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

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

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

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

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

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

Or beak of nature presumably. 

And what happened then people? We will never know.  

Gulp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

Scarred for life I presume.

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

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The Ladybird Assassins

Apart from the health aspects and increased general risk of dying, I really don't know why people worry so much about getting older.  If you are lucky enough to keep your health and mobility (and I know many don't) then I've noticed it's actually very liberating. 

I keep meeting women over 50 who are just, well, loving it.  They are freer, wilder - have a little sparkle in their eyes.  

OK I am scared about my potential menopause (lets face it - me and hormonal drops don't mix.  Current evidence has it that they result in me going 'proper batshit crazy' as I'm sure the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn't phrase it....) but that aside I'm looking forward to being able to get away with ever more random and outrageous behaviour without anyone so much as rolling an eyeball.  

I have had plenty of evidence of this in recent times.

A couple of weeks ago  a friend and I met in a sophisticated 'bar restuarant' for 'absolutley two glasses of wine as we both could NOT get drunk or risk hangovers'. You know how this ends don't you? The night of course peaked with me shouting into the ear of a terrified looking DJ potentially young enough to be son that he wasn't doing a good enough job and if he gave me the decks I'd  'take the roof off' (more like create an electrocution incident and plunge the club into silence) before going home and cooking an entire bag of Quorn sausages.  Naked.  I know I was naked because the next morning I found all my clothes folded up in a pile next to the frying pan.   I can only fathom the thinking behind this was 'time saving' and I decided to get naked whilst cooking meat-free sausages.  I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that but hey it could have been worse. I could have tried to put the bins out. 

Anyway, whilst we were behaving like, erm, fools and having a lovely time we couldn't help notice that many of the young 'uns weren't.  In a pub with live music all the hipsters were sitting around looking serious or at the most nodding, while we leapt around and errr, had a good time.   In another bar young couples sat silently picking wax off candle holders (why waste the money on drinks? I wanted to shout at them 'for god's sake just go home and have sex - NOW - before you have to get up 5 times a night to clean up wee and answer questions about black holes and potential hauntings) while me and my friend laughed until we had mascara running down our respected cleavages.  

I for one am glad I'm not a 20-something again.   It's was all so, well, complicated.    

The next set of evidence for 'Life After 50' is my mum. And her friends.  They are frankly bonkers.  But in a way that you can't help admire. 

Take this genuine conversation my mum and her friend (who we shall call Pam for reasons for not wanting to name her) had today.

Phone rings....

My mum says the following: 

Hello

Oh Pam, hello

(Big Gasp)

13 spots you say? 

Hmm

13? 

I'm not sure 

I don't know. I thought the spots were more hexagonal in that case? 

Will you!

How are you going  to do that? 

(Another gasp)

Well yes, Google it first. 

To be safe, yes. 

Call me when you know. 

Oh dear. 

In France you say? 

Unfortunate 

Mum gets off phone. What's going on I ask (fearing Pam has perhaps caught some kind of rare venereal disease whilst in a tent in Brittany).

Well she says, you're not going to believe this but Pam has found a ladybird.  In her conservatory.  And it's got 13 spots! THIRTEEN!  Anyway we fear it's one of those new ones - the intruders - the Harlequins. Well of course if it is a Harlequin then Pam will need to kill it.  But she's struggling with the concept. We decided if it needs to be done she's going to wrap it in toilet paper and flush it down the loo.  So she's not actually having to kill it. Just cause it's demise, so to speak.  Anyway she's off to fire up the computer now and she's going to use Google to suss out whether or not it needs exterminating.  But it will take a while as her connection isn't very good so we shall have to wait and see. I'll update you later! 

Me: Riiiiiiight (befuddled glaze). Anything else? 

Mum: Oh yes - her daughter in law's Grandmother died.  The funeral is in France.  Unfortunate.  

I reach for my 14th cup of tea and ponder life the universe and my mum.  

Later I got home and Googled 13 spot ladybird myself and guess what? They are some ultra rare finding thought extinct, a small colony of which was found in Devon last year after 50 years of being extinct.... Great moment in the history of ecology and all that.  

Shit. 

I've called my mum but nobody is in.  I'm now panicking she's over at Pam's reading Last Right's over the toilet and flushing away an important biological specimen.  I've left a message on her answer machine telling her she could potentially have been involved in the extermination of the insect equivalent of the Sabre Tooth Tiger but she hasn't called back yet.  

