tip toeing...

shhh! its christmas eve! we're all tip-toeing around the house. I mean. shit. Father xmas is. He's filling.
he's doing his stocking thang. Anyone with a stocking fetish in fact, Father Christmassing is the perfect job!
anyway. stockings are being laid out at the end of sleeping childrens' beds.
there they lay, peacefully dreaming of the logistics of one man and 800,billion children's stockings to fill in one night (anxiety dream onset: how will he do it in ONE night only? it's worse than an anika rice challenge...), and the true luminesence of Rudolphs nose in this fog (will they just crash into the first tower block in a Porstmouth suburb?).
so we're tip toeing around Granny Darlings' house down in the country. there is even a bit of snow in the garden. and we've just eaten our weight in stilton. and drunk a lot of rioja (it should probably officially be claret... but we're more cosmo than you think down here in the sticks...). and chewed some home made truffles (courtesy M-in-Law & Husband) and the scene is quite dare i say it, perfect?
and if you can guess where granny darling has put the turkey then I'll give you the last truffle...
answers on a postcard.

oh. and if anyone else does want to sign up as a "follower" that'd be a lovely christmas present for the slightly tipsy Ruined Mother.
(I discovered tonight that my mum has read it once and the rest of my (grown up) family hasn't actually even clicked on the link...- apart from Bert.... fellow brother blogger... which made me feel a bit sort, y'know? sad? mind you, not that my life is that damned interesting...)
But enough self pity! there is a night to sleep through and then a day of smoked salmon, champagne, wrapping paper and general mayhem!
Rock on Jesus! good luck down the birth canal tomorrow!

The holidays are actually here.

Snow!
Twinkling lights!
Log fires (if your wood isn't too damp)!
Chestnuts!
Tinsel!
More Snow! In your wellies, down the back of your neck, all over your hall floor, up the stair-carpet!
Credit card melting!
Mol & Liz were playing like street-urchins last night, on the pavement, and made a respectable 3ft-high snowman with bamboo arms and a carrot nose and stone eyes... And some arse in the night kicked it down and trampled it away. Typical Harringay YOBS. Kill joys.
I was waiting for Mol to ask me if we could bury the dead snowman (we have in the past buried dead ladybirds and butterflies) which would've been a confusing ceremony.
So, snowman death aside, it is all Christmassy and I've done lots of wrapping and the tree is dressed (although its needles are falling and its getting a bit autumnal) and we're packing up the house for the annual family Christmas get together.
Which means Mothers Ruin is having a little Christmas break too (although our destination does have internet and a mac-computer despite being in the depths of rolling countryside) and will report back later on after Christmas (that's if I haven't gone and exploded a la Creosote...).
So, merry Christmas! And if you don't celebrate Christmas then merry holidays!
Bon Vacances!
Joyeux Noelle!
(And lets hope you've all been very good girls and boys and the mysterious Father C gets down your chimney and gives your stocking a right and proper filling.)
Until next time, friends...

bad diet

oh god. I forgot that with Christmas comes major nibble food galore overload and wine flowing out of every possible oozible-place and parties and more cakes and oh, just have a small one for the Christmas cheer... and then by New Years Eve everything in the body is heaving and sighing and moaning and pleading STOP STOP no more - not another drop, not another raison soaked in brandy, no more Quality Street (not even the green triangle ones) and your head is saying, well, y'know, I mean, you've already eaten 3/4's of the tin and drunk nearly 2 bottles of Claret in less than 48 hours what does one more wee-snifter really matter?
And then like that fat bloke in Monty Python Mr Creosote, you, in your head at least, feel that last sip of Baileys slip down the throat and ignite the fuse that results in spontaneous combustion and the walls of your mothers house are covered in 4 days worth of partially digested food, a couple of chocolate wrappers (sometimes there is no time to unwrap them completely... you just shove 'em in and hope that like chewing gum, it won't block the gut for 40 years as the urban myth suggests), a few hair balls and maybe even a couple of pennies you swallowed as a child. All out in a big fat-man-explosion.
And that is what Christmas is all about. Surely? Nothing to do with Virgins, Bright Stars, Wise Men (that's a mad idea! Wise Men! It must be the undoing of the whole Christmas Story...Like the tooth fairy, Wise Men Do Not Exist) and a small wee babe in a cot of straw... No! Its just about food. Drink. Piles of wrapping paper. Getting over the cold you contracted on Christmas Eve. And wondering how inpolite it would be to return the unwanted strange looking items from John Lewis which have piled up at your feet.
(Talking of colds. All the girls in the Mothers Ruin Family caught colds last week. And by Friday we were sort of feeling a bit less dreadful. [Husband now has it I believe - its before 11pm and he's sloped off to bed. Not a good sign.] But the point to this small side-chat is that on Friday I went to collect Liz from her school-nursery and bent down to give her a tender motherly loving kiss, at which point I managed to injest a mouthful of freshly-run-snot which was surrounding her mouth/nose area. And because it was in front of a lovely gentle teacher, and this is true, I felt I simply couldn't spit in the middle of the classroom. Yes. I slugged it back. Eyes shut. And thought of Britain. Or something. OH TOTAL VIOLATION! 30 seconds later and I nearly did a Mr Creosote there and then in the school playground. So. Watch out for those tender motherly moments when children have colds. Its just not worth it.)

glitter cont... and other things

Just a small continuation from the glitter debate have a look at this clip. This is actually how my entire house feels right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJbYMHLmamE

And to continue with the feeling-christmassy-theme, we're off to watch The Snowman, for real, this morning. A family trip! Imagine that. I wonder how many arguments we'll have throughout the whole adventure? I'd say on average about 3 per hour?

