And With These Cakes I Blind You....

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

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

Simple.

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

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

You think I exaggerate?

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






Fail this task at your peril.

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

No.

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

Me: Oh, right yes?

Caretaker: The dishwasher .

Me: Yes?

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

Me: Yes?

Caretaker: Follow them.

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

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

Me: Oh.

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

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

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

Me: Oh.

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

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

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

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

A prophecy was written.

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

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

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

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

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

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Tea Towels, Tea Urns and Twitching

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My word.

The politics!!

The rules!!

The red tape!!

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

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

A warning about the 'Line Dancers'.

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

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

And then, a few minutes later, whilst examining cervical dilation, they stomped on back, each carrying a steaming glass of a hot yellow liquid which was either a hot toddy or their own urine.

The group looked bemused.

I was bemused.

We were all mutually bemused because the lot of them could barely stand erect, let alone do a few speedy turns to 'Achy Break Heart'.

There was only one thing that could be done. I needed to follow them. And so, during the coffee break, I traced them to the 'Reading Rooms' where they undertook their sinister arts.

Sure enough - they were having a stomp.

I can't call it Line Dancing.

The music was a sort of dirge played on the accordion and they weren't' really dancing - more having a bit of a twitch.

And what was even more thrilling - there was a raffle.

The prizes were lined up on a table at the head of the room and the tickets lay somewhat forlornly at the base of a wicker basket. All 5 of them.

And top prize in the raffle - a 6 pack of Orange Club biscuits.

Can I just say here and now - however bad my life gets, if I ever reach the point where a 'grand night out' constitutes some mild twitching with a man who can barely stand up, topped off with the lure of winning an orange laced biscuit - you have permission to shoot me.

OK?

I'll leave the bit about the gas leak, the alarm and the left behind birthday cake that wasn't really left behind until next time...

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And then I Opened the Box and the Bomb Went Off

Right well as (approximately) half the nation is waiting with baited breath to find out what happened when I went to my MIL's house a few weeks back, I'd better stop rolling round on the carpet in a deranged state and get on with it.

Please don't fret - I did make it back. If I hadn't I'd probably be a dessicated husk by now, caught between a psychotic looking china rabbit playing a banjo and a drummer boy with more than a passing resemblance to Chucky.

However, for reasons too personal to go into (even I have to draw a line somewhere, wee, poo, insanity and piles are OK, this is a step too far) I came home alone (well I kept the kids, obviously, one more day in the Biome and they'd have needed rehydration therapy).

So Husband-With-A-Sad-Face is no longer actually Husband-with-A-Sad-Face. I'm not actually sure what category his face falls into now (other than 'under the heel of my shoe' - joke - he's a fan of this blog so I'd better now be too harsh now had I?) but whatever his face does, he's no longer actually my husband. Well he is on paper until the divorce comes through but we are now 'separated'. Like eggs. I'm not sure who is the yolk and who is the white but one part always gets left in the fridge and then binned so hopefully that's not me.

Woooooo.

I told you the bomb went off didn't I?

There will be people all over the nation (and possibly overseas, and who knows, maybe on a space station somewhere) falling off their chairs right now and having to re-read that bit but yup - that's what happened next.

So in the last 3 years I've:

- given birth
- been extremely very critically ill.
- gone nuts.
- spend 2 months living in a psychiatric unit.
- cared for 2 small children.
- gained useful employment.
- relocated to the other side of the country.
- gone through major building works with both kids in the midst of it.
- watched my dad die of a brain tumour.
- tried to hold my mum together as she falls apart, again and again..
and now for (hopefully) the big FINALE!!!!

MY HUSBAND'S LEFT ME!!

Well he's not actually 'left' me - legally this is his home too so he's living in the loft.

And actually, yes, I am still laughing. You can't go through all that and survive vaguely mentally intact without being able to put a bit of a spin on things and trying (really trying) to see some kind of glimmer of hilarity in them all.

So there we are - now you know.

On the plus side, it got me out of staying longer at my MIL's house.........

And even better - I got my balls back out last week and it felt SOOOOOO good. More on that later (it was, of course, eventful. Airing my balls in never a smooth passage of 'pump, bounce and go' - this time it included elderly line dancers, a large ginger Tom and a gas leak).


Now a couple of questions:

1. How much for the film rights? I'm happy to play myself. My whole existence frequently feels like I'm walking through the part of someone in a bad soap opera anyway, so I'm more than qualified.

2. Can you get stretchmark removal on the NHS?

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Zombie Badgers and Other Curses

The strings to my bow (Strongbow?) are many and varied.

When I am not teaching people the most effective way of massaging a perinium (if you don't know what that is, don't Google it at work) or getting them to groan into big balls, I am coaching people through equestrian examinations. Well actually, my friend (the mad one with the stiff badger problem) had a big 'horse' exam coming up so she asked me (who else?) to go round and pretend to examine her. On the way there I couldn't help but notice not 1, not 2 but 3 dead badgers at the side of various roads.

Badgers.

The Haunting.

Not wanting to dwell on the prospect of Attack of the Zombie Badgers I parked up in the farmyard and, arming myself with several 'British Horse Society' publications and the exam syllabus (plus circa 17 cups of tea) got testing.

It was an education, that was for sure.

Me: Right, this section is on Health & Safety, OK?

Friend: OK.

Me: Right, you find me lying in the middle of the stable yard. What would you do?

Friend: Wonder what the f*** you are up to.

Me: No. Fail. Imagine I'm an employee, like a PROPER one. What would you do?

Friend: Are you conscious or unconscious?

Me: Erm, conscious.

Friend: I'd give you a kick and ask you what the f*** you were up to.

Me: That is not going to get you a pass.

Friend: Okay okay, I'd kneel down and ask you if you hurt anywhere and if you could feel your legs and then, if you could, help you up.

Me: Better. What if I was unconscious?

Friend: Unconscious? Oh my god. I'd scream and call an ambulance. Maybe throw water on you? I don't know!

Me: Erm, have you done your First Aid training?

Friend: No.

Me: Ok remind me not to lose consciousness in your presence. I think we need to file this one under 'could try harder, needs more work'.

Friend: Ok don't go ON about it!

Me: Lets move on to 'Care of the Grass Kept Horse'.

Friend: Yes, lets.

