Strange Love

Sorry slacking again.....but all is good so let's get on with it. 

We haven't talked about Badger Girl for a while so lets.  For once lets not talk about me.  Badger Girl is alive and well but no longer selling kinky ladybird outfits or asking me to sell glo-sticks dressed in a tutu and thong.  No. Although she is currently trying to claim she had a surfeit of dead/dying badgers inhabiting her property. Seriously. 

She's now, mainly, teaching young people to handle stallions (or something).  She's back in the arena with a whip and her boots on and her hair extensions under a riding hat and, it appears, for this new job she requires a character reference.....

So who she's gonna ask? 

Me. 

Well the first thing that shocked me, other than the fact she asked ME, was that, when I sat down and figured it out she's been part of my life for 22 years. TWENTY TWO.  Gulp.  That makes me feel like I should actually be a grown up.   

And then? Well the temptation was to run free and tell the whole story but you know, not many future employers are ready to hear that, so I just told them the bits that make her a fab employee. The fact she's the most hardworking person I ever met.  The fact she's got a great sense of humour, she's trustworthy, she never judges people, she can get on with anyone and she's honest.  Hell I trusted her to mind my children when I went to funeral.  I think she took them out in the dark to help her catch dangerous unbroken ponies before feeding them sweets and putting on Scooby Doo - but hell the kids loved it and are used to being cared for by my mother (latest update: 'Mummy - grandma has been teaching us about doing scratchcards!'..... oh hell how far have we fallen now?!) so it was a step up. But you know, there is an unwritten character reference itching to get out....so here it is..... Badger Girl this one's for you.....may we still be calling havoc in the Sunset Retirement Home....

"To Whom it May Concern, 

I have known Badger Girl for 22 years.  Yes TWENTY TWO YEARS.  I must need help because looking back our relationship has looked something like this.... 

It started innocently enough on the back of some ponies but it wasn't long before she'd got me carrying her cigarettes so her mum wouldn't catch her, put me in a shopping trolley at the carnival and let it go down a rather steep hill. In front of the police.   I should have known to get out of the relationship right then but something made me stay (fear?).

This was a mistake because not long after she informed me she had a box of hair dye and needed to use it. On me.  I was adamant this was a NO but somehow she bullied me into 'just 10 minutes'. Several hours later my sobs of protest (and her cackling witch-like laughter) brought her mother to the table and she was ordered to stop before my entire scalp getting burnt off and wash it out. Which she did.  With milk.  She lived on a dairy farm.  There was plenty of milk around.  Warm milk.

On our relationship went.  Memorable moments include her putting me on a trailer and revving a quad bike up so I resembled a swamp creature and throwing me onto the back of an (unsaddled) horse so I flew straight off the other side and landed arse first on a breeze block.   Oh how her laughter still rattles through my brain.  

Then, for some reason, I asked her to be my one and only bridesmaid.  This meant she organised my hen do.   Her first move was to take me, her, my mum and her mum to a comedy club.  The first joke was about epileptics giving blow jobs.  My mum worked her entire live with the disabled. Unfazed by oral sex she was rather cross that people were making jokes at the expense of those with serious health problems.    

Gulp.  

Or maybe she'd rather not swallow.

Several hours of 'oh my god my MUM can't sit next to me hearing this' later we escaped and the next day she took me raft building on Exmoor.  In November.  The water temperate was so cold we weren't allowed to build rafts as if we fell in it would kill us.  Potentially. So they put us in canoes instead with inflatable crocodiles.  Go figure.  We got very wet and nearly died.    Then we raced quad bikes. Then we went to a very bad nightclub in Exeter where I got mistaken for a Transvestite and asked to leave the ladies toilets. We then got in a taxi and the driver asked if I was on my stag do.  Nope - you really couldn't make it up.  

She's stuck with me through all my dramas.  I can be sat there saying 'oh my god, I don't know how to go on, I mean you know, it's all too much....' and she'll say 'shift it Stickhead, I need you to tell me if this badger is dead or not'. 

And if fact it was her that christened me Stickhead. A name so well known down here I once had a cheque written to 'Stickhead'.   I couldn't cash it.  Sadly.