Brrrrr.
Its actually too cold to type. My. Fingers. Have. gone. sort of wierd dead-colour.

all that glitters...

All that glitters today, in my house, is glitter. All over my house. All over my washed floors. All over the kitchen table. All over the radiator. All over the kidz' fingers / hair / faces. Up my staircases. On the sofa. etc. And the thing about glitter is that it embeds itself into the surfaces. Liz once had glitter stuck to her scalp for about 3months, despite weekly washes and scrapings with the metal nit-comb. I wonder what would happen if glitter got into the blood stream?
Why, you may be wondering, are Les Enfants at home on a Wednesday?
Well, the simple answer is that they are ill with nasty green snot and wheezing chests.
So we're kicking back in N8 getting down with the Christmas cheer.
And today has been well-Christmassy despite grotty kids. (I keep saying to them If you're well enough to fight then you're well enough to be at school...But they're still fighting and still snotting.)
I lit the advent candle! No.16 already!
It snowed!
We got a parcel!
In the parcel were 'glitter-up your own tree decorations'.
We glittered 'em up!
I cooked some hot soupy lentil broth.
We watched The Snowman sitting under a rug on the sofa, and I cried but tried not to let Mol see because otherwise she'd cry too. And then we'd both probably start flailing and wailing.
And we got a Christmas card! (I'm sure the postman is hiding ours... seem to be much fewer than usual... maybe WE'VE been struck off everyones list? - Wracking my brains thinking who I've offended lately? - Oh, can think of a few people I've let down... maybe...)
And its snowing still!
And the Christmas tree lights are twinkling.
And we're all snotty and exhausted - and isn't that just the surest sign that Christmas is looming?
And I have my red Christmas nail varnish on!
Glitter-on dudes.

Sunday best

Today consisted of:
3 night time wake up calls from hot sweaty snotty Liz;
spilling iboprofen on her carpet 2 times in the dark;
knocking over water beside her bed in the dark;
washing all her sweaty sheets this morning;
snot snot and more snot;
carrying Liz pretty much everywhere;
suffering extreme shoulder/arm pain;
wondering if I'll get my post natal Madge arms back as a result?;
the house smelling of roast chicken, leeks in white sauce, maple syrup, apple crumble;
decorating an oversized needle-dropping Christmas tree;
anticipating more needles on the floor in the next couple of weeks;
snot;
one kids party;
one lunch party;
one cold walk in the park (saw a mouse);
hoovering needles;
watching last nights (shocking) Strictly results;
ironing;
smoked salmon;
nearly dying on the sofa watching BBCs sports personality of the year, but saving myself by forcing butt off sofa and upstairs for bath.
All lots better than last nights report. Although I missed a damned fine party by all accounts.

Christmas Time Is Fun. Yes. Really.

Oh well, I didn't chuck myself off the blogging. Not just yet.
And today my head is going to explode with all the stuff that is going on in it. So much going on inside because there's so much going on outside. Life. Busy. Busy. B.U.S.Y. I thought Christmas was meant to be fun. But tonight as I write I'm feeling all clogged up - like I've eaten my entire weight in chewing gum and then been put in the freezer and now I'm stuck.
Today was meant to be a fun Christmassy day. In fact it started off quite badly with Liz coughing insessantly from 5.30-7.30am and it sounded a bit like the cough that Mol had which was actually an asthma attack that hospitalised her for 4 days. So I lay in bed wondering whether to get up and listen to her chest. But after 2 hours it was morning time and we all woke up. And she stopped coughing and starting snotting instead. Fair exchange.
And then things picked up a bit - Husband made bacon and eggs for Mol and himself and then they skipped off (well, drove) to pick up our American-style-over-sized Christmas tree (discount at the garden centre you see) and bought it back and the house immediately smelt of Christmas and out of the cellar I dug our slightly dusty damp decaying decorations (they'll do, again).
And then we all jumped back into the car and drove off on phase 2 of our day (lunch in Waltham on Thames). Hurrah.
But disaster struck outside the Sobell Centre (I went ice-skating there once when I was a teenager) when some STUPID COW with her totally MORONIC fuck-wit teenage son (with bad bum-fluffy hair growth - she just had mad womans' stubbly hair on her face in a beardy fashion) drove her VW into the side of our car. And then because she didn't speak very good English she got a bit overly-loud and started say "I no liaaaaar" at which point I was like 'Husband, she's probably given us a false telephone number' and Husband started taking photos of her and her sons' hairy faces and their car.
Meanwhile Stan who was sitting in the bus-stop with a white plaster stuck on his most recent shaving accident on his chin gave me his number and said he'd be my witness (even though he's from Leicester- not that that means he shouldn't be a witness, but just that he's quite not local, so it could be a bore for him...).
So after 30mins of standing in the no.91's bus-stop and causing a bit of a jam, I implored Husband to stop talking to the by now almost ranting woman and her fuck-wit teenager ("please can I have your address?" I asked him. "What? I don't know my address. I'm a teenager?" - and that's the absolute truth. See? Fuck-wit.)
So we drove off and I was so cross. Daft idiotic woman. And we were 1hour late for lunch. And lunch was lovely but hard work as I had Liz on my knee getting clammy and refusing to eat her pizza and I was spilling butternut squash soup every where and each conversation got cut short by one of the 7 kids falling off a chair/biting a tongue/wanting more/wanting less/not sitting next to the right person/needing a pee/doing a fart/screaming for the sake of it/snotting on their mother (me) - y'know? And then before I could put the last scary monster on to my godsons most impressive Castle Of Doom (comes with monsters which really are the stuff of nightmares)
it was time to plod on to the next session - phase 3 of the day: tea with sister in law in Shepherds Bush, followed by their Xmas party (have been looking forward to it).
Phase 3 goes as follows: arrive at The Bush of Shepherd, unpack 50 fairy cakes and a ton of brownies made last week in spare moments for the party. Feed Mol a giant plate of spaghetti. Realise that Liz really isn't feeling very well (sweaty coughing refusing pizza, again - refused brownie - even), make executive decision to not put on gold party shoes, load the car with crying Liz (covered in snot) crying Mol (who'd wanted to hand out fairy cakes to her grown up friends at the party) and myself - with a phone running out of battery, a car with a battered rear end (a bit like mine I guess) two crying snotting kids and a 45 minute journey to N8 (and a traffic jam on the West Way).
So here I am.
And this is why I'm wondering where the fun bit of Christmas is? This run up to the Big Day is mental. Office parties. Neighbourhood parties. School parties. Nursery parties. Shopping. Making endless lists. Going round in circles. Having moronic hairy women smash into your rear. Feeling anxious about the credit card. Wondering if this will be the last year your child believes in Father Christmas. Not knowing what to get Husband for Christmas when he asked for a jumper and yet came home from work last week having bought himself a - yes, you guessed - jumper! Worrying about the crack in the ceiling above my bed. Trying to remember to send cards to all the right people. Its sometimes just too much. Or am I just a bit too precious?

