The Dying Days

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

August - the month of dying.

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

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

Well, once upon a time it was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

'Your hilarious!' he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it's OK.

I'm almost out of August.

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

But that must change.

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

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

xxx

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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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The Voices

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

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

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

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

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

Stunned silence.

'What?'.

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

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

'Well stranger things have happened'.

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

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

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

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

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

Glancing around me I saw no one.

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

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

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

I shudder of alarm ran through me.

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

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

Shit.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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Beaver Feaver

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

Seriously.

They call it 'The Colony'.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh dear god. A wanton mini-Beaver.

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoosh.

Down they came.

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

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

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

Very clever.

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

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

Oh god no!

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

From one unspeakable sight to another.

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

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

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

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

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Take a Walk on the Wild Side

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

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

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

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

'Mum where are the children?'.

'Oh upstairs I think'.

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

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

'Oh'.

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

'Oh'.

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

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

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

Ah.

'Mummy this bloody truck is stuck again'.

etc etc.

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

Busted.

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

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

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

To die.

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

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

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

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

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

'Grandma, is it dead?'.

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

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

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

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

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

'Waaaaa - I want my box back!'.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


Relate lady: 'Sorry?'.


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

(Small kerfuffle)

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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Put phone down.


Put pizza in.


Phone rings.

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

But no.

'Hello EX-BEST FRIEND!'.

'Oh, hello Badger Girl!'

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

'Ah'.

'Yes. Ah'.

'Eeeee'.

'Yes. Eeeee'.

'You found my blog then?'.

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

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

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

'Errr. Yeah. Probably'.

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

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

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

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

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

'Riiiighhht'.

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

'Riiiggghtt'.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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You Gotta Roll with It....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9.30pm - ah here comes some aspagarus.

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

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

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

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

11.55pm - go to bed.

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

12.05am - decide I must sleep.

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

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

It hasn't been like this for months.

Why now?

Why here?

Why me?

Why us?

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Somewhere round 2.15am fall asleep.

Somewhere round 2.30am a child falls out of bed.

Somewhere round 3am fall asleep.

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

Somewhere around 4am fall asleep again.

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

WAAAA indeed.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9.55am - I need a wee. Badly.

10am - I need a wee REALLY badly.

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

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

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

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

10.10am - cold.

10.15am - colder.

10.30am - frozen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, please this time, with more sleep.

And no Alan Titchmarsh.

Night night.

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