She collects ponies like shoes and she has a million kittens that get born in her sock draw and piss all over her floors.  She's the only person that can keep up with my tea intake.  She's not been seen without copious fake tan on since about 1999.  Like me she will die with mascara on.   She's recently tried to give up smoking.  When I asked her how long she'd lasted after her counselling session she looked chuffed and told me '4 hours. But then it got stressful. And anyway, I was in the vets the other day and there was a Labrador in there which had eaten 24 packs of Nicorette gum and was REALLY ill. Which just proves all that stuff is bad for you.....'.  

She's the only person who has nearly got me killed in a mosh pit.  In a poncho.  She's scared of nothing yet she's terrified of stiff badgers.  I had to teach her how to text and even now it's easier to write her a letter.  

There are some people who never have a friend like Badger Girl and you know what, despite the bruises, the ruined hair, the laughter at my expense, the fact she nearly killed me several times, the fact she's the only living person still drinking Snowballs and has a corner bath which used to hold ducklings - before Rod the Emu came to live with her (don't ask what happened to Rod - DON'T), the fact there is an actual real 'beast' (like a panther or something) living on her farm and she once paid me to spend a night painting the torsos of teenage boys with luminous body paint - I bloody love her.  And if you're lucky enough to have her in your workforce just hang on and go with the ride.....

Yours - forever Stickhead"

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It's been a long time coming but I know a change is gonna come...

Well I've been getting complaints.

Complaints that I'm not blogging often enough.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Although I'm also very flattered and love ya all.  Well maybe not ALL of you - maybe not the man who formally complained about me talking about female urination or the guy who pumps his testicles up on the family work-top - but most of the rest of you - you rock.

Anyway, I  am alive and kicking and back with you all and have a long series of posts lined up (in my head, got to commit them to cyber space yet) so I shall be coming on strong in the next month and keeping you (hopefully) semi-fulfilled.  

The reasons for my absence are, for once, not disaster filled.    Nope - for once my life is filled with a sense of Golden Wonder (as in hope - rather than deep fried potatoes) - and some VERY GOOD THINGS have happened.   And they don't even involve cider.  But they are things I can't really blog (much) about.  Much as I am very open about ME on here, I am very guarded when it comes to other people.  I also can't blog about professional stuff AND I can't blog about anything which I wouldn't be fine with my (one day grown up-ish) children reading.  They never gave informed consent for me writing this.  Hell - they never gave informed consent to be my children.... but that's what they're stuck with.   I don't mind them reading about me accidentally overdosing on dog hormone tablets or weeing in the turn up of my jeans or that they once stranded their Nana on her stair lift with a Lego booby trap or that cockerels can and do have homosexual leanings and naming them after religious icons doesn't send you straight to hell...... but, well something's are private.

Last time I posted here my phone had just been stolen but with every loss comes a gain and the weird gain I got from a boyfriend.  

At the time the phone was stolen I had to report it to the police for insurance reasons. I'm not sure what these reasons were  as it wasn't insured but at least I got a crime reference number to stuff in a draw and forget about.  

Not long after that I had a phonecall from a man called Frank who said he was a policeman....

Frank: Could you describe yourself madam? 

Me: (all eager) 5ft 10'', blonde, curvy.... 

Frank: And what exactly were you wearing?

Me: Erm a short silk dress that just covered my.... (oh.  Oh dear.  Feeling slightly less eager). 

Frank: OK well I'm going to watch all the CCTV footage of you that night and get back to you.....

Me: Do you want a photo?  (why am I saying this?) 

Frank: Yes. I want a photo.  

So I sent Frank a photo and later on he turned up with his truncheon and handcuffs and the rest his history.  

No. 

That  is (thank god) not what happened.  Frank was (I believe) a genuine copper (he had a  pin number and all that) and having reviewed the CCTV footage he informed me that sadly they couldn't see the bit where my phone got stolen but at least I could relax as 'nothing he had witnessed me doing could actually be classed as a criminal act'. 

Phew. 

So my dancing's not 'that' bad.   