Actually I think I'm feeling guilty. I have guilty mothers' syndrome: I don't spend enough time with my kids, (and when I'm with them my mind is elsewhere). I don't spend enough time at work (so permanently feel poor). I don't spend enough time with Husband (and when I do we talk about money and work and house and try to make plans for the future that don't seem realistic). I don't spend enough time cleaning (finally cleaned the top of a picture in the bathroom - it was black). I don't have enough time for friends and when I do I'm thinking that I should be at home with my kids or Husband. I worry about my liver. I worry about my skin. And my wrinkles. And my expensive eye-sight. And my cheap clothes. Oh, and I guess I worry about the childrens' education, sometimes.
So that is why my head is a bit spinny and I guess that's why I'm feeling a bit bah-humbug. Or maybe it's just plain and simple: I'm peeved that I'm not in my gold high-heels drinking a bottle of bubbly that I saw in sister-in-laws giant fridge... sneaking a fag in their garden and trying to find a star in the black clear December sky...

cutting the mustard

Is the expression "cutting the muster" or "cutting the mustard"?
Husband sent me the link to another North London blog and I was really upset that
a.) he'd been sniffing around other ladies' blogs (a bit like having a sexy dream where the object/victim of your desire isn't the one who shared the bed with you for the last 12 years - not that that's ever happened to me, obviously) and;
b.) that her work was probably going to be loads funnier/intellectual/politically-wise/observant/more read/higher-amount of followers than mine, and;
c.) this forced me into a horror Latin class flash-back (GCSE) where the teacher would look at me in pity when it was my turn to answer a question about the River Styx or the declension of idioticum and I'd simply want to melt into the maroon carpet because I was clearly too thick and shouldn't even be doing Latin GCSE - and its that feeling I'm not good enough I'm going to fail again my brain is only semi-developed I'll never know what a noun is let alone a declension my 6 year old is already better at maths than me, and;
d.) that there are more Mother Bloggers in the world than there are £'s what bailed out the bankers in the recent bank-crisis, so who would want to read another anyway?
So now I'm wondering about this whole blog business. Too many bloggers ruin the... ? (Internet soup?)
My life isn't very interesting and my children's lives are quite similar to lots of other children's lives in N8 (well, maybe not quite the same as the children who go to Rokesley or Fortismere...) and what goes on in my life probably isn't even very well represented by the words I put together anyway. Another author could probably articulate my daily angst far more accurately.
And I don't even know if it's cutting the muster or mustard (I always thought it was mustard, because I like the idea of cutting mustard, because, now here's the clever bit, mustard doesn't actually need cutting, so its like a double-bluff? Similar to a Spooks plot line...).
And so I am going to spend some time deliberating my fate. Its a bit like America's Next Top Model and if I fail the next task (um, like, maybe, not gaining another "official blog follower" between now and the next blog I write) then I guess maybe I'll be kicked off the blog-scene. Some other colourful laugh-out-loud kind of blogger can fill in your next spare 6.5minutes while you sit on a loo in your echoey office facilities...
(God, I've just thought of another invention: internet that gives you sensory experiences: if you could smell the farts (click on that link its he he he) that Liz has been letting off whilst I'm sitting here, you'd be laughing/crying/gagging/re-gurgitating your sushi... - its a sensory overload.)
Anyway. Enough self pity.
I've got to go sort out Liz's rear-end, and then think about who is on my Christmas card list this year. And put icing on about 50 fairy cakes for the school Bazaar on Friday.
See? Plain and simple dull dull dull dull (a la Craig off Strictly...).

Is it that time again, already?

