hoo!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm going with a friend I met in a psychiatric hospital. Seriously. She's awesome. She was in there with her twins the same time I was and we bonded over a million tears shed over not being allowed anymore little blue pills (Lorazepam not Viagra), dusty stacks of out of date copies of Heat magazine and the fact we weren't allowed hair straighteners less we tonged ourselves to death. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After my marriage breakdown she booked a holiday (not sure how that works!?) and told me to come with her. So I said yes. I haven't paid for this yet and at this rate probably will sometimes around retirement age but you know what, sod it. It's time to take my children on that big old bird in the sky. I think the original plan of hers was that I'd also experience some kind of holiday romance but there was a rather obvious flaw (or two) in this plan. Not to mention we are going to a very much 'family' complex (I have a feeling we are going to alter the tone slightly - I didn't say lower - just alter). And anyway I don't need a holiday romance now because I'm too tired for any of that business. And yes, for those of you wondering, still happily rolling around with a long distance lorry driver. Never a dull moment......</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The thing is, when I tell people this (the bit about taking my kids abroad, not the pashing a lorry driver thing), they frequently seem to recoil with horror 'what? You are taking them ON YOUR OWN!?'. Well yes. I live with the buggers ON MY OWN don't I? How much harder can it be in a hotel environment where the (pre-paid) alcohol starts being served at 10am? DURRRR'. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> 'What?' they proclaim 'even the younger one!?'. Yup - he's coming too. 'But what about the flight!?' they say with bulging eyes. Err it's like 3 hours - I'll take huge amounts of sweets and tell him that if he makes too much noise the pilot will get distracted and the plane will fall out the sky leading to us all dying in blazing fireball.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Simple.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Like the time he threw a tantrum on an intercity train because he wanted to consume an entire multi-pack of crisps and I said no. 'Look mate' I said 'do you actually WANT to turn into a huge obese critter that could potentially explode? No? Well there we are then. That's why you can't have 6 bags of crisps. Here have a boiled egg'. Two business men stared in awe/horror at the little scene. One burst out laughing. The other shook his head (though that might just have been about the presence of a boiled egg in a confined space). I'd like to think the one laughing was the one who had children. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In reality it's actually the older one who will find it harder. Because, it struck me the other day, I'm taking him to an island with:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- no railways</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- no motorways</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- no impressive industrial zones</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I broke the news to him gently. His lip quivered. 'But but but!' I interjected with my big smiley happy face on 'it's ok BECAUSE the electrics will be different! Different plugs, different sockets, even the telegraph poles will be different!'.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He contemplated this news in silence for a few moments then smiled and nodded. And then asked a lot of questions about the electrics I couldn't actually answer. And then proclaimed how tragic it must be for the local not to have any motorways. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So there we have it. Most children will be looking forward to ice cream and swimming and sun and dancing in dodgy discos. He's looking forward to examining the plug sockets. Best I don't ever take him on a camping holiday without electrical points then.....Or anything wilderness focussed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">However to do all this I will need children's passport - and more on that farce tomorrow. </span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-10517487935513855562012-05-28T11:03:00.001+01:002012-05-28T11:10:49.143+01:00A River Runs Through It<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So, those of you residing in the UK, may have notice that the rain finally stopped and kind of overnight we went from 'thermal vest and potentially ear muffs' to 't-shirts and flip flops' weather. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For those, like me, originating from very northerly climes, this may have come upon you rather rapidly in terms of revealing flesh - the colour of which is naturally a couple of shades cooler than skimmed milk and you 'may' have been tempted to enlist the help of chemicals in order to stop yourself turning any onlookers snow blind. If so let this be a cautionary tale.... (though perhaps not quite as cautionary as the one where I burnt most of my muff and denuded a shag pile carpet with that dubious hair removing foam). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As a teenager the tone of my skin caused me immense grief. I remember temping in a factory where they christened me Snow White and wouldn't call me anything else. Friends would mercilessly taunt my near transparent nature. One fateful day I found a bottle of fake tan in the back of my mum's bathroom cabinet (the same bathroom cabinet that still holds 'miniature soaps and shower caps collected from the World's Holiday Inns, 1980 - 1994 inclusive'. It's like a shrine to the Glory Years of International Business Travel). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My heart pumped hard, surely this miracle product was my new holy grail? SAVED FROM FOREVER LOOKING LIKE I'D DIED A WEEK PREVIOUSLY! Baywatch here we come....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now what we need to bear in mind here is that this must have been one of the first ever fake tans. People complain now that they smell and look orange.... FOLKS! You ain't seen NOTHING. In a covert 'using things that don't belong to me' operation I covered my legs in it and q</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">uite rapidly smelt like a properly rotten egg and my legs developed intensely bright orange stripes - think the tone of Iron </span>Bru<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Busted. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was forced to spend a very hot period of my teenage summer in black woolly tights and pass it off as a flirtation with Goth-lite. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But, luckily, times have changed and there are now much better fake tans and for ultra-pale people those moisturisers with a HINT of fake tan. You know, to take the blinding reflective qualities of your skin down a notch. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And thus it was I purchased Superdrug's So Soft body lotion with a hint, note HINT, of self tanner. I slapped it all over and went to sleep...... By the morning? Well by the morning the Cuprinol Man Cometh. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is by FAR the most full on and orange fake tan I've experienced since stealing my mum's prototype job. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And a WEEK LATER - I still had huge dark orange patches. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hint? HINT? Hint of tanner my flaming arse. I would recommend this product to NOBODY. Unless Oompaloompa Orange really gets you off. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So by Thursday night I was getting really quite peed off about this situation, a week looking like you tried and failed to join the cast of TOWIE is not my desired look, and decided it was kill or cure so covered my whole body in what ever other fake tan products were lying around. The idea was I'd go to bed, and wake up probably looking like a sepia patchwork quilt but at least I'd done 'something'. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So products went on. I lay down naked and started drifting off to sleep.... I heard a wail. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hmmm. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Youngest child was muttering and sobbing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'Wee wee?' I asked, standing him over in a zombie-like naked pose (not wanting to chaff off the tan you see). No doubt such memories will come out in some kind of regressional therapy at a later date but, all the same, he sleepily nodded... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I picked him up, put his little arms around my neck, pressed his little body against mine, nuzzled his soft blonde hair and took a step forward.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The next thing I was aware of was a very hot very wet sensation....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And then brain engaged and I realised he was pissing. Like a horse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I set off at high speed but the whole way out of his room, down the corridor and into the bathroom it just kept on jettisoning out and a</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">s he was squashed against me, his willy was pointing directly skyward and wee was issuing forth in something of a torrent, right up to the height of my chin, and then running back down my body, down legs - frankly down everywhere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">By the time I had him positioned over the toilet I was literally dripping in piss. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I put him back to bed and surveyed the damage. There was a lot of damage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Smelling like a tramp is bad enough but of course the rivulets of urine meant great streaks of my body were now stripped of fake tan. I knew that I'd wake up looking the delta of the Nile in negative and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm sure some people would have now taken a full shower and painstakingly re-applied the fake tan but frankly once you get past midnight life is far too short for such concerns. So I towelled the worst of the wee off and fell asleep. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There are worse things in life than visually representing a great river basin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the morning I did take a shower (I'm not 'that' bad) but whilst drying my face and towelling my hair I noted the towel smelt particularly fusty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Great. You've guessed it. It was the wee towel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I got to look like I was suffering a rare skin disease AND smell slightly of urine. Wow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So the moral of my tale is - if you are vain enough to care what tone your skin is, be sensible enough to put clothes on before entering into any situation which could involve getting pissed on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Got it? </span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-42596566027550158922012-05-19T19:46:00.003+01:002012-05-19T19:46:35.102+01:00Strange Love<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sorry slacking again.....but all is good so let's get on with it. </div>
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We haven't talked about <a href="http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/badger-tossing.html">Badger Girl</a> for a while so lets. For once lets not talk about me. Badger Girl is alive and well but no longer selling kinky ladybird outfits or asking me to sell glo-sticks dressed in a tutu and thong. No. Although she is currently trying to claim she had a surfeit of dead/dying badgers inhabiting her property. Seriously. </div>
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She's now, mainly, teaching young people to handle stallions (or something). She's back in the arena with a whip and her boots on and her hair extensions under a riding hat and, it appears, for this new job she requires a character reference.....</div>
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So who she's gonna ask? </div>
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Me. </div>
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Well the first thing that shocked me, other than the fact she asked ME, was that, when I sat down and figured it out she's been part of my life for 22 years. TWENTY TWO. Gulp. That makes me feel like I should actually be a grown up. </div>
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And then? Well the temptation was to run free and tell the whole story but you know, not many future employers are ready to hear that, so I just told them the bits that make her a fab employee. The fact she's the most hardworking person I ever met. The fact she's got a great sense of humour, she's trustworthy, she never judges people, she can get on with anyone and she's honest. Hell I trusted her to mind my children when I went to funeral. I think she took them out in the dark to help her catch dangerous unbroken ponies before feeding them sweets and putting on Scooby Doo - but hell the kids loved it and are used to being cared for by my mother (latest update: 'Mummy - grandma has been teaching us about doing scratchcards!'..... oh hell how far have we fallen now?!) so it was a step up. But you know, there is an unwritten character reference itching to get out....so here it is..... Badger Girl this one's for you.....may we still be calling havoc in the Sunset Retirement Home....</div>
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"To Whom it May Concern, </div>
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I have known Badger Girl for 22 years. Yes TWENTY TWO YEARS. I must need help because looking back our relationship has looked something like this.... </div>
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It started innocently enough on the back of some ponies but it wasn't long before she'd got me carrying her cigarettes so her mum wouldn't catch her, put me in a shopping trolley at the carnival and let it go down a rather steep hill. In front of the police. I should have known to get out of the relationship right then but something made me stay (fear?). </div>
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This was a mistake because not long after she informed me she had a box of hair dye and needed to use it. On me. I was adamant this was a NO but somehow she bullied me into 'just 10 minutes'. Several hours later my sobs of protest (and her cackling witch-like laughter) brought her mother to the table and she was ordered to stop before my entire scalp getting burnt off and wash it out. Which she did. With milk. She lived on a dairy farm. There was plenty of milk around. Warm milk. </div>
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On our relationship went. Memorable moments include her putting me on a trailer and revving a quad bike up so I resembled a swamp creature and throwing me onto the back of an (unsaddled) horse so I flew straight off the other side and landed arse first on a breeze block. Oh how her laughter still rattles through my brain. </div>