Me: Ok it says here that you should be checking the horse paddock twice a day, including a perimeter search. What are you checking for?

Friend: That the horses are still in the field?

Me: Well that would be a good starting point.

Friend: Yeah and that the fencing is in good condition, the horses have fresh water and there's no foreigners there.

Me: FOREIGNERS!? FOREIGNERS? What like a selection of French exchange students having a picnic?

Friend: NO! Foreign things like poisonous plants. That might have appeared.

Me: What randomly appeared? Like you suddenly notice a giant Yew tree has materialised in the middle of the field? One day - nothing. The next: 12 foot of glistening toxic evergreen?

Friend: Well that would be a nightmare!
Me: Errr, yeah.

Friend: Well it would be because you can never cut down a Yew tree. It carries a curse.

Me: WHAT!?

Friend: Yeah it's true. If you chop down a Yew tree it curses you forever. We had one up the top field and none of us would touch it.

Me: Where's it gone now then?

Friend: We got my dad to burn it down and dig up the stump.

Me: Erm was this before or after he had another nervous breakdown, tried to shoot himself and ran off to live in a bedsit?

Friend: Before.

(At this point we sort of look at each other in a slightly shocked 'moment of realisation' way before collapsing in a sort of nervous hysteria).

Me: Okay - can I suggest you don't bring this up in the exam. You know. Stay off the topics of foreigners, your lack of resuscitation skills, yew trees and curses?

Friend: Yeah. And badgers.

Me: Yeah. And badgers.

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Pump it Up

OK this is a post about my balls as I got them out again this weekend but, before I go on ,I need to make it VERY clear that when I talk about my balls they are large, inflatable, gym balls that are used to help pregnant women find good positions to labour in.

With this fact in mind, would all the people who are finding this blog via googling ‘balls getting sucked’ or ‘naked balls getting sucked’ (naked as opposed to what? Balls wearing tuxedo’s and a bow tie?) please move on. My balls might be somewhat troublesome but they are not particularly erotic.

Anyway once gain my balls have been problematic.

This time I had difficulty even locating them. After moving house they were flattened in a box somewhere and it took quite a bit of rummaging until they were back in my hands.

Having finally dragged them out into the harsh light of day, I then transported them to their destination (200 miles away) un-inflated (you don’t want balls banging off your gear stick all the way down the M4) with the intention of pumping them up when I got there.

Unpacked them, got my pump out….. 3 thrusts later – CRACK. The pump snapped clean in two.

Oh. Marvelous.

I wasn’t expecting that.

At a loss at to what to do next (I was being assessed by an examiner and she would be keen to see me facilitating use of my balls) I went down to (once again) bother the young man on reception. He is German and struggles a bit with some English words but is possibly the keenest and most helpful receptionist I have ever come across so I felt if there was ever a man who could help inflate my balls, it would be him.

‘I’m really sorry but I was trying to pump up my big ball and I’ve snapped the pump, I don’t suppose you have a bicycle pump or something do you?’.

‘Ahhh no I have no pump. Zis ball – it iz alwayz giving you trouble – is this the same ball that we had liberated from zee sub-station?’.

‘Erm, yes ‘(good god – he’s remembered!? Slight panic he might read my blog and also be able to recall the facts that I have piles, a bladder problem and once stole a Christmas Tree from a church hall).

‘Ahhh we ALL remember that one! Crazy times huh!'.

'Errr yeah, crazzzeeee times indeed' (said with huge fake smile).

'I have no pump but I have glue!’.

‘Riiiiighhhht’ (bicycle pump/tube of glue - easily confused I often find.....).

‘I will glue your pump!’.

‘Okkkaaaaaay’.

(He liberally applies glue to my pump).

‘Okay, now we just wait for glue to do setting. We need it to go hard’.

‘Erm, does it say on the packet how long that will take? The hardness?’

(he reads packet carefully and then raises his head in triumph to utter…..)

‘6 HOURS!’.

‘We don’t have 6 hours’.

‘Okay, we will we do our best!’.

(At this point he blows enthusiastically onto the glue clad joint. Clearly he thinks his breath is like that of Superman or similar and able to prompt chemical change within milliseconds.....his breath fails. The two parts hang limply together, vaguely joined but in no way cemented).

Shrugging, he got me to hold the two broken ends together while he used the pump. The problem was, what with the limp joint between the two parts, he couldn’t push very hard or very far – thus he had to do about 40,000 ‘mini’ pumps to get the ball inflated.

And that, my friend, is how I ended up spending my Saturday morning crouched beneath a young German receptionist as he pumped away and got rather breathless, whilst repeatedly muttering 'is it firm enough yet or do you want it harder?' (I seriously wish I was making this up - I'm not).

Even I was blushing.

I’d like to tell you that at this point the examiner (who would be marking me on how well I met the needs of men) walked in….but she never showed up so I can’t (that’s a WHOLE different story).

When he finished I thanked him profusely and apologised for ‘the odd things that he has to do for me’.

‘Oh this! This is not odd!’ he shrugged.

Intrigued I raised an eyebrow.

‘No – the odd people – they are the ones who come here to cry’.

‘To cry?’.

‘Yes, there are people at the end of the corridor. They have mattresses they lie on. They lie together and hug. Then they roll around and cry. That is why they come. I find this odd’.

‘Erm, yeah, so do I (at this point I wonder about glue fumes and how much he's inhaled). What is this group called?’.

‘The Crying Mattress People’ he shrugged, ‘well that is what I call them’.

I nodded (I didn't actually know what to say).

‘They bother me some because I have to drag all the mattresses out for them and the mattresses are very heavy and must come a long way. I wish they would bring their own’.

With that he went back to arranging the crisp packets in the little basket on his desk.

Intrigued, but slightly sure that something had been lost in translation, I ventured down to the room at the end of the corridor and, sure enough, the floor was covered in mattresses.

I’ve never felt so sane.

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Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Christmas Tree...

..it comes and goes, it comes and goooooeees.

(That's for those of you old enough to remember Boy George in the days when he confined his notoriety to singing chart hits and taking heroin, rather than chaining rent boys to radiators and being sent to jail).