So I didn't run off with Frank but somewhere around that time I did meet someone else.  In the middle of a roundabout.   He was on the roundabout.  I was running across several lanes of traffic.   And we did all the things you're not meant to do on a first date....drank pints, never shut up, broke into a municipal park....and since then it's been one long fairytale....well as long as your fairytales feature people as off the wall as you with a touch of the loon about them who laugh like drains, industrial parks, lorry depots, McDonald's, lay-bys, Wickes, Asda (twice!) and his mum's kitchen.  Which, luckily, mine do.  I wasn't looking for a relationship - it was the last thing on my list after putting the laundry away (for once), fixing the kitchen cupboard doors back on, emptying 300 coke cans out the car and doing my tax return but...well, as usual, 'other stuff happened'. And yes he knows about this blog and has consented to being mentioned and all that jazz.   

And that, for the moment, is all I can say on that - but you know, whatever happens, whether it all goes bang tomorrow or it's from here to eternity, all good people deserve to feel like this and be this happy.  Even if it's just for a little bit.  And people like me who have spent years waking up happy and then one minute later thinking 'oh.  Oh yeah, all that stuff in your life you'd managed to put in the file marked: must be a bad dream....it's actually TRUE! Oh, oh shit..... ', well people like me deserve to wake up happy and then, one minute later, think 'YEEEE HAAA' and feel even happier.  Even if it's just a gap in the storm.  To anyone still in the storm, or back in the storm or watching the storm roll in (or out) never give up.  Never lose hope.  Hope is what makes us human. The better bits of human.  

Anyway moving on from my love life, and before I get all deep on you, I've also had some massive huge big exciting news when it comes to my professional life.  But (for now) for complicated reasons to do with the semi-public nature of my life via this blog, I can't say much else but, lets just say, I worked very hard at this and will now be rewarded by spending much more time than is normal in close proximity to female genitalia.  And no, I'm not becoming a lesbian porn star.  On top of getting to know my way round ladies bits, I'll have even less time than I do now, be even more pushed to the edge of my sanity, get very tired and probably cry quite a lot inbetween marvelling at stuff and laughing manically.....

You all along for the ride?    

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Wiggle It Just a Little Bit

Well this blog post WAS going to be backed up with a photo of me semi-dressed but  those of you hoping for flesh shots will be disappointed to hear  that the phone the photo was on was stolen last night by some £*$&£ in a nightclub  in Weston-Super-Mare.  

This says a lot about nightclubs in Weston-Super-Mare but it also means that I am somewhat massively gutted  today and have lost over a 1,000 photos, mainly of my children, that my laptop refused to back up. 

However, lets not dwell on this matter and move on to the lighter topic of how I came to posses the photo in the first place. 

On Friday I went to Asda to buy bread, milk and cheese and, of course, came out about £80 poorer with 3  pointless nighties, a bottle of vodka and no bread.   

Whilst browsing the clothing I spotted a really cute blue summer dress with white hearts on it and a pencil skirt. Quite retro.  I think they call them wiggle dresses - but that makes me feel slightly unsettled for some reason so I will just call it 'the dress'.  

So I took the dress  into the changing room and put it on.

Or tried to.  

The top half slipped on easily but the bottom part was totally and utterly wedged on my hips.  I checked the label concerned I'd picked up some kind of micro size. 

Nope.  

Right size.  

OK so  that means I HAVE to get it on or my self-esteem for the day will be destroyed by the knowledge my thighs are 4 sizes bigger than my bust (which would be going some) and I am officially, in the eyes of Asda pattern cutters, a mutant.  

15 minutes of grunting, heaving, panting and yeah, wriggling, later the dress was on.  

Yipee!  Ok the skirt was so tight I couldn't move - let alone walk - but I had made the point that I was that size and the dress was actually really nice.  Although for anyone to see this you'd need to be mounted on wheels and pushed about the place like a one of those toy dogs.  

What I couldn't work out was why there was an extra flap of material hanging from the waist.  A kind of loop with an open  end which if you held it up you could see right down to my knickers.  I figured it was some kind of wrap part that should be under the top part of the dress round the bust area but couldn't make it worked it out so shuffled, with 2mm footsteps, out to the changing room assistant......

Me: Excuse me - you don't know where this part of this dress is meant to be do you? 

Changing room assistant (woman in her 50's with a weatherworn expression clearly thinking 'What Fresh Nut is This?'): Yes love - it's for your other leg.  

Bravo - I'd spent 15 minutes of  my life inserting my entire body into the right hand leg of a playsuit.  

And then I had to get the bugger off again.........

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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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