So we shall just have to wait and see.

See - being over 50 - a whole new kind of fun........

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Of God and Elephants

So it's Parent's Evening time again!

Yipee (said through gritted teeth).

The verdict on Second Son (officially 'the youngest child in the school') is that he's err young (funny that!) and 'as I am sure you are aware, ho ho, filled with devilment'.

Well, I can't argue with that.  And neither can the cats, the neighbours, his brother, his father, my mum's dog and just about anything else with a heartbeat that's ever met him.  He woke me up the other morning by informing me that jellyfish were about to attack so he needed some vinegar NOW for their stings 'GET IT NOW MUMMY!' and then proceeded to hold a cat hostage with a plastic T-Rex, refusing to release it until it uttered the password 'WHAT IS MIAOW!'.  He keeps hiding his coat at school so they can't put him in it and if someone annoys him he pushes them into a bush.  He's the kind of child who, once upon a time, slightly horrified me.  I was going to be the mother who spent time reading Ladybird books, painting Beatrix Potter clay animals and going pony riding. If I had a girl I was going to buy her one of those beautiful wool coats with the velvet collars you always see young Royals wearing on Christmas Day  Ha! Who was I kidding.  Nobody would have actually sent a child like that to live with me.  They were going to send me a child who runs around with no pants on covered in neon marker pen whilst pogoing off the furniture screeching and trying to lasso cats.

And they were also going to send me his brother.  You know, just in case I wanted to spend eons of time discussing freight transit and whether or not it would be possible to drive to 'Crick' (which is apparently in Northamptonshire and home to a large Eddie Stobart lorry depot) after school (to which the answer is a clear and emotionally devestating - NO).  

Original Son, when he's not dreaming of Crick, has produced some marvelous paintings of telegraph poles stretching off into the distance and has informed the class and his teachers that whilst they all might wish for an x-box, pony, Chelsea strip or trip to Disneyland he likes 'wires - just wires'.    My brother wants to take him to Vegas to read the cards.  I think we'd better take the younger one too just in case we need some muscle......

Anyway - the best bit of Parent's Evening is the bit where you get to look at their books and see what they actually do in all those hours trapped in the classroom.  

One time I was treated to a graphic drawing of Snow White's corpse in the 'gLas cofin'.  This time crazy arse second child had drawn a bat, eating a mouse, standing on a dead bat.  I'm not sure of the exact symbolisim here but I'm guess it has something to do with being top of the food train and anevolutionary superior.  I asked his teacher.  She was a clueless as I was.  No they hadn't been studying bats.  Or mice.  Or dead things.  Hmmm.

However it is Original Son's workbooks where the real gems lie.

My particurlary favourite was his RE book.  

On the double page spread where they were meant to write their interpretation of Christianity he had drawn a gravestone and merely written:

'Jesus is dead'

Beneath this the teacher had written......

'This is a a good start'.

Nothing else had ever been written and they'd moved on to Islam.

I'm guessing we're still awaiting the resurrection then?  Maybe he should have stayed til the end of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Even better was the page entitled 'Belief Systems'.

They'd had to draw a spider-gram and in the middle he had written:

I Believe In.....

Around this were his beliefs:

Father Christmas
The tooth fairy
The Easter Bunny
Elves
Pixies
Fairies
God
Elephants

Now THAT is a religion I might just sign up to!

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Octo-Pants

So I get back from Asda today, with a box of cat food under one arm, 24 plastic clothes hangers squashed up against my torso and enough Hula Hoops to feed an army and stumble over the post on my door mat. 

The post consists of the local free paper - you know the sort of paper that doesn't even have any news in it - just a bit of vague information about some local police advice for idiots like 'Police Warn: Lock your car at night' or 'ALERT! Don't go on  holiday and leave your door open!' and then 324 adverts for massage parlours - like 'busty housewives Linda and Marie will help you unwind with a massage: have own shower' (which always makes me think as opposed to what? Having to knock on the neighbours and ask if you can borrow theirs because Linda went slightly OTT with the lube and you've got to go to your mothers for dinner?), some bank statements (which go in the pile 'of things I might open when I grow up) and a woman's clothing catalogue for a very upmarket 'chic' brand of clothing that contains phrases like 'urban style' and 'sport luxe'. I have never bought anything from it.  Obviously.  