ANYWAY - during the whole debacle of my missing ball and it's subsequent discovery, nestling amongst several million volts of electricity inside a sub-station - I alluded to it's theft being 'karma' for a very bad thing I did to a village Christmas tree during my youth. As I've moaned about my kids enough this week I shall confine tonight's post to the Tale of the Disappearing Christmas Tree.

It happened like this.

Somewere in the depths of rural Somerset a woman turned 40 in the run up to Christmas. This woman happened to be my friend's mum and thus my friend (and I, as her 'best friend') were allowed to attend the party which was held in a local village hall. The run up to the party was highly exciting and we took great thrill in being put in charge of decorating the hall - even if this did result in us arranging all the balloons in such a fashion that they represented a set of testicles with a large erect penis rising from the midst of them.

There was a huge buffet and alcohol to be got hold of so all looked promising.

Can't go to far wrong can you?

Well the thing is that everyone else was about 40 (funnily enough) and in our eyes rather dull (this was in the middle of farming-centrale so much of the conversation revolved around the price of bull calves and milking yields, not that thrilling to your average teenage girl looking for love, lust and something more appealing than the smell of cow muck). After a while we got bored - VERY bored. And bored teenagers and alcohol are a very dangerous combination (as I'm sure I will see again when my children hit that magnificent era of their lives).

After a while we de-camped to the porch area of the village hall - just so we could 'hang out' away from the 'olds' - and in this porch area was the village's Christmas Tree. A Christmas Tree obtained via charitable funds donated by the church...... So what did we decide to do with it? Leave a small gift beneath it? Add a touch of decorating brilliance? Say a prayer for world peace?

No.

We hoisted it on our backs, smuggled it across the car park and then, using our combined efforts, tossed it like a rather magnificent caber, over a very high fence and onto the very posh golf course whose land neighboured the car park.

Why?

I honestly don't know. All I can say (in a true teenage fashion) is 'I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time'.

Then we rolled around laughing, went home and fell into alcohol induced deep sleep.

Until circa am the following morning when my friend's mum (the birthday girl herself) came rushing into the room and woke us to inform us that she needed to talk about 'something very serious which had happened in the village'.

It appeared that the cleaner had arrived that morning to see to the hall and the tree was missing. The tree was (apparently) irreplaceable - sourced from church money of which there was no more - and Christmas was - to all intents and purposes - over for the village hall now.

All the parties and concerts and little events planned in the run up to Christmas would be stark shadows of their former glories - because the bloody Christmas Tree was missing.

Her mum - having booked the hall - was being held responsible and, by this point, threatened with having to fund a replacement (they claimed the tree had cost £300 - THREE HUNDRED QUID!? It looked like a £30 job from Wilkos but hey, who am I to argue?). Her mum was practically shaking and seemed fearful that at any moment an angry posse would arrive at the front door demanding she hand over the tree. So she begged us - and I mean BEGGED - to let on if we knew anything, anything at all about the tree's whereabouts.

Oh. Dear.

We glanced at each other nervously. We clearly both felt bad. Really bad. What had been a drunken prank with no obvious consequences (or in fact reason) had now turned into a 'really very bad thing'. As our eyes met we could almost read each other's minds and almost at once we spoke the same words....



.... 'it was Sian'.

Sian was a girl who lived round the corner from the village hall/golf course and she was a huge pain in the arse (I doubt she reads this blog - it would be beneath her). Although she hung out with us from time to time (begrudgingly - in very rural areas you sometimes don't have a lot of choice about who you share taxis with or go to parties with), she clearly viewed us all as mere peasants (on more than one occasion she declared us 'common') whilst, at the same time, she was prone to strange outbursts of violence. I once witnessed her slap a boy for offering her a stick of chewing gum and, at one point, she slammed a pizza into my face for no apparent reason whatsoever. One minute I was standing at a buffet talking, the next minute I was breathing in cheese and pineapple and she was screaming at me. Odd. Very odd.

Anyway - we didn't like her and neither did any of our mums.

"But Sian wasn't at the party!" said my friend's mum.

'Err, she crept in. She saw there was a party and came and sat in the porch with us. She was acting a bit mad and suddenly picked up the Christmas tree and ran off with it. We tried to stop her but she was obviously drunk or high or something'.

Now, quite how plausible it was that a young lady from one of the counties leading Public Schools would randomly appear at the door of a 40th birthday party before abducting the village christmas tree, is somewhat debatable - but the point is my friend's mum believed us.

'SIAN! Well I might have known it! Why didn't you say something at last night!'.

'Because we're scared of her and she was acting REALLY mad!'.

'Right I'm phoning her mother right now!'.

Oh.

Small hole in our plan there.

'Errr, let us do it, she will talk to us, we can get her to reveal the location of the tree.....PLEASE!'.

'No, I really need to talk to her mother. Does her mother even know she was out? I can't let this go'.

'Errr, I think her mum's away at the moment. Her Gran's looking after them and you know she's really old and stuff. Let us talk to her'.

And thus ensued us making a fake phone call to Sian, in front of my friend's mum, complete with fake conversation with the speaking clock about the tree's whereabouts:

'You did what?'

'The time is 8.06 precisely'.

'But why?'

'The time is 8.06 precisely'.

'Where exactly along the fence?'

'The time is 8.07 precisely'

'The golf club you say?'.

'The time is.....'.

We then had to call the golf club and explain and persuade them to retrieve the tree from the bunker into which it had fallen. To say they were none to pleased would be something of an understatement.

And after that we pretty much got away with it - although we did cringe mightily and hold our breath when my friend's mother approached Sian at a local gymkhana and, pointing angrily at her face, shouted "I know ALL about you and the Christmas tree and quite frankly I'm disgusted. I hope you realised just how much trouble you caused! Don't expect to EVER be allowed into my home, EVER again! You got that? Good!" before marching off. I think Sian was slightly confused.

Or at least I thought I got away with it - but the theft of my ball proves that what goes around really does come around - even if it waits a decade and a half to do so.

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My Ball is Back in Town!

Well actually it's currently in the passenger seat of my car but the main thing is it is no longer nestling amidst several million volts of electricity and trespassing on EDF Energy property.

I spent quite some thinking time toying with how exactly to call EDF and enable it's rescue.

There was a 'call in an emergency' number on the sub-station but I felt I'd put myself at risk of being arrested for making crank calls if I rang that and presented myself as an adult woman who'd had her ball stolen and wanted it back.