Jingle Bells Batman Smells Robin Flew Away!
Oh what fun it is to ride on a one horse open slay...
Jesus Mary Holy Lord how did it get round to being Christmas all over again? I'm sure it was not all that long ago that I was making a list of people I had to buy presents for and cursing my bank account for not being fatter and cursing my arse for being too lardy and here we are all over again. But we've had spring and summer and autumn and now its winter and cold and wet and miserable and dark and the shops have their dreadful Christmas Window Displays (I want that one Mum) and through the fog and drizzle a street light has the haze of cheery Christmas lights planted up its trunk... And the post office sends out reminders "You only have 20 days left of Royal Mail deliveries! Panic! Come and join the queues! Share some germs with the other 50 queue-ers, get swine flu while you're here and we'll offer you some health insurance to go with your over priced stamps!" And get on the phone to your friends and ask them if they're sending Christmas cards because if they are then we are and if we are then they are and we'll all hopefully receive the same amount of cards without feeling like we have no friends. And if someone doesn't send a card this year REMEMBER it for next year - cross 'em off the list! In these times of bad finances every card counts.

Cliff Richards Shaken-Stevens Pogues Mariah Carey hangovers mince pies too many parties sore livers exhaustion colds illness no money lists satsuma's and gold coins where's the sun actually gone too many people on the bus no money house smells of Christmas tree's and laundry.

And so Mol and Liz drag themselves out of bed each morning in the darkness and we send them downstairs for their breakfast, their eyelids drooping, their hair stuck to their cheeks where snot may have run in the night, their dressing gown cords trailing on the (occasionally a bit dirty) floor, and then when they reach the kitchen its HEY! WOO HOO! Advent calendars! And they suddenly wake up full of joy and happiness at the endless possibilities of what sweet Granny will have hidden in their (home made, per-lease, as if we'd have shop bought...) calendars. This morning Liz disappointed by her green Opal Fruit (sorry not called that any more, its a STAR BURST!!! BURSTING WITH SYNTHETIC FLAVOURS! - hey I've just thought of a really cool multi-billion-pound-business: create sweets that mimic vegetables, but make the kids think that veggies are delicious desirable and, um, sweet? Hey, I'll swap your brocolli for my cream of sweet-corn? Well, only if you give me the deviled-beans with it. I'm on to something here, definitely...).
But advent calendars are good for waking kids up on shitty black cold raining school mornings, even if the meaning behind them is lost. What are they for, other than counting down to Christmas - when "I get loads of presents and chocolate money from Father Christmas".

Do you think Madonna's children ever get confused by their mums name?

Anyway. So, I'm thinking about Christmas a little bit more. I've done some Amazon ordering for the god-kiddy-winks. I've only gone made not one but two goddamned Christmas puddings and to celebrate the fact that I've only gone made my own goddamned Christmas pudding I took a photo of the mixture and then drank all the rest of the bottle of beer that didn't make it in it. Yee ha. Drunken domestic goddess.
I need to get Husband a present.
I once got him a weekend in a nice hotel.
And once I got him a Christmas jumper.
And once I got him a book of photos which were verging on erotic (I think there was a picture of a willy that wasn't in its down position) and that kind of freaked him out.
Last year I think I got him 4 Haruki Murakami books which have mostly been read by me.
So this year is going to be a real humdinger. Just not sure yet. And if you're reading this oh Husband you could drop some hints...?
I'd like some time off. Time. It's free and comes in all sizes / colours / fragrances / locations - so its quite a versatile concept. Do you think its on offer this year? Good for the bank and good for the Mothers Ruin.
Tomorrow is Friday. One of my favourite days of the week.
Oh, did you see Spooks tonight? My keyboard is the VERY same as the computer-techy-wizzo's and frankly I think he got the idea from me.
22 days to go...

God what a weekend. I don't know who invented them but after a week of working and heaving kids around London like a regular skivvy I like the idea of sitting on the sofa drinking Lapsang Souchong (some people say its actually cat-pee, but I like to beg to differ) reading the magazine of the Guardian (its the only part that makes sense to my brain-cell-deprived head). Instead what happens at weekends is that it's suddenly really really really really majorly important to fill every waking moment with activities cooking friends car journeys shopping trips swimming golf theatre meeting new babysitters stressing out the toddler getting to D after making stops at A-B-C arguments about taking public or private transport... and the thing is everything is really good fun and really wholesome and refreshing from the norm of the week previous or following but it doesn't permit for sitting on the sofa drinking cats pee and looking at bonny photos arranged elegantly by the Guardian staff. So its Monday night and I just want to run through a few of the highlights and low-lights of the weekend.
Saturday started with a hangover (low) - (4 people 5 bottles of wine strange carb-free supper = painful head in the morning) but hangover was soaked a bit by (high) croissants and toast supplied by MotherInLaw.
Then there was cooking (soup / cake) and friends for lunch (high). That's nice friends for lunch. Sit around chatting and controlling kids and not allowing them cakes (high) until they're near breaking with frustration (they all know which cupcake they HAVE to have... and little dirty fingers keep prodding them and putting stick and ugsome marks on them... OK! please! take! stuff in face! don't choke! and if you do, please choke the crumbs onto your parent not my table or floor...).
Then there was walk in park (avoid dog poo don't fall over on skin-grating pavement, if you do please put snotty crying face on appropriate parents leg). Parking ticket (low).
Rain (low). Cold (low). Tidying house (low). Appreciating clean house (high).
Argument with neighbour about lift to Sadlers Wells (low). Trip to Sadlers Wells (extremely high). Admiring Akram Kahn (very extremely hot and therefore major high).
Sleeping badly because of rain (low). Needing loo in the night (low). Being car-less on Sunday whilst Husband plays golf in the rain in near-hurricane conditions (low). Taking kids swimming (low for me, high for them).
Tea with friends who have a fresh baby which has a very sweet head of black soft fuzzy hair and smells very fresh (high).
I watched a bit of X-factor last night (about 30 seconds before Husband rants "not this shit...") and during the first 20 seconds I realised that a friend of ours has a Simon Cowell Hair Cut (SCHC). I find this alarming. Was it intentional to have an SC? Fair enough that many older men have SC waistbands, but that's generally not intentional and just the hand of fate... but to go to a hair dresser and actually come out with a SC... I wonder how sane said friend is and whether he (at least it wasn't a woman coming out the hair dresser with an SCHC) needs to stop watching the programme. Or maybe he just needs to buy a wig. Anyway. The good thing about blokes hair is that it seems to grow quickly so maybe next time I see him he'll have a Louis Walsh or a Dermot O-Leary or a Gordon Brown. Strange though. Could be a new wave (ha ha) of do's. Thank goodness Sianiad O'Connor (click on this one all fans of 90's music...) isn't a major celebrity any more.
And so now I'm wondering if I can take my weekend early? Like, tomorrow and Wednesday? Anyone want to join me? It could be the new Simon Cowell Weekend In the Week trend.
hm.
Must go eat some food my brain cells clearly need some food.