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Then, for some reason, I asked her to be my one and only bridesmaid. This meant she organised my hen do. Her first move was to take me, her, my mum and her mum to a comedy club. The first joke was about epileptics giving blow jobs. My mum worked her entire live with the disabled. Unfazed by oral sex she was rather cross that people were making jokes at the expense of those with serious health problems. </div>
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Gulp. </div>
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Or maybe she'd rather not swallow. </div>
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Several hours of 'oh my god my MUM can't sit next to me hearing this' later we escaped and the next day she took me raft building on Exmoor. In November. The water temperate was so cold we weren't allowed to build rafts as if we fell in it would kill us. Potentially. So they put us in canoes instead with inflatable crocodiles. Go figure. We got very wet and nearly died. Then we raced quad bikes. Then we went to a very bad nightclub in Exeter where I got mistaken for a Transvestite and asked to leave the ladies toilets. We then got in a taxi and the driver asked if I was on my stag do. Nope - you really couldn't make it up. </div>
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She's stuck with me through all my dramas. I can be sat there saying 'oh my god, I don't know how to go on, I mean you know, it's all too much....' and she'll say 'shift it Stickhead, I need you to tell me if this badger is dead or not'. </div>
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And if fact it was her that christened me Stickhead. A name so well known down here I once had a cheque written to 'Stickhead'. I couldn't cash it. Sadly. </div>
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She collects ponies like shoes and she has a million kittens that get born in her sock draw and piss all over her floors. She's the only person that can keep up with my tea intake. She's not been seen without copious fake tan on since about 1999. Like me she will die with mascara on. She's recently tried to give up smoking. When I asked her how long she'd lasted after her counselling session she looked chuffed and told me '4 hours. But then it got stressful. And anyway, I was in the vets the other day and there was a Labrador in there which had eaten 24 packs of Nicorette gum and was REALLY ill. Which just proves all that stuff is bad for you.....'. </div>
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She's the only person who has nearly got me killed in a mosh pit. In a poncho. She's scared of nothing yet she's terrified of stiff badgers. I had to teach her how to text and even now it's easier to write her a letter. </div>
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There are some people who never have a friend like Badger Girl and you know what, despite the bruises, the ruined hair, the laughter at my expense, the fact she nearly killed me several times, the fact she's the only living person still drinking Snowballs and has a corner bath which used to hold ducklings - before Rod the Emu came to live with her (don't ask what happened to Rod - DON'T), the fact there is an actual real 'beast' (like a panther or something) living on her farm and she once paid me to spend a night painting the torsos of teenage boys with luminous body paint - I bloody love her. And if you're lucky enough to have her in your workforce just hang on and go with the ride.....</div>
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Yours - forever Stickhead" </div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-65084042053998155452012-04-25T22:03:00.002+01:002012-04-25T22:06:41.870+01:00It's been a long time coming but I know a change is gonna come...<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well I've been getting complaints. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Complaints that I'm not blogging often enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Although I'm also very flattered and love ya all. Well maybe not ALL of you - maybe not the man who formally complained about me talking about female urination or the guy who pumps his testicles up on the family work-top - but most of the rest of you - you rock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway, I am alive and kicking and back with you all and have a long series of posts lined up (in my head, got to commit them to cyber space yet) so I shall be coming on strong in the next month and keeping you (hopefully) semi-fulfilled. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The reasons for my absence are, for once, not disaster filled. Nope - for once my life is filled with a sense of Golden Wonder (as in hope - rather than deep fried potatoes) - and some VERY GOOD THINGS have happened. And they don't even involve cider. But they are things I can't really blog (much) about. Much as I am very open about ME on here, I am very guarded when it comes to other people. I also can't blog about professional stuff AND I can't blog about anything which I wouldn't be fine with my (one day grown up-ish) children reading. They never gave informed consent for me writing this. Hell - they never gave informed consent to be my children.... but that's what they're stuck with. I don't mind them reading about me accidentally overdosing on dog hormone tablets or weeing in the turn up of my jeans or that they once stranded their Nana on her stair lift with a Lego booby trap or that cockerels can and do have homosexual leanings and naming them after religious icons doesn't send you straight to hell...... but, well something's <i>are </i>private. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last time I posted here my phone had just been stolen but with every loss comes a gain and the weird gain I got from a boyfriend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">At the time the phone was stolen I had to report it to the police for insurance reasons. I'm not sure what these reasons were as it wasn't insured but at least I got a crime reference number to stuff in a draw and forget about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Not long after that I had a phonecall from a man called Frank who said he was a policeman....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Frank: Could you describe yourself madam? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Me: (all eager) 5ft 10'', blonde, curvy.... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Frank: And what exactly were you wearing?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Me: Erm a short silk dress that just covered my.... (oh. Oh dear. Feeling slightly less eager). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Frank: OK well I'm going to watch all the CCTV footage of you that night and get back to you.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Me: Do you want a photo? (why am I saying this?) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Frank: Yes. I want a photo. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I sent Frank a photo and later on he turned up with his truncheon and handcuffs and the rest his history. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">No. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That is (thank god) not what happened. Frank was (I believe) a genuine copper (he had a pin number and all that) and having reviewed the CCTV footage he informed me that sadly they couldn't see the bit where my phone got stolen but at least I could relax as 'nothing he had witnessed me doing could actually be classed as a criminal act'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Phew. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So my dancing's not 'that' bad. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I didn't run off with Frank but somewhere around that time I did meet someone else. In the middle of a roundabout. He was on the roundabout. I was running across several lanes of traffic. And we did all the things you're not meant to do on a first date....drank pints, never shut up, broke into a municipal park....and since then it's been one long fairytale....well as long as your fairytales feature people as off the wall as you with a touch of the loon about them who laugh like drains, industrial parks, lorry depots, McDonald's, lay-bys, Wickes, Asda (twice!) and his mum's kitchen. Which, luckily, mine do. I wasn't looking for a relationship - it was the last thing on my list after putting the laundry away (for once), fixing the kitchen cupboard doors back on, emptying 300 coke cans out the car and doing my tax return but...well, as usual, 'other stuff happened'. And yes he knows about this blog and has consented to being mentioned and all that jazz. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And that, for the moment, is all I can say on that - but you know, whatever happens, whether it all goes bang tomorrow or it's from here to eternity, all good people deserve to feel like this and be this happy. Even if it's just for a little bit. And people like me who have spent years waking up happy and then one minute later thinking 'oh. Oh yeah, all that stuff in your life you'd managed to put in the file marked: must be a bad dream....it's actually TRUE! Oh, oh shit..... ', well people like me deserve to wake up happy and then, one minute later, think 'YEEEE HAAA' and feel even happier. Even if it's just a gap in the storm. To anyone still in the storm, or back in the storm or watching the storm roll in (or out) never give up. Never lose hope. Hope is what makes us human. The better bits of human. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway moving on from my love life, and before I get all deep on you, I've also had some massive huge big exciting news when it comes to my professional life. But (for now) for complicated reasons to do with the semi-public nature of my life via this blog, I can't say much else but, lets just say, I worked very hard at this and will now be rewarded by spending much more time than is normal in close proximity to female genitalia. And no, I'm not becoming a lesbian porn star. On top of getting to know my way round ladies bits, I'll have even less time than I do now, be even more pushed to the edge of my sanity, get very tired and probably cry quite a lot inbetween marvelling at stuff and laughing manically.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You all along for the ride? </span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-1803558722665773802012-03-25T21:29:00.002+01:002012-03-25T21:34:08.590+01:00Wiggle It Just a Little Bit<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well this blog post WAS going to be backed up with a photo of me semi-dressed but those of you hoping for flesh shots will be disappointed to hear that the phone the photo was on was stolen last night by some £*$&£ in a nightclub in Weston-Super-Mare. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This says a lot about nightclubs in Weston-Super-Mare but it also means that I am somewhat massively gutted today and have lost over a 1,000 photos, mainly of my children, that my laptop refused to back up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">However, lets not dwell on this matter and move on to the lighter topic of how I came to posses the photo in the first place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On Friday I went to Asda to buy bread, milk and cheese and, of course, came out about £80 poorer with 3 pointless nighties, a bottle of vodka and no bread. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Whilst browsing the clothing I spotted a really cute blue summer dress with white hearts on it and a pencil skirt. Quite retro. I think they call them wiggle dresses - but that makes me feel slightly unsettled for some reason so I will just call it 'the dress'. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I took the dress into the changing room and put it on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Or tried to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The top half slipped on easily but the bottom part was totally and utterly wedged on my hips. I checked the label concerned I'd picked up some kind of micro size. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Nope. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Right size. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">OK so that means I HAVE to get it on or my self-esteem for the day will be destroyed by the knowledge my thighs are 4 sizes bigger than my bust (which would be going some) and I am officially, in the eyes of Asda pattern cutters, a mutant. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">15 minutes of grunting, heaving, panting and yeah, wriggling, later the dress was on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yipee! Ok the skirt was so tight I couldn't move - let alone walk - but I had made the point that I was that size and the dress was actually really nice. Although for anyone to see this you'd need to be mounted on wheels and pushed about the place like a one of those toy dogs. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What I couldn't work out was why there was an extra flap of material hanging from the waist. A kind of loop with an open end which if you held it up you could see right down to my knickers. I figured it was some kind of wrap part that should be under the top part of the dress round the bust area but couldn't make it worked it out so shuffled, with 2mm footsteps, out to the changing room assistant......</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Me: Excuse me - you don't know where this part of this dress is meant to be do you? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Changing room assistant (woman in her 50's with a weatherworn expression clearly thinking 'What Fresh Nut is This?'): Yes love - it's for your other leg. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Bravo - I'd spent 15 minutes of my life inserting my entire body into the right hand leg of a playsuit. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And then I had to get the bugger off again.........</span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-56656176997501543482012-03-21T23:11:00.001+00:002012-03-21T23:31:18.726+00:00I Gotta Little Something For Ya.......<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ok Ok you need to know what happened to the ladybird. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well - after much deliberation it was decided (by the look of it's legs - allegedly) that it was the BAD ladybird. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The dreaded Harlequin (if, as is probable, you haven't got a chuffing clue what I'm on about Google Harlequin Ladybird and I'm sure all will be revealed - I'd do it and post you a pic but I'm 'that' tired I can't be arsed). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway so they were pretty sure it was the bad one (but bear in mind at this point they didn't realise there was a very incredibly rare 'breaking the laws of extinction' variant potentially out there) but they still couldn't kill it - even via the total immersion method. So what did they do? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They laid it's brightly coloured body on the bird table and 'left it in the hands of nature'. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Or beak of nature presumably. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And what happened then people? We will never know. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Gulp.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I, on the other hand, have been wondering at what age you become just like 'totally and utterly OVER' to your children. You know, at what point do they stop hanging off your thigh screeching 'but MUMMEEEE it was MY packet of Hula Hoops' and keep sticking their head up your skirt and start walking 20 steps behind you in town with their hood up and fringe over their eyes (a look I still specialise in on days I just don't want to be here). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The idea of this seems currently impossible to me. But, then again, once upon a time in the mists of early motherhood, it seemed to me impossible I'd be able to walk down a street without holding myself upright via a pram and guess what folks, it finally happened!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My neighbour's have a 13 year old son and I think I can safely say HE wouldn't walk down the street with me. In fact,when I go to the door to collect parcels he visibly quakes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This 'may' have something to do with the fact that every night at around 7pm he hears me scream 'IF YOU ARE NOT NAKED BY THE TIME I COUNT TO THREE THEN YOU WON'T GET ANY PYJAMA TIME' (anyone with small riotous children will empathise with just how hard it is to get them dressed for bed) but there have been several other occasions where I have caused him considerable fear. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just last week, as Spring crept ever closer and the hint of the sun's warmth edged across my face and a surge of wild ecstatic 'woo hoo' coursed through my veins, I went out to feed the guinea pigs - a carrot in each hand. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Standing by their hutch, carrots aloft, I suddenly (and to my own surprise) launched into a rousing rendition of MN8's 1990's classic 'I gotta little something for you'....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For those of you unable to recall this pinnacle of music magnificence, here we go.....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDb6wIEcIQ&noredirect=1">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDb6wIEcIQ&noredirect=1</a> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And I'll give you just three guesses to figure out what happened next.....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sigh.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yup - just as I roared.. 'Coz the gift I got ain't going back', I spun round, armed with carrots and there was next door's 13 year old standing on their patio open mouthed. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Scarred for life I presume.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sorry kid but you had to realise at some point that the gift I got ain't going back.......</span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-13303350986237944542012-03-06T20:42:00.003+00:002012-03-06T20:48:02.890+00:00The Ladybird Assassins<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Apart from the health aspects and increased general risk of dying, I really don't know why people worry so much about getting older. If you are lucky enough to keep your health and mobility (and I know many don't) then I've noticed it's actually very liberating. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I keep meeting women over 50 who are just, well, loving it. They are freer, wilder - have a little sparkle in their eyes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">OK I am scared about my potential menopause (lets face it - me and hormonal drops don't mix. Current evidence has it that they result in me going 'proper batshit crazy' as I'm sure the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn't phrase it....) but that aside I'm looking forward to being able to get away with ever more random and outrageous behaviour without anyone so much as rolling an eyeball. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have had plenty of evidence of this in recent times.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A couple of weeks ago a friend and I met in a sophisticated 'bar restuarant' for 'absolutley two glasses of wine as we both could NOT get drunk or risk hangovers'. You know how this ends don't you? The night of course peaked with me shouting into the ear of a terrified looking DJ potentially young enough to be son that he wasn't doing a good enough job and if he gave me the decks I'd 'take the roof off' (more like create an electrocution incident and plunge the club into silence) before going home and cooking an entire bag of Quorn sausages. Naked. I know I was naked because the next morning I found all my clothes folded up in a pile next to the frying pan. I can only fathom the thinking behind this was 'time saving' and I decided to get naked whilst cooking meat-free sausages. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that but hey it could have been worse. I could have tried to put the bins out. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway, whilst we were behaving like, erm, fools and having a lovely time we couldn't help notice that many of the young 'uns weren't. In a pub with live music all the hipsters were sitting around looking serious or at the most nodding, while we leapt around and errr, had a good time. In another bar young couples sat silently picking wax off candle holders (why waste the money on drinks? I wanted to shout at them 'for god's sake just go home and have sex - NOW - before you have to get up 5 times a night to clean up wee and answer questions about black holes and potential hauntings) while me and my friend laughed until we had mascara running down our respected cleavages. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I for one am glad I'm not a 20-something again. It's was all so, well, complicated. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The next set of evidence for 'Life After 50' is my mum. And her friends. They are frankly bonkers. But in a way that you can't help admire. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Take this genuine conversation my mum and her friend (who we shall call Pam for reasons for not wanting to name her) had today.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Phone rings....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My mum says the following: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hello</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Oh Pam, hello</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Big Gasp)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">13 spots you say? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hmm</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">13? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'm not sure </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I don't know. I thought the spots were more hexagonal in that case? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Will you!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">How are you going to do that? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Another gasp)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well yes, Google it first. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To be safe, yes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Call me when you know. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Oh dear. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In France you say? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unfortunate </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mum gets off phone. What's going on I ask (fearing Pam has perhaps caught some kind of rare venereal disease whilst in a tent in Brittany).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well she says, you're not going to believe this but Pam has found a ladybird. In her conservatory. And it's got 13 spots! THIRTEEN! Anyway we fear it's one of those new ones - the intruders - the Harlequins. Well of course if it is a Harlequin then Pam will need to kill it. But she's struggling with the concept. We decided if it needs to be done she's going to wrap it in toilet paper and flush it down the loo. So she's not actually having to kill it. Just cause it's demise, so to speak. Anyway she's off to fire up the computer now and she's going to use Google to suss out whether or not it needs exterminating. But it will take a while as her connection isn't very good so we shall have to wait and see. I'll update you later! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Me: Riiiiiiight (befuddled glaze). Anything else? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mum: Oh yes - her daughter in law's Grandmother died. The funeral is in France. Unfortunate. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I reach for my 14th cup of tea and ponder life the universe and my mum. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Later I got home and Googled 13 spot ladybird myself and guess what? They are some ultra rare finding thought extinct, a small colony of which was found in Devon last year after 50 years of being extinct.... Great moment in the history of ecology and all that. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Shit. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I've called my mum but nobody is in. I'm now panicking she's over at Pam's reading Last Right's over the toilet and flushing away an important biological specimen. I've left a message on her answer machine telling her she could potentially have been involved in the extermination of the insect equivalent of the Sabre Tooth Tiger but she hasn't called back yet. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So we shall just have to wait and see.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">See - being over 50 - a whole new kind of fun........</span></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-57963926602753920422012-02-11T11:13:00.000+00:002012-02-11T11:13:20.796+00:00Of God and ElephantsSo it's Parent's Evening time again!<br />
<br />
Yipee (said through gritted teeth).<br />
<br />
The verdict on Second Son (officially 'the youngest child in the school') is that he's err young (funny that!) and 'as I am sure you are aware, ho ho, filled with devilment'. <br />
<br />
Well, I can't argue with that. And neither can the cats, the neighbours, his brother, his father, my mum's dog and just about anything else with a heartbeat that's ever met him. He woke me up the other morning by informing me that jellyfish were about to attack so he needed some vinegar NOW for their stings 'GET IT NOW MUMMY!' and then proceeded to hold a cat hostage with a plastic T-Rex, refusing to release it until it uttered the password 'WHAT IS MIAOW!'. He keeps hiding his coat at school so they can't put him in it and if someone annoys him he pushes them into a bush. He's the kind of child who, once upon a time, slightly horrified me. I was going to be the mother who spent time reading Ladybird books, painting Beatrix Potter clay animals and going pony riding. If I had a girl I was going to buy her one of those beautiful wool coats with the velvet collars you always see young Royals wearing on Christmas Day Ha! Who was I kidding. Nobody would have<i> actually </i>sent a child like that to live with me. They were going to send me a child who runs around with no pants on covered in neon marker pen whilst pogoing off the furniture screeching and trying to lasso cats. <br />
<br />
And they were also going to send me his brother. You know, just in case I wanted to spend eons of time discussing freight transit and whether or not it would be possible to drive to 'Crick' (which is apparently in Northamptonshire and home to a large Eddie Stobart lorry depot) after school (to which the answer is a clear and emotionally devestating - NO). <br />
<br />
Original Son, when he's not dreaming of Crick, has produced some marvelous paintings of telegraph poles stretching off into the distance and has informed the class and his teachers that whilst they all might wish for an x-box, pony, Chelsea strip or trip to Disneyland he likes 'wires - just wires'. My brother wants to take him to Vegas to read the cards. I think we'd better take the younger one too just in case we need some muscle......<br />
<br />
Anyway - the best bit of Parent's Evening is the bit where you get to look at their books and see what they actually do in all those hours trapped in the classroom. <br />
<br />
One time I was treated to a graphic drawing of Snow White's corpse in the 'gLas cofin'. This time crazy arse second child had drawn a bat, eating a mouse, standing on a dead bat. I'm not sure of the exact symbolisim here but I'm guess it has something to do with being top of the food train and anevolutionary superior. I asked his teacher. She was a clueless as I was. No they hadn't been studying bats. Or mice. Or dead things. Hmmm.<br />
<br />
However it is Original Son's workbooks where the real gems lie.<br />
<br />
My particurlary favourite was his RE book. <br />
<br />
On the double page spread where they were meant to write their interpretation of Christianity he had drawn a gravestone and merely written:<br />
<br />
'Jesus is dead'<br />
<br />
Beneath this the teacher had written......<br />
<br />
'This is a a good start'. <br />
<br />
Nothing else had ever been written and they'd moved on to Islam. <br />
<br />
I'm guessing we're still awaiting the resurrection then? Maybe he should have stayed til the end of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.<br />
<br />
Even better was the page entitled 'Belief Systems'.<br />
<br />
They'd had to draw a spider-gram and in the middle he had written:<br />
<br />
I Believe In.....<br />
<br />
Around this were his beliefs:<br />
<br />
Father Christmas<br />
The tooth fairy<br />
The Easter Bunny<br />
Elves<br />
Pixies <br />
Fairies<br />
God<br />
Elephants<br />
<br />
Now THAT is a religion I might just sign up to!<br />
<br />
<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-59210519991200012732012-02-03T19:57:00.000+00:002012-02-03T19:57:17.536+00:00Octo-Pants<div style="text-align: justify;">
So I get back from Asda today, with a box of cat food under one arm, 24 plastic clothes hangers squashed up against my torso and enough Hula Hoops to feed an army and stumble over the post on my door mat. </div>
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The post consists of the local free paper - you know the sort of paper that doesn't even have any news in it - just a bit of vague information about some local police advice for idiots like 'Police Warn: Lock your car at night' or 'ALERT! Don't go on holiday and leave your door open!' and then 324 adverts for massage parlours - like 'busty housewives Linda and Marie will help you unwind with a massage: have own shower' (which always makes me think as opposed to what? Having to knock on the neighbours and ask if you can borrow theirs because Linda went slightly OTT with the lube and you've got to go to your mothers for dinner?), some bank statements (which go in the pile 'of things I might open when I grow up) and a woman's clothing catalogue for a very upmarket 'chic' brand of clothing that contains phrases like 'urban style' and 'sport luxe'. I have never bought anything from it. Obviously. </div>