So that left a 'general' EDF customer help-line which I feared would actually put me through to someone in Mumbai reading off a script - a script highly unlikely to contain the words necessary to rescue a birth ball from a sub-station..... I can't think they have too many calls of that nature.

Me: It's my ball, it's gone over the fence, in the electricity sub-station.

Them: Your bill? Your bill has gone up? Electricity?

Me: No BALL. BALL. Big ball. In danger. In sub-station.

Them: Your bill is too big? You have difficulty paying? It is a danger to you?

Me: NO BALL.....

Them: Your ball has risen? It is too big? Electric ball? Ah bill!

Me: Arrggghhh - don't worry about

You catch my drift.

While I was pondering all of this I went back down there as I realised I would need the 'number' of the sub-station (they each have their own unique ID - fascinating fact of the day there). So off I went, armed with paper and pen, and whilst I was rustling around in the bushes and peering through gaps a man approached me and asked me if I was OK. I think this was actually a polite way of asking me 'what the f*** are you up to you strange woman lurking in the bushes - we've got you on CCTV taking photos and now this!' as I was actually now on the property of the water sports centre and clearly acting quite strangely.

I explained the situation (as briefly as I could) and although he did give me a very strange look and clearly hadn't a clue quite what my ball was really for and what it was doing in the middle of a sub-station, he did summon a rescue party and, finding a 'less well protected' spot in the fence, they scaled it and I got my ball back..

So thank you to everybody who had been involved in the Great Ball Liberation - it's nice to see people come together and break the law - even if it's (once again) due my misfortune.

And that - I hope -is the end of that.

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Photographic Evidence of My Ball's Plight

I couldn't leave it.

I've just been down there - in the glowering twilight - and seen my ball.

I feel so helpless.

So near, yet so untouchable.

So far it appears so small:


Just beneath the DANGER OF DEATH and TRESPASSERS WILL BE INCINERATED type signs is this:



Now clearly this is not a matter of life and death but I'm guessing calling that number is the only way that ball is going to get out of there?

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My ball has been located!

Exciting news!

However please note the use of the word 'located' - not 'returned' or in fact 'retrieved'.

I have, just a few moments ago, received the following email from the venue:

Hi xxxxx

We have located your ball. Somehow it has ended up in the electricity compound which is just to the right as you enter our main gate. The area is locked up and surrouned by a high fence with barbed wire and belongs to EDF Energy.

Good Luck.

Lorna
Reception

What? WHAT!? So my ball has 'somehow' ended up in the electricity substation.

Somehow?

Somehow?

Oohh well let me ponder for a while on how that could have POSSIBLY happened. Could it, per chance, have been a sudden (very sudden) tornado that swept through the car park in the 5 minutes I was absent and picked my ball up before plonking it down admist several million volts of electricity?

No.

Could it, just maybe, have been picked up by an immense bird of prey that somehow mistook it for a mutated (and rather blue) Field Vole?

Erm no.

Oh well - maybe the ball has been practising the art of teleportation and, like Dr Who's Tardis, has found itself somewhere it shouldn't be.

Bollocks it has.

No - funnily enough I have a really sneaky suspicision that some little sod has chucked it in there.

'Somehow' my arse.

Tut.

I also like the way she casually drops in the bit about the locks and the barbed wire and then drops in a 'good luck' at the end.

This 'good luck' is actually her way of saying 'because you're going to need it love and don't think for one moment that any of us are going to help you with THIS one'.

So there we are - I now need to find a contact number for EDF Energy and ask them if I can have my ball back......

(p.s. I have suddenly recalled a rather shameful incident from my youth involving the Village Christmas Tree and the local Golf Club. I shall tell you more tomorrow but I think this may be what they call 'Karma' a.k.a what goes around, comes around...BE WARNED CHILDREN BE WARNED. MESS WITH PEOPLE'S STUFF AND ONE DAY SOMEONE WILL COME IN THE NIGHT AND ELECTRICUTE YOUR BALLS).

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My balls got sucked down the side of the disabled lift

Yup, they really did.

Oh my god.

One of my balls got sucked down the side of the disabled lift.

Seriously.

You know how I was saying I was teaching last night? You know how I have (repeatedly) in the past had trouble with my (birth) balls? Well this incident really did take the biscuit (or should I say the ball) and surpassed all previous ball-centered insanity.

Ok here is my ball:




Here is what the disabled lift looks like (well roughly - I haven't actually photographed it - that WOULD be insane):



I crammed myself and all of my equipment into the lift and then pressed the button to go 'up'. It's one of those ones where you have to hold the button down in order to keep moving.

As we started to rise I heard a very strange creak and then a noise not unlike rubber being sucked into a mechanism...... HOLY F*CK - rubber WAS being sucked into the mechanism!!

My ball was squashed up against the wall of the building and as the lift rose it was being dragged down, down, down into the workings of the lift.

About the same time as my brain clocked what was happening, the lift stopped of its own volition.

The lift was stuck.

The ball was stuck.

I was stuck.

OK - logic was telling me to get the lift to go down slightly thus freeing the part of my ball that was being sucked so I pushed the 'down' button.

Nothing happened.

The lower part of the (glass) lift was still visible in the foyer and this clearly piqued the curiosity of the receptionist.

She came over and started a conversation with my feet.

'Are you Ok up there?'.

(Yeah - I'm having a flamin' BALL love - boom boom....).

'Erm the lift is stuck'.

'Stuck! Oh crikey! That's never happened before!'.

'No, no, it's my big ball, it's got sucked down the side of the lift'.

'You what?!'.

Now at this point I just started to laugh.

It was like I was looking down on myself and saying 'you really have become a parody of your own blog haven't you'. The sheer absurdness of the situation pushed me over into hysteria and I just couldn't stop laughing.

Around this time circa 70 German school children arrived in the foyer looking for dinner.

Everyone assembled and stared at my feet.

Everyone offered helpful advice (much of which was in German - German is not my strong point. I did get a GCSE in it but I must confess now to some minor cheating).

I'm sure many a postcard will be sent back to Deutscheland 'Ya, the hostel is lovely! The food is great! The weather is crazy! Mind you so is the lady living in the disabled lift with a large rubber ball, photographs of semi-naked women and a box of cakes.... These English! CRAZY!'.