things that are flat

Being a small person, relatively, in this day and age that is (maybe 600 years ago I'd've been considered freakily gigantic and people would've put me in the ducking chair and I'd've survived (I'm good at holding my breath) and then I'd've been hung drawn and quartered and burned at the steak for being a witch...(I can't say I'm burn proof - not if the burns on my hand from the oven are anything to go by) I like to wear shoes which give me a bit of extra elevation... And when I'm out on the razz, which I less and less frequently am, I slip my feet into a pair of high heels and I strut around for a few hours ignoring the strange dead-toe sensations that get more and more dead-toe-like as the night progresses (which is also why I like to quaff a few bottles of wine or beer or absinthe...).

But I'm not here to write about those sort of flat(or not) things. Or the flatness of my wash-board stomach. Or the flatness of Suffolk. Or the flatness of a lake with no wind. Or the flatness of those televisions called flat-screens. They're really flat, I've been led to believe.
None of that.
Today I write of the flatness of my tyre on Wednesday afternoon when I went to climb on board my trusty tank of a bike (my brother kindly told me that "its the worst bike I've EVER ridden on in my life you should leave it in the street and see if a bus can run it over") which I love and its served me well for the 4 years I've owned. Anyway. On Wednesday I had one of those mad dash horrors of an afternoon where I had to leave work a little bit early to get to Liz's nursery which was shutting early (so the staff could go bitch about our bratty kids for an hour or so) and then rush like a mad haggered over-wrinkled-35-year-old up to school to get Mol before she starts to believe she's been abandoned by her family and is off to the Annie-style-home... So step one was to get home from work. Which was smashed to small biscuit-crumbs used on cheesecake bases when I saw the extent to which my back wheel was punctured. Holy shit. And a lot of other obscenities came out of my mouth as I threw my now not trusty tank of a bike (hate you you bastard crap thing of all the days to get a puncture you're out for the rust... etc.; bike gives me sad look of rejection). So then I run for the bus like aforementioned mad haggered over wrinkled 35 year old and get the bus and get to nursery just in time, panting, and then sling Liz over my shoulders like a bag of spuds, and limp my way, panting like a half dead haggered over wrinkled unfit 35 year old and get to school just as the Orphan Minders are about to load Mol up into their van and take her off to some Victorian Institution. Or do I mean after school club? Anyway. I made it. Just.
And that night it rained and rained and all I could think of was, oh, poor bike, out in the exposed open air, rusting and crying with pain. And I did feel a bit bad.
So the next morning as I walked to school (that means pushing Liz on her scooter that has no brake whilst carrying her bag and Mol's bags) trying to maintain a bit of cool, when I mention in passing to the local bike guru (LBG) that my bike is trashed at work and I'm wondering because I'm a pathetic girl how I'm going to get it home with its puncture. And then we talked about a friends daughters' "bring a pony party" and the subject was dropped.
At work, 1hour later: said LBG rocked up at the garden centre in his fluorescent bike gear, clasping an inner tube, a spanner and a very pumping pump.
And now I have a new hero.
Thank you LBG. My bike is snug under its rug like a bug and I feel no more guilt and don't have to spend any more money on overpriced London buses.
Beer courtesy of me next time we're in a public house at the same time... (Xmas drinks...?).

hanging on...