Add a  'sport luxe' twist to any outfit it exclaims.   Really? As far as I'm concerned 'sport luxe' means wearing  matching socks that aren't those fluffy neon pink ones to the gym  And a top which isn't actually part of your pyjamas.......

Plus I hate the word 'luxe'.  Bleurgh.  

Then there are the outfits which 'take you from day to evening'.   The picture shows a beautifully cut figure hugging pencil dress which you can wear all day and then, once you've slicked on some lipstick and a higher pair of heels you can dash down to the latest bar/theatre/very swanky thing with all the other beautiful people that don't just want to go home, have a nice hot shower and watch Masterchef.    

I can't help reflecting that the only 'day to evening' outfit that would work for me would be a large fluffy dressing gown. And that would mean a day lolling about and not doing anything and how marvellous that would be.   If someone sent me catalogue which showed women reading a book under 4 layers of luxury ultra-soft velour with several cups of  tea at hand and a large bag of tortilla chips - yeah baby - that's selling me the DREAM.  

Because to be frank, much as I love clothes and all that stuff (and coats, especially coats, oh my god how much do I love coats? I couldn't live in a hot country because I'd actually be bereaved by the lack of coat wearing) with all the plate spinning that goes on round here I sometimes struggle to get myself dressed properly at all. 

Take yesterday.

I woke up and found I had no pants.  Now I own a LOT of pants - I don't know why, I just do.  But they were ALL in the wash.   I'd really gone to the very bottom of the draw.  Even the pair the same colour as a prosthetic limb - worn and gone.  And the pair with barely any elastic.  And the strange felty pair left from University (wow - those there pants are OLD).  And the the ones which feature some weird gold bell that reminds me of those Lindt Easter Bunnies and make me worry that every time I go to the loo I'll jingle all the way.  Gone all worn and gone.  Apart from the 'very last pair'.

Gulp.

The 'very last pair' had never been worn. 

There was a reason for this (actually, having spent a day in them, there was several....).

They came as part of a  set where I wanted the top half but had no need for the bottoms.  They have a lot of sort of excess ruffles round the waist (handy for hiding that paunch!) and then from each corner of your body  2 long straps with bows on that you (theoretically) can attached stockings too.   I was not attaching stockings to them.  I was trying to stuff them under my work trousers. With great difficulty.    

Every time I went to the toilet I looked down at my 8 swinging appendages and felt like some sort of giant squid.   

I really did pray that, more so that usual,  I didn't get hit by a car/collapse/etc because had anybody, for any reason, had to take my trousers off they would have probably called the Psych team because, lets face it - wearing all those ruffles and a plethora of bowed suspenders under a pair of utility work trousers teamed with fluffy ankle socks and special boots you can stand up in for 12 hours is not, erm, normal.   

And of course they chafed.  Oh boy did they chafe.   I think they were 'car to bar' pants - not 'lets walk several miles' ones. 

Sigh.  

Half-way through the day a colleague pointed out she really liked my top.  'Thanks!' I said, feeling slightly better about the state of my wardrobe.  'But what's that?' she asked leaning forward to touch something on my waistband.

Oh my god I panicked - one of my ruffles must have escaped! I felt heat rush to my face.  

Busted! Busted in the befrilled Octo-pants. 

'Oh'  she said 'Oh! How funny! It's your care label - errr you've got your top on inside out!'.  

Is that all I sighed with relief.  

It's not wrong you see - it's 'boho dishevelled day to evening luxe'.   Come 5pm you can turn your top the right way out, clip your stockings on and go home to, err, cook fish fingers and waffles. 

Obviously.  

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The Inspector Called...

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

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

Simple. 

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

Sigh.

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

ARRRGGHHH.

So I'm blogging. 

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

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

Let me summarise the farce of the first session: 

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

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

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

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

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

This is the way in

This is the way out

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the items is a hot water bottle.   

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

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

 It's a..........

 banana!

Yup.  

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

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

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

Silver linings folks, silver linings.....

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An Inspector Calls

Well HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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

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

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

But no. 

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

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

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

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

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

'Dear Inspector, 

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

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

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

No. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tubs. 

Tubs? 

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

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

Yours, 

Cocky

I mean Bucky

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

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Decks the Hall with Boughs of Sorrow

Well that's that over and done with.

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

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

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

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

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

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