I just laughed. I mean if you are going to spend part of your evening trapped in a disabled lift with a large ball you may as well laugh.

Eventually with some deft finger work (i.e. making the lift judder 'up/down/up/down/up/down - DOWN) I managed to pull my ball clear of the seam down which it had sunk and reach my destination.

Which is lucky really as I guess the next stop would have been the Fire Brigade? Now THAT I would have demanded photos of.....

Surely that has to be the last of it!?

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Hazards of the Job

Sorry for the lack of action this week - I have resumed getting my balls out on a Thursday evening (i.e. teaching people about birth and babies and becoming a parent - well at least its obvious from the start that I'm not expecting them to aim for perfection....) and the vast amounts of prep combined with two increasingly out of control children (is there something in the air at the moment! DEAR GOD.....I hope it is end of term hysteria or something else which fades soon because at this rate I'm going to lose my voice. And my sanity. Again.) have left me little opportunity to sit at the computer and procrastinate.

Take this morning for example - I have printing which needs doing for tonight and I can not do it at home because I DON'T HAVE A BLOODY PRINTER THAT WORKS.

We have several printers, SEVERAL, but none of them will actually print so much as a full stop. They are, of course, still in the house. This is a recognised hazard of living with a man who works in IT - if you do not keep a firm rein on them your house will rapidly start to resemble a branch of PCWorld - or more accurately a branch of PCWorld in a parallel universe where obsolete computer equipment crawls off to die.

Sometimes my OH does kindly print things off for me while he's at work but a short time ago I sent him some leaflets for printing which instructed women on how to massage their nether-regions in preparation for the birth (if they wanted to, I could never be arsed). The front page gives and intro on the topic and the rationale behind it.

The second page?

Erm, the second page contains a very clear diagram of EXACTLY which part of the lady's bits she should be massaging and just in case she's still not sure it's all clearly labelled - you know stuff like 'CLITORIS' AND 'VAGINAL OPENING'.

Only I had forgotten this.

And I got him to print out 8 copies on a communal printer in a male dominated office in a large corporate company........

Lets just say we are both still lucky he's employed.

So this morning I was reluctant to go back down that tortuous route so I took command of my own printing and took it to Staples. Much better.

Only it's not.

First you have to contend with Staple's staff (sorry if you or your loved ones work in Staples but seriously - are they on some kind of employee incentive scheme whereby you get paid more the ruder and more unhelpful you are to your customers?? You have to beg for their attention and/or help while they have conversations across the top of your head about who does the better sandwich - Subway or Greggs and just what they like to have in it. I DON'T GIVE A SH*T ABOUT YOUR SAUSAGE TORPEDO 'VS' YOUR CHICKEN MELT - JUST PRINT MY BLOODY WORK OUT - NOW!).

Then, to print stuff out in colour you have to accompany the employee to the computer screen and pick out what you want printing.....they then print it out and examine it carefully to make sure it looks good and then they bring it over. So, all in all, they look at what you are printing A LOT.

The first item the young guy brought up was part of a teaching aid to cover birth hormones and consisted of a large star with the immortal words:

STIMULATING HER NIPPLES CAN HELP TO PRODUCE THIS! emblazoned across it.

OH. DEAR. GAWD (it didn't say that bit - that's what I thought as the neon star and bold black writing filled the screen).

To be fair he didn't flinch but he did keep glancing at me oddly when he thought I wasn't looking.

Then there were my A3 posters to laminate. A3 posters of newborn babies. Lovely! Nothing to worry about there, surely?

Well no - they just label the usual things you see on newborn babies which can appear slightly alarming to the uninitiated.

Things like 'SWOLLEN RED TESTICLES!'.

Sigh.

By the time the guy had got to the pic which shows a woman with rather abundant pubic hair spread across his screen I'd told him I'd pick them up later and was just going to look round 'Pets at Home' next door.

But do you know the really odd thing? When I went to pay he whispered that he'd not charged me the £3 fee for 'accessing my files' and winked.

God knows what he thinks I do for a living but I'm loathe to see him again.

Now do I have any volunteers to print my next batch?

p.s. Note to self: ensure all teaching aids well hidden when potential purchashers view the house. We don't want a repeat of the other day.....

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A load of Balls

Today's discovery is that if you google 'post your balls' (why would anyone Google that?) the number one website that Google brings up is this blog.

Oh dear.

Of all the things I have dreamed of being (slightly) famous for - my balls are not one of them.

Quite apt though as I will be getting my balls out next Thursday for my next course.

A whole new crowd of expectant parents will be exposed to my deranged pumping and ball chaos.

Are they ready? Are you ready? Am I ready?

More important where are my balls? They have all been deflated and it's been a while since I've used them.

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How do you find me?

Well the answer to that, it appears, is many and varied.

I have a gizmo thing on here so that if people find this blog via a Google search I can see what they searched for.

Very interesting. And at times, erm, alarming.

You see the good news is that an increasing number of people find me by typing 'Slightly South of Sanity' - so clearly they wanted to actually find this blog - wooo hooo. Great news!

The bad news is that others were clearly looking for something all together different.

The most worrying case of the which is the person who typed in 'Moist Panties With Picture MARKED'.

Oh.

Dear.

Now, as I am sure you are aware there are NO pictures of moist panties on here, stained or otherwise (and I can assure you, there never will be) but there is a story about the dangers of spell check and the demise of my geography coursework which ended up filled with moist panties rather than moist tropical rain forests. I can only hope that the disappointed pervert went away and never looks back.

The most popular Google that leads to my blog actually appears to be along the lines of 'How to Make an Iggle Piggle Cake'. Once again - I can only disappoint. Yes there is an Iggle Piggle Cake or two on here and there is one I had a good laugh at but as far as actually tips go on making one - sorry - no go. Your barking up the wrong blog here my lovelies.

Running a close second is the rather worrying amount of people who search the Internet using the term 'Squat Pee Woman'. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.... May I suggest they refine their search criteria a little more? I may have made passing reference to the need for pelvic floor exercises when undergoing aerobic exercise but I do not provide photographs or graphic descriptions. Oh and to the poor lady who was googling 'Why do I pee my pants during my aerobics class?' - I think you need help and this blog may do many things - but it is not renowned for helping people regain the power of your pelvic floor.