I was walking back to my car after work today (Sorry. I drove. I know I shouldn't. But. Too dark. Too wet. Too wintery. Too tiring. Carbon Footprint goes up one more size...) and I heard the sound of birds chirping cheerily in the trees, probably just tucking themselves up for the night as the sun (somewhere behind the greyness) was setting and the sky getting dark. But as I looked at the trees I noticed that they were not swaying in a nice calming to-and-fro sort of way. They were way-jerking around, flapping almost, with wind whistling through them cruelly tearing the last crackly leaves off the branches and all I could think was: shit I'm glad I'm not a bird right now. And then when I was lying in my bath tonight with my book (hey. Because no one ever asks me to join their book club - I'm too stupid / get drunk / inarticulate / wouldn't complete the homework / would just want to talk about Politics and Tax rather than the sex lives of the fictional characters in the book being studied - its ok, I've accepted my isolation: I've decided to start my very own Mothers Ruin Book Club. I can only read and assess my books in the bath, after a round of East Enders and 1/3 a bar of Sainsburys Own Brand Belgian Milk Chocolate; and if I get distracted its OK! No one there to tell me to get back to the point! I can just bark on at the steamy walls, the towels and the kids' rubber ducks: they won't mind!) which is still really good and really readable (Zadie Smith On Beauty), the sash windows in the bathroom were totally clattering (and still are as I type) and I wondered to myself: I know that the whole of Cumbria is underwater, but how many birds actually get blown off their perch in this wind?
Their little gnarled claws clinging onto twiggys for dear life. Their feathers ruffling and their eyes blinking in the hard wind. I felt a bit sorry for them, personally.
Talking of hard wind. OMG. Who got caught in the bad weather yesterday? Oh fuck the birds falling off their perches in this instance. What about ME? and Liz? And my mum who made her annual pilgrimmage to N8 to "see you darling" and stupidly I decided to go-green and walk to Liz's Fun Fit Gym Class with Granny Darling and Liz. And within 10 minutes, in the most exposed part of Hornsey, a major howling roaring like a Caterpilla-Digger sheet of hail & rain & wind whipping in circles came at us like an animal from HELL.
And this bastard in his people carrier laughed at us as we cowered (I know! Call myself a sturdy country gal? We were so completely cowering) behind a skimpy hedge that did nothing more than, well, nothing frankly. Liz had total-humour-failure; Granny Darling gritted her teeth and muttered something about 'never seen anything like it in all my life' and I think I just swore a lot at the fucker in his silver car flashing his great white teeth in the luxury of dryness.
Mol just told me she's got a part in her Christmas sorry, WINTER (no religious words allowed, ever, in the multicultural North Harringay Schools...) Play. I'm going to brain wash her to go on the stage and start singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing! Glory to the new born King! just to see how many members of staff faint with shock. Such audacity.
So. I've done birds. I've done book club (sorry guys, its for me only). I've done weather. I've done smug bastards. And I've done Christmas, no, WINTER, Play.
Think that's all for now.
Oh - no - Spooks. They killed Jo. Husband very upset. No more bottom to watch. She had a good one. Although he claims to never have noticed it.

illiterate

It was pointed out to me that I left out "e" in my last blog. Not a conscious choice and I guess I was just so excited I even had a list that went as far as "e" that in my excitement i forgot all about it. I'll have an "e" please Bob. Remember those heady days as a student watching Going for Gold?
Do you remember going out and getting drunk (triple vodka for £1!) and coming home after the pubs closed and making about 25 rounds of cheese on toast?
And then sitting around the tiny TV scoffing the cheese on toast which didn't do much other than make the house smell not-damp and perhaps delay the going-to-bed-with-a-spinny-head moment after stabbing your (well, mine, really) eyes in a desperate attempt to get the over-used-under-cleaned-contact lenses out of the eyes before falling into comatose sleep?
I don't understand how any student every really learns anything given that 4/5ths of the time spent at University or College is generally spent being pissed or high or asleep or drinking tea in a fuzzy state of morning-after-the-night-before-recovery at 1pm. How I scraped my degree - given that I wasn't even interested (at the time) in more than 2 of my courses, and for one of the courses I didn't attend a single seminar (god forbid - the idea of 'talking about my idea's on the topic' just made me want to hurl the 25 rounds of cheese on toast from the night before... - I had no idea's on any topic other than 'how much is that cheese sandwich?' 'can I afford a whole bottle of wine?' 'does To-Be-Husband fancy me or his flatmate Rosie who is small and has a square head and a northern accent?'... I basically was shitting myself permanently that they'd find out that actually I didn't have much more than 2 brain cells to rub together...) well, its beyond me.
I didn't get busted by the academics.
A bit like at school - I think I was the only one of the gang not to get busted for being utterly pissed most weekends of the 6th form - although I think my tutor once turned a blind eye as he saw me and a bunch of retrogrades quaffing Somerfield Cider and chugging Silk Cut in a field of long grass one lazy summer afternoon. I seem to have always just scraped by... not quite catching the eye of anyone in a position to whup my arse and tell me to pull my socks up. Go read the goddamned chapter in the book what you are meant to have read for this weeks seminar.
And it's funny how now that I am a responsible adult with a Husband, children and a house and a green Volvo with flat tyres and even a credit card, the idea of Education and learning actually interests me. Although I wouldn't necessarily want to do an exam. I still have anxiety dreams about Exams. Always my maths gcse... (which actually came into use this afternoon as I had to COUNT a lot of Christmas Trees that came into the Garden Centre freshly cut from Denmark... - I got up as high as 140! I think that was stretching my record by a few digits.)
Anyway. All enthused about students and that. Not sure why but it's something to do with that "e" from before.
Cheese on toast anyone?

small things kids say

If you know what a "bless-you-fart" is hands up? Only a finely tuned mother or father could answer that one. Answers on a postcard.
And here's another one: what is your reaction to your child singing Annie at the top of her voice at supper time with a mouthful of fish-fingers and chips, who then bites her tongue?
A.) laugh in her face;
B.) tell her she's disgusting for spitting fish fingers on your clean floor;
C.) wipe the part-masticated food off the floor and pretend that it's normal to bite your tongue whilst singing TOMORROWWWWWWW and act as though nothing happened, whilst more chewed up chip falls out of her crying mouth;
D.) tell her she'll be in the orphanage if she carries on singing that shit any more - we'll both be dead from ear-strain;
F.) hug her and get the food all over your shoulder and a free sample of green snot chucked in for good measure.