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Add a 'sport luxe' twist to any outfit it exclaims. Really? As far as I'm concerned 'sport luxe' means wearing matching socks that aren't those fluffy neon pink ones to the gym And a top which isn't actually part of your pyjamas.......</div>
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Plus I hate the word 'luxe'. Bleurgh. </div>
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Then there are the outfits which 'take you from day to evening'. The picture shows a beautifully cut figure hugging pencil dress which you can wear all day and then, once you've slicked on some lipstick and a higher pair of heels you can dash down to the latest bar/theatre/very swanky thing with all the other beautiful people that don't just want to go home, have a nice hot shower and watch Masterchef. </div>
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I can't help reflecting that the only 'day to evening' outfit that would work for me would be a large fluffy dressing gown. And that would mean a day lolling about and not doing anything and how marvellous that would be. If someone sent me catalogue which showed women reading a book under 4 layers of luxury ultra-soft velour with several cups of tea at hand and a large bag of tortilla chips - yeah baby - that's selling me the DREAM. </div>
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Because to be frank, much as I love clothes and all that stuff (and coats, especially coats, oh my god how much do I love coats? I couldn't live in a hot country because I'd actually be bereaved by the lack of coat wearing) with all the plate spinning that goes on round here I sometimes struggle to get myself dressed properly at all. </div>
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Take yesterday.</div>
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I woke up and found I had no pants. Now I own a LOT of pants - I don't know why, I just do. But they were ALL in the wash. I'd really gone to the very bottom of the draw. Even the pair the same colour as a prosthetic limb - worn and gone. And the pair with barely any elastic. And the strange felty pair left from University (wow - those there pants are OLD). And the the ones which feature some weird gold bell that reminds me of those Lindt Easter Bunnies and make me worry that every time I go to the loo I'll jingle all the way. Gone all worn and gone. Apart from the 'very last pair'.</div>
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Gulp.</div>
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The 'very last pair' had never been worn. </div>
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There was a reason for this (actually, having spent a day in them, there was several....).</div>
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They came as part of a set where I wanted the top half but had no need for the bottoms. They have a lot of sort of excess ruffles round the waist (handy for hiding that paunch!) and then from each corner of your body 2 long straps with bows on that you (theoretically) can attached stockings too. I was not attaching stockings to them. I was trying to stuff them under my work trousers. With great difficulty. </div>
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Every time I went to the toilet I looked down at my 8 swinging appendages and felt like some sort of giant squid. </div>
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I really did pray that, more so that usual, I didn't get hit by a car/collapse/etc because had anybody, for any reason, had to take my trousers off they would have probably called the Psych team because, lets face it - wearing all those ruffles and a plethora of bowed suspenders under a pair of utility work trousers teamed with fluffy ankle socks and special boots you can stand up in for 12 hours is not, erm, normal. </div>
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And of course they chafed. Oh boy did they chafe. I think they were 'car to bar' pants - not 'lets walk several miles' ones. </div>
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Sigh. </div>
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Half-way through the day a colleague pointed out she really liked my top. 'Thanks!' I said, feeling slightly better about the state of my wardrobe. 'But what's that?' she asked leaning forward to touch something on my waistband.</div>
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Oh my god I panicked - one of my ruffles must have escaped! I felt heat rush to my face. </div>
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Busted! Busted in the befrilled Octo-pants. </div>
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'Oh' she said 'Oh! How funny! It's your care label - errr you've got your top on inside out!'. </div>
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Is that all I sighed with relief. </div>
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It's not wrong you see - it's 'boho dishevelled day to evening luxe'. Come 5pm you can turn your top the right way out, clip your stockings on and go home to, err, cook fish fingers and waffles. </div>
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Obviously. </div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-68592306444925893592012-01-22T19:33:00.000+00:002012-01-22T19:33:09.431+00:00The Inspector Called...<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hello People. I am here with you courtesy of the Inland Revenue. </div>
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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. </div>
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Simple. </div>
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So this year I was conned into believing I could simply put in this information and be done in minutes. </div>
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Sigh.</div>
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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. </div>
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ARRRGGHHH.</div>
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So I'm blogging. </div>
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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.</div>
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However - great big shining my halo aside - it's quite frankly a good job she came to that session and not the previous one. </div>
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Let me summarise the farce of the first session: </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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So problem one solved. On to the next one....</div>
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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: </div>
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This is the way in</div>
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This is the way out</div>
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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.....</div>
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In hindsight this was not the most well thought out teaching activity. </div>
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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. </div>
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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'). </div>
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On to the third and final problem. And oh god this is cringeworthy - even for me. </div>
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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. </div>