There are various other strange ways that people have ended up here (looking for 'song about cherry cola' was one of them) but to those of you that have stayed - thank you.

Thank you for all your kind words, all your support and a special thanks to those who have 'spread the word' and encouraged others to join the insanity. It brings a glow to my heart when people say things to me like 'my mother in law reads your blog and shows it to all her friends!' (hopefully not for tips on moist panties though?).

Of course this blog isn't for everyone - far from it - and I have been made aware of a complaint from a gentleman who was 'horrified and disgusted to find mention of female urination, bowel movements and other matters which should NOT be discussed in a public way'.

Well what can I say? I wonder what he does if he accidentally walks down the Sanitary Towel aisle in Tescos? And as for all those TV adverts for Tena Lady, Tampax and Canesten Thrush cream..... Well the world's gone mad I tell you. This country has gone to the dogs ever since they let women take off their corsets and walk around with trousers on.....

Sorry but I live in a world where my children crap on the floor in front of TV Cable engineers, who then walk in on me on the toilet. I live in a world where my wig gets caught in the wheels of my pram and men on steroids have to get it out for me. I live in a world where I've been pushed down my road and past the pub wearing nothing but a wet bra and a coating of my own blood. If I didn't stop trying to keep up appearances I'd be back in the loony bin quicker than you can say 'wee wee'.

Oh and for a living I stand in front of mixed sex groups and say words like 'vagina', 'fanning open', 'intense pressure' and 'head' (for the record I'm an antenatal teacher - I don't work on a telephone sex chat line) and over the last few years I've had to undergo some pretty gruesome medical treatment and bare my soul to complete strangers.

So excuse me if I don't blush when I say PEE PEE.

Perhaps I need to put a warning along the top of this blog?

You know like you get on the back of DVDs these days? 'This blog contain mild language and scenes of peril which occasionally involve a woman's bodily functions. It also encompasses a scene where a (dead) pet rabbit is thrown down a railway embankment and the word BALLS is scattered through it rather too liberally. Oh and sometimes I mention passing wind. So if you don't want to see words like wee wee, LOOK AWAY NOW'.

Suggestions on a postcard.....

And speaking of postcards, I'm off on my holidays now - I'll be back next Sunday no doubt with vast amounts to tell you. Love you loads (apart from the moist panty weirdo - go back from where you came from and never darken this blog again - please).

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My Balls are Bothering Me (again)

Well you may recall the debacle between me and my balls (birth balls that is). Particularly the one that wouldn't stay firm however hard I pumped it.

My ball and I parted company and off it went to be replaced by the ball supplier.

And then?

Then - nothing. Zilch. Nadda.

I am ball-free and not loving it. My ball bag is empty.

So I braced myself and contacted the supplier.

Now my previous ball-orientated conversation with them was so cringe worthy that I chickened out and emailed. I explained the situation and how I was still waiting for my new improved balls to be delivered.

Their reply makes interesting reading:

Dear Madam,

Thank you for your email regarding your faulty balls.

I am afraid that we have no record or trace of your balls arriving at this office.

Could you please confirm how they were packaged and whether or not your name was clearly printed on them,

Thank you,

Angela

My reply reads:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your email regarding my missing balls.

They were posted back to you in a sack - a black bin bag to be precise. I know this isn't ideal but due to their size there was nothing else to hand which could contain them. They were securely wrapped in duct tape so should not have broken free.

My full name and address were clearly attached. They were clearly mine.

I suppose it is possible that the packaging may have caused confusion and someone has mistaken my balls for rubbish and thrown them out? Maybe you could ask around the office to see if any staff recall having contact with them.

I look forward to your reply - I have proof of postage and I need them back A.S.A.P as I will need to use them soon.

Thanks,

xxx

I will let you know what Angela and her colleagues have to say about that...

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Your Balls are in the Post

You may recall that one of my balls was giving me trouble.

However hard I pumped it it just wouldn't stay hard. 10 minutes or so into bouncing on it and I'd be several inches closer to the ground - and a baggy ball is good for nothing and no-one.

I couldn't see any holes in it so I figured it must have a leaky valve.

Considering it was not cheap (it was a superior deluxe double-skinned professional one - designed not to explode on impact and send pregnant women zooming through space) and was barely used, I decided I should contact the company who sold it to me and report the fault.

This was a difficult conversation:

Me: Hi, it's about one of your balls.

Them: Sorry??

Me: Sorry, that didn't sound quite right! I mean I bought a ball off you and I've barely used it but, well there is no other way of saying this, however hard I inflate it it just won't stay hard - teee heee teee heee (pathetic nervous laughter).

Them: (total deadpan) What do you mean?

Me: Well I blow it up and then, within, minutes it's not hard. It's softish. Sort of a bit baggy.

Them: So there's a hole in it?

Me: No, well I don't think so. It's not going really soft - it's just not like to should be. It's sort of shrunken.

Them: Your ball is shrunken? Can you hear anything?

Me: WHAT??

Them: From your ball. Can you hear a noise? A whistling?

Me: Erm, no. My ball is not whistling.

Them: Well it can't have a hole then.

Me: Erm, well something is wrong with it. It's not normal. I've seen other people's and they aren't like this. I thought it could be the valve?

Them: Have you put the valve in?

Me: Erm, YES!

Them: Is it in properly?

Me: Well yes, I mean it's stuck in the right hole. Fully in.

Them: Well I think you need to get someone else to look at it - one of the other teachers. Compare your ball with theirs and see if your plug is in properly.

Me: Sorry - I do have previous experience of working with balls. I'm confident it's not an error on my part.

Them: (sigh - big sigh) Hang on then.

Them: (to the other woman in the office having put the phone down on the desk - so I'm not even on hold) I've got a woman complaining about a ball. Says it isn't up the job, reckons it's the valve. What you do you think? We've never had a faulty ball before have we? Sounds unlikely. No it's not burst - just too soft for her purposes. Apparently.

Them: (back to me) Are you sure you haven't stuck anything sharp in it?

(What kind of question is that? Does she think I get some kind of thrill out of delibrately damaging balls and then trying to return them to their original owner!? The Phantom Ball Burster at large).

Me: No! Look I've only pumped it up a couple of times. It's ALWAYS been like this.

Them: Are you expecting too much do you think?

Me: No. I can assure you my expectations of my ball are entirely realistic.