Am I a bad mother? (My answer was a combination of A,B,C,D&F...)

weekend update

Have you seen them yet? It's the coke ad (sorry if you hate coke and despise everything it stands for) but there is something super exciting about the theme tune the holidays are coming and there are little ding dang bells to remind you that it's referring to Christmas holidays and not easter or summer...
However not only are the holidays coming but so too is a strange invasion on my skin. The Invasion of Mothers Ruin by small and large blemishes. I woke up this morning to find a smear of blood at the end of my bed - oh, gross! I realised as I stepped out of the shower this morning that I have a mysterious mini-mountain range of spot-like-erruptions on my shin. So that's pretty grim. And then on my face? Well that's a whole 'nother range from another planet, which meant an outing for the Witch Hazel in a desperate mission to blast the new features back to hence they came... Its like a horror movie. They keep coming back for more... just when you thought you were safe... the nightmare continues... down to your last cotton wool ball and the last drop of killer-spot-acid...
I should just pretend I'm actually adolescent to keep my hopes up that one day I may grow out of it.
Biology really sucks.
Another thing that really sucks apart from sitting above the engine on the 141 which is so loud and vibratory that its like being inside a giant noisy thing that vibrates (I want to say dildo, but I have never ever in all my 24 years set my eyes on one, least not one that vibrates, so I can't really speculate on what it feels like to be inside one) is that Liz has got a really snotty nose and is on calpol and because her weeing became so prolific over the last 5 days I've been forced (how many times a night do I have to change the sheets when she's in a nappy?) to re-protect her bottom with Sainsburys pull ups size 5. Shame but there you go.
Another thing that really really sucks is that Jade couldn't dance last night. Even Liz was sad that there was no Jade or Ian. Where is Jade she asked? Her knee has popped says Mol. But where is she asks Liz. She's not dancing says Mol. But WHERE IS SHE? I'm like, go check her twitter if you really want to know?
Another thing that really sucks is the state of London roads. Have you done any driving recently? Diversions, road closures, traffic jams because there is like a small hole somewhere with some bollards around it, abandoned diggers and traffic lights out of order. The Giant Meltdown - Gridlock Hell - its coming. Its just around the corner. And when it hits, I'll be ready. (By that I mean I'll have stocked up my freezer so I won't have to go to Sainsbury's until the Gridlock Hell untangles, 5 years later...)
This is all a bit bitty.
I'm wondering how my friend managed to move her entire office of 80 people and their desks and computers and potted plants and water machines and photo copiers and mixed-sex-lavs' and mail boxes and desk top lamps and twizzle orthopedic chairs and bad wall art, whilst the main road she was moving to was closed by the Lord Mayors Show yesterday. In the rain (the WORST STORM TO HIT ENGLAND THIS YEAR!! SHOCKER!! BIG WAVES HIT THE SHORE!!). Meesh, I hope you showed the Lord Mayor who the real boss was yesterday and today.
Anyway. I think the main jist of the matter is that I had a good weekend despite traffic and ate lots and watched Strictly and saw both my brothers and ate some more and cracked open a new bottle of wine (on the red now that its officially winter) and its only 10pm which means I can go to bed and read some more of Zadie Smiths' "on beauty". It's got a really pretty jacket which is a good start.
Bon soir as they say on La Continent, innit.

things i like

I like the smell of freshly boiling coffee on the hob.
I love a clean house. I even like cleaning my house. I like watching the hoover leave a clean track on the carpet (just like in the adverts! and whoosh its gone!). I don't like so much hoovering up bits in Mol or Liz's room - like a small finger puppet and the other day a whole glove (from a witches dressing up costume) went up the metal spout - shit - am wondering if I need to do an autopsy on the hoover bag? I think a necklace went up in this bag too.
I love walking past Yassa's bakery in the morning, the smell of vanilla and baking bread overwhelming the stench of the bus fumes and white van mans fags on Green Lanes.
I love running in the rain.
I haven't tried running in the snow.
I really really like Monday and Fridays when I have Liz to myself for a few hours.
I love kissing a little bit on Liz's nose - just at the top between her eyes. Its soft and peachy.
I love watching Mol making faces at herself in the mirror and dancing to Radio One songs with a bit of sausage on a fork waving around a bit out of control (and I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from getting anal and telling her to put the fork down).
I love driving over the M25 and knowing that I am officially now in the Countryside. Here are the green fields of Surrey, see? And lo! There is not so much traffic on this side of the M25!
I like a glass of wine when I read to Mol & Liz on the sofa at the end of the day.
I like a glass of wine when I have supper with Husband after the kids have gone to bed.
I like a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate when I watch East Enders (ooh, how psycho is Lucas going to get...? A reliable source assured me in person "its only going to get better"...).
I love Queen. Truly. I miss Freddie. I miss his teeth and trouser braces. To devote a whole song to Fat Bottomed Girls, you make the rocking world go round...? I mean. That's WAY brilliant.

And finally, I really really really love getting presents.

Good Winter TV

Today was a good day.
Actually. Tonight was what I mean by a good day.
East Enders (Ronnie shags ex-evil-alcoholic-husband-of-Deneise; Peggy shacks up with double-crossing Archie and LIES no less to PAT who had extra thick blue eye shadow on tonight and Lucy is about to fancy J who mugged her but she doesn't know that and she's a cow coz she blackmailed her bi-sexual perma-tan-uncle-Christian).
Followed by a tastily baked salmon fillet. With home grown tomatoes.
Followed by the result of America's Next Top Model (cycle 11! wow. its been on that long?) - London (that's one of the models) got sacked because in the 7 weeks of the competition she's nearly doubled her weight. Uncanny viewing as her face arms legs bottom waist just get bigger and bigger.
Followed by, and now it's totally officially winter time, but that's Ok - because now we have SPOOKS. Even though the gorgeous yum yum actor Rupert was blown apart in the first episode of the last series making it nearly a boycottable offence, somehow the dark blue grading of the show, complete with about 8 different agents all double crossing each other on the brink of being horribly tortured or murdered - and a lot of whispered conversations which make no difference if you hear what they say or not - and Harry Pearce. Gawd love him. Spooks is just spooker-duper.
Preceded by Liz weeing in her bed at 4am this morning. This kind of night was most definitely called for.
Thank you bbc 1 and living. I love you equally.
And I love chocolate. And wine as well. Also I really hot baths but now its 10.10pm and that means its bed time not bath time. There are lots of other things I love but I'll talk about them another time.
Spooks. God. In't spooks bwilliant?