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One of the items is a hot water bottle. </div>
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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.....</div>
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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?</div>
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It's a..........</div>
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banana!</div>
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Yup. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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Silver linings folks, silver linings.....</div>
<br />Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-74782484249495057442012-01-01T21:20:00.001+00:002012-01-01T22:15:29.560+00:00An Inspector Calls<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well HAPPY NEW YEAR!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We made it folks - in one shape or another, here we are in 2012. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But no. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have potentially the most stressful week of the year, right here, right now, upon me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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?'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I kind of resent this. I wanted to just write in big huge bold type letter something like this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'Dear Inspector, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">No. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I shouted 'SHIT', did a move not unlike when Roadrunner goes over a cliff edge and fell on my side with an 'oomph'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On the plus side the group laughed so long and so hard it probably gave them an endorphin rush for days. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tubs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tubs? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">However you interpret that it's not great is it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yours, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cocky</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I mean Bucky</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I mean, oh sod it, call me whatever you bleedin well like. But maybe not Tubs. Do you want a fig roll?</span> </div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-30822543246764820212011-12-26T21:39:00.001+00:002011-12-26T21:46:33.161+00:00Decks the Hall with Boughs of Sorrow<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well that's that over and done with.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Anyway Father Christmas came and he even found a tree under which he could put the presents (more on that next blog). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">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.....</span></div>
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<br /></div>Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-84814711743655297592011-11-28T20:58:00.001+00:002011-11-28T22:01:56.161+00:00Catering for ZombiesOk 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?'.<br />
<br />
But it always bloomin well is.<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
Badger Girl: 'Stick?'<br />
<br />
Me: 'Who else?'<br />
<br />
Badger Girl: 'Stick you OK?'<br />
<br />
Me: 'Yeah I seem to be losing my voice but it's OK - the world will rejoice'.<br />
<br />
Badger Girl: 'Stick, I'm really sorry - there's something I've got to tell you.....'<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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'. <br />
<br />
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....;<br />
<br />
Door opens - anxious looking man asks if he can help me. I tell him I'll let him know.<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
We hang up.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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). <br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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'.<br />
<br />
And so I do.<br />
<br />
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). <br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
But then I wake up in the night and discover 3 things:<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
2. My throat has swollen shut and there is drool running down my chin because I can't swallow.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
The receptionist looks highly alarmed and draws me a map to the nearest pharmacy whilst frantically pointing at EXIT. <br />
<br />
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....<br />
<br />
BANG.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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!!'.<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
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'. <br />
<br />
Gesticulating wildly I flap whilst people recoil in horror. 'Do you need an ambulance?' one of them carefully mouths.<br />
<br />
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? <br />
<br />
Sigh.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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?'.<br />
<br />
But it did. <br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Fame at last......but I think I'd rather stay at home with the freight trains.Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582000061142846704.post-58928857046333973852011-11-11T13:26:00.001+00:002011-11-11T14:24:17.444+00:00Strand Tests are for WimpsMany 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.<br />
<br />
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.......<br />
<br />
... well by dying their hair without doing the strand test.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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....<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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'. <br />
<br />
And then I got a job and had more exciting things to do than mess about with my hair.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Until last week.<br />
<br />
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......<br />
<br />
Tra la la la la - dye on - wash off - dry hair........<br />
<br />
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.<br />
<br />
Amber my arse.<br />
<br />
More like Puddle of Mud.<br />
<br />
It was BROWN. With this awful type of artificial old lady reddy sheen.<br />
<br />
It certainly got my heart racing. Racing with the fear of having to go out with hair like Sharon Osbourne. <br />
<br />
But it's OK right because this is NOT permanent. Yeah? So I just have to wash it out as quick as I can.<br />
<br />
So I searched the internet for ideas.<br />
<br />
1. Fairy Liquid - washed it twice in this - no freaking difference. Other than I'm covered in bubbles.<br />
<br />
2. Bicarb of soda - washed it twice in this - guess what? No difference. Other than I'm covered in white powder.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
6am get up and hope the hair has 'grown on me' or magically gone back to copper.<br />
<br />
Nope. It's Dawn of the Freakin Dead looking back at me.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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......<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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?<br />
<br />
Maybe I need to take up Base Jumping?Stickheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05773303280881519594noreply@blogger.com8