Them: (very big sigh) Just send it back then. We'll exchange it.


So it's gone. I deflated it fully first (I wouldn't have liked to see the postman struggling up the path with that in his arms) which was fun as I've lost the pipe for the pump. I had to wrap my arms around the ball and sort of bounce it against the walls making loud 'oommph' 'ouf' noises to squeeze every last bit of air out.

I waited until I was alone - I didn't want the kids to have the sight of me bouncing against a wall making groaning sounds as a first memory..

I put it in a bin bag, sent it off recorded delivery and I shall wait and see what the postman brings. Whatch this space....

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Taking my Balls Out

I took one of my balls on a day trip yesterday.

To Salisbury and back. That's a round trip of just over 4 hours just in case you're taking notes.

I didn't mean to (that really would be nuts) - it's just that after a morning of howling, crying, sobbing and tantruming (and that was just me - I think my least dignified moment was sprinting down the high-street with the pram, chasing the silhouette of my OH, shouting 'DON'T GO INTO TESCO! I'VE GOT NAPPIES.'), I threw myself into the car and onto the M25 with such vigour that I'd pretty much reached Heathrow before I noticed that I wasn't alone.

There was a very large blue ball sitting in the passenger seat and banging on the dashboard every time I braked.

It looked rather odd, but not as odd as the inflatable men you can buy to put in the passenger seat of your car.

I kid you not.

Apparently they are supposed to deter wannabee car-jackers/attackers. You plug them into the cigarette lighter and they inflate and 'accompany' you on your travels. I'm sure any gun-toting maniac high on crack would be petrified of, what is clearly, an utterly shite blow up doll.

See here:



Hmm, the most disturbing thing about that picture is not, in fact, how utterly ridiculous the whole concept is, but that the woman driving looks uncannily like my 'special pasta' sister-in-law.

I must get the wedding photos back out. Perhaps she actually married an inflatable..... That would go some way to explaining things.

Anyhow, I didn't have a 'man' - I just had a great big ball. I didn't talk to the ball or expect it to save me from situations of peril but I did smell it.

Yup, as the temperature in the car rose and the ball bounced against the heating vents, it became apparent that my balls are scented.

Seriously.

A sort of sickly sweet fake-Vanilla scent.

I find this reasonably interesting.

They are actually proper gym balls - normally used by physios or personal trainers for 'core stability' training. Perhaps such heavy use by multiple indivduals leads to problems with sweaty balls - thus the need for the scenting?

Perhaps someone out there with more ball experience than me will be able to enlighten me? I'm looking forward to comparing notes....

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Balls of a Meaty Nature

Oh yes - another post about balls. But meatballs this time.

Let me explain.

I get quite a few comments about this blog from women who have young/youngish children and they are usually along the lines of 'you make us feel normal' or 'you make us feel better' (I kind of take this as 'how ever much of a pig's ear we think we are making of it, hey, it's nothing like the chaos of your life, phew!') or 'it's so reassuring, you know, to hear I'm not the only one!'.

I sometimes wonder why other mother's don't realise that everyone is making it up as they go along and however organised and fastidious they are (and I'm neither of those things) having kids means that, sometimes, things will just turn to custard. However hard you to try to control it - chaos will sometimes just erupt out of nowhere and that is just the way it is. These days there is a ridiculous amount of pressure to do it all 'perfectly'. To feed your kids the perfect diet, to manage their behaviour in a way that ticks every box in the latest 'must-have' parenting book, to stimulate them in an educational way for hours everday. I look back at the way it was back in the 70's (when I was born) and we all seemed to run around the garden naked swigging Ribena and eating Custard Creams - occasionally popping inside to be hypnotised by children's TV programmes written by people who had taken too much Acid (or maybe that was just my childhood?). My mum would find one thing we'd eat and give it to us EVERY day for tea, until the sight of it made us vomit - and her idea of a successful day was getting to 6pm without opening the wine. Anyway - it wasn't bad! My mum was a very good mum!

Sometimes we try too hard and you know what, sometimes it's just not worth it.

To illustrate this point lets take today:

Today I decided to give my children meatballs for lunch. Now if you are going to give a child meatballs for lunch you have 3 main choices:

1. Go to Ikea.

2. Go to the supermarket, buy a packet of meatballs (you can buy organic ones made from happy-cows if you so wish), put the oven on, put meatballs in oven, take them out and put them on a plate, serve them, children eat them happily, the end.

or

3. Have an attack of the guilts that everybody else's child has a better diet than yours and you are slovenly wreck of a slut (in the old fashioned sense of the word) too busy blogging, laughing at their neighbour's getting humped by large dogs and opening the eyes of Virgin Engineers to whole new worlds...... Thus you decide to make meatballs and save your children from whatever fate awaits children who don't get homemade meatballs (I'm not sure what this, but no doubt The Daily Mail will think of something).

Making meatballs is not hard. Unless you have two very lively children under the age of 5 who take advantage of you being up to your elbows in raw meat and milk the opportunity for all it is worth.

It goes something like this:

First you have to get the mince and crush it all up in your hands to mush it up and make it pliable. I hate doing this - it makes me feel sick. See how I suffer for my kids?

Then you have to shape your balls. Mine kept turning out too big so I kept having to chop them in half and redo them (nobody wants a plateful of mammoth balls they can't get in their mouth).

Whilst doing this, you realise the baby has gone very quiet so turn around and see he's given up waiting for balls and has managed to open the freezer door and is busily scooping out the icy snow like substance that is filling most of the top shelf (does this mean it needs defrosting? When am I supposed to do that?) into his mouth. 'Arrrrghhhh' you groan and push him away with your foot (remember - you can't use your hands - they are coated in raw flesh). 'Waaaaaaaa' he cries - furious that he won't get to experience the delights of frostbite first hand.

He then spots the bananas in the fruit bowl. 'NANA NANA NANA' he starts up. 'NO' you say - all strict-mother-who-will-follow-through-with-her-promises. 'You will have to wait'. 'NANA NANAAAAAAAA' he yells. 'I said NO' you say. He starts to scream - like a sort of roaring war cry. You can not listen to that - not for another second - so you carefully wash your hands and peel him a bloody banana.

He goes off into the front room with it (no doubt to grind it into the carpet or insert into the DVD player).

You go back to ball shaping.

2 minutes later you hear Son No. 1 telling the baby: 'Look what you need to do to get more power in the TV is get this cable with the metal bit sticking out of the end and stick it in HERE - look like THIS!'.

The 'oh my god the kid's are going to kills themselves' radar picks up and you run into the living room, leaving a trail of raw meat sprinkles behind you, to see that Son No. 1 has found some random cable behind the TV (I think it's a sort of aerial from the pre-cable television days) and is carefully trying to insert it into a small hole on the front of TV.

I have no idea why he decided this was a good idea. I mean the kid is safety mad. His favourite bedtime story is Network Rail's pamphlet about safety around railways - particularly the section on the dangers of electrocution and being killed by cables.

Anyway, you find yourself screaming NOOOOOO and meaty-hands and all throwing yourself across the cable/child/baby/TV and making the children cry.

A strict talking to later, you are back at the balls.

1 minute later: 'mummy I need a wee - NOW!'.

'Well off you go then!'.

'No - I can't do it, it's too near the end of my willy, you have to help me!'.

'I can't help you, I'm covered in raw meat! Do you hear me RAW MEAT! GERMS!'.

'But I can't do it - my arms are too tired'.

'WELL I CAN'T HELP YOU - GO AND DO A WEE BY YOURSELF OR YOU WILL NEVER WATCH TELEVISION AGAIN'.

'But why?'.

'RAW MEAT. GERMS. RAW MEAT. DON'T ASK ME AGAIN. JUST GO FOR A WEE - NOW!'.

'Sigh'.

Off he goes upstairs.

10 seconds later he lets rip a hideous cry:

'MUMMY! THE END OF MY WILLY'S GONE BLACK'.

You run upstairs, fast.

It turns out that he didn't have gangrene - he had new dark grey pants on and the colour and some dark fluff had transferred itself onto his genitals. So you are back to washing your hands, again and dealing with the 'problem'.....and then back to shaping your balls.

About an hour later the balls are finally on the table.

And do you think they are greeted with cries of 'oh mummy, you are the greatest! Thank you SO much for your amazing efforts you have put in. We SO appreciate it!'.

No.

They are greeted with cries of 'Oh mummy, why aren't these balls like the ones in Ikea? I don't like them!'.

Can you hear me screaming!?

Annabel Bloody Karmel never says anything in her books about cooking whilst dealing with babies in freezers, potential electrocution and black willies.

Do you feel better now? ;)

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One of my Balls is Sick

It is with great gladness, sorry, sadness, that I inform you that one of my balls appears to be sick.

He has a slow puncture and I'm having to pump him very hard and very regularly in order to keep him fully inflated.

I know many of you have enjoyed hearing about my balls so I will keep you updated. Worst case scenario - he may explode. Which is what happened to another ball I had which got too hot in the sun.

No flowers please - but donations of wine and chocolate gratefully appreciated.

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My balls are still causing me trouble

After last week's debacle, I took my balls out fully pumped this week. I crushed them into the car and set off on my long and dangerous journey to my final destination..... a destination which is all of 200 yard away but requires negotiating a level crossing.

I'll give you a tip - if you are crossing a railway line, along which very fast trains regularly thunder, DO NOT under any circumstances, let your balls interfere with your gear stick. There was a somewhat tricky moment. A moment where time (very briefly) stopped and I battled against the balls and (thankfully) won.

As I (with more than a relieved sigh) got back into gear and cleared the level crossing, it suddenly hit me that had everything ended in a horrible crunch of metal, I probably would have had a few problems filling in the insurance forms (that is of course presuming that I'd managed to open the car door and flee the scene).

I can imagine it now:

Man at Esure: 'So could you explain madam, just why you stalled whilst abreast the railway?'
Me: 'Well it was my balls....'
Man at Esure: 'Sorry?'
Me: 'My balls, they interfered with everything'.
Man at Esure: 'Interfered with what?'
Me: 'I didn't realise how much room they took up. I underestimated. When it came to it I just couldn't get my gearstick back in the right slot'.
Man at Esure: 'Could you just confirm your name again? And your address....'.
Me: 'I kept trying to slam it in but they just kept bouncing of it.....'

OK OK I'll stop there. I'm supposed to be writing a blog, not a script for 'Carry on at the Crossing', but needless to say, I am slightly nervous about taking them out again. Suggestion on a postcard please. I'm currently toying with the idea of netting them and tying them to the roof. Or stabbing them....with a very sharp knife.....

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Balls

Birth balls to be precise.

You know - the big bouncy exercise balls that people are supposed to either 'stabilise their core muscles' on, or bounce about on in early labour. I have a feeling 98% of these balls lie, forgotten and unloved, in the back of people's wardrobes. The other 2% reside in my house where they get in every body's way and are used by small boys to replicate boulder avalanches and bowl over small babies.......

Anyway I took my balls on an outing on Thursday night and I learnt a thing or two about taking balls out (just in case you ever fancy it as an activity - you know rather than what normal people do on a Thursday night, like watch Eastenders or go to the pub).

1. Inflate them before you go. Seriously - do. Pumping them up is hard work and very undignified. You really don't want anybody (especially anybody meeting you for the first time) to walk in and find you bent over and sweaty, pumping your right hand up and down very fast while you grunt slightly and mutter 'come on, just come on'......

2. When you leave your venue (and decide you will leave your balls inflated to avoid the chance of being caught in a potentially compromising position ever again) DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT prise all the balls into the Disabled lift and then cram yourself in next to them. You will then ride the lift down to lowest floor (one of those ones where you have to hold the button down to make it move) and find that the door that opens once you reach your destination is actually the one on the other side of the lift and you need to push it, hard, to open it. And you can't even reach it, let alone push it, because you are jammed into the lift with a load of inflatable balls - a bit like a toy in one of those grabby-arm machines you get at the seaside. You call for assistance but there is nobody in reception..... In the end in, out of sheer desperation, you put a LOT of pressure on your balls and they suddenly burst forth from the lift, rolling around like a load of out of control giant ball bearings and the sudden release of pressure sends you crashing to floor. This of course will be right at the moment that the receptionist comes back to her post.......

Bloody balls.

p.s. I was trying to find a suitable image to go with this post but gave up after googling 'squashed balls'.....

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