important things to think about

Sometimes I worry about myself.
I have been sleeping badly recently. Big thoughts have been entering my head in the dead of night and jolting me awake, demanding their attention, solving the conundrum they have bought to mind, mulling things over, rolling them about my cerebral matter... But does it have to be in the middle of the night? Can't it be during work at the Garden Centre that I think about why it is that my house smells damp? Or couldn't it be when I'm walking down Poo Passage at 8.43am each morning of the week that I wonder whether I'll get a puncture on my next long drive down a motorway without Husband? Or maybe while I bake the girls their Sainsburys chunky chips (with skin, so they're healthy) about where I should go to buy my bi-annual sock haul. And just recently a crackingly important point for nocturnal self-analysis: why, after 16 months in the loft, do I still bang my head when I get a t-shirt out of my drawers? Am I really such an old dog that I forget? Its an alarming issue.
For some reason these challenging thoughts come to the fore at approximately 2-5am, just as my subconscious reminds me that Liz probably needs a wee (its week one of no-night-time-nappies) and I, in my light sleep, prepare my body for the removal of self from warm cosy bed and the malco-ordinated journey down to her room to take her to the loo (down another set of stairs) and back to her bed ("well done, another star on your chart tomorrow, back to sleep now...").
Its all too profound for my little head to take. I wonder sometimes if I am a genius constrained by her environment?
But frankly all this sleeplessness is wringing me out.
I wish I just wasn't quite so, you know, intense about the big issues in life?

olives: don't be deceived

Firstly. Here I am. I'm back on. Although I think I may have sweated a lot of my mojo out whilst I was ill for I am suffering a way-big lack of writing enthusiasm.
Secondly. So I apologise if my work is dull.
Thirdly. Husband returned from his 9 day trip to Sardinia in his 4* hotel with no present for me and an American-sized-jumbo-pack of Kinder-chocolate, which I believe isn't Italian, even, for the girls. Humour fast dissolved. Not that a happy relationship should be based on presents. But giving is meant to give joy to the giver in an altruistic and halo-shining fashion. Husbands halo was fast knocked off its already rocky perch when I realised (as I put on the third load of dirty been-abroad-cloths-wash) he really wasn't joking about the lack of gift. My gifts to him were therefore retracted and my extra complicated and unfriendly pyjamas have been worn on a nightly basis since.
Fourthly. Do not be deceived by olives on an olive tree. Do not think to yourself, oh, this reminds me of my trip to Greece, or that time in the South of France when... or, remember when we were in Spain in that olive grove with all the lizards; popping them into your mouth like a minstrel... In England, if you see an olive tree with plump black shiny olives glinting at you - run a mile. Put you hands in your pockets and turn-heel. Do not listen to your practical-joker-work colleague and believe him when he says, oh, yes, I had one earlier, simply scrumptious. Go on, try! For you will be left feeling like I do, 9hours later: ill sick disgusted at my own idiocy.
How could I have ever thought that an olive on a young English Olive tree in the middle of a Hackney Garden Centre could be anything other than utterly repulsive?
I gagged in the same way I heard poor Mol gagging down the loo 3 weeks ago. But I wasn't in the privacy of my home, I was in front of my work "mate" on a street in the middle of N-bloody-1. Fucker! I vow to get him back. I VOW...
Although, my tale of near-vomiting is not nearly so tragic as that of a chum who was out at the gig of some sadly relaunched pop-legend (he was in a Boy Band of the 90's)... who got so over-excited by all the celeb-spotting that she drank her weight in Pina-Collada's at the gig, and then projectiled on the street outside the show. And she's a mother. I won't mention names and I won't tell your daughters about it at their 16/18/21st birthdays either.
Olive anyone?
(oh, so who is watching X-factor and Strictly? God, I LOVE Virgin right now - replay just rocks the house for being able to accommodate both...) (but, SHIT - who saw Whitney's dress pop? and who saw Robbies eyes spin? Freak-oh-rama.)

sunday pm

Mothers Ruin, that what has been ruined for the last 2 weeks, is now on the mend. The forecast is as follows: head area small chance of aches and blinky eyes (as though coming out of a dark place into bright light); chest region suffering chesty cough residue from green snot which has dripped into lungs over past fortnight - flood risk: low; sweat concern: reduced from red-alert to amber.
Would benefit from trip to spa-like-environment for half a day, but likely to be put on hold until children are 18 and have left home.
Updates and observations on their way later on in the week. Hold on to your hairnets.

nothing this week

Mothers Ruin is not on this week.
This is due to full bodily meltdown which includes organs and mental coordination.
Hope to be back up and running next week.
Please try not to panic during this time of cerebral deprivation.
Permanent attachment to wine bottle is a good alternative to filling the void left in the absence.
Apologies.

vomit.

6am on Tuesday.
"aaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhh" "uuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrggg" noises came up from Mols room. What? Is White Bear murdering Dog? Is a living operation being performed by Mol onto Liz?
Leaping out of bed like a cobra attacking prey Husband ran downstairs to see what the commotion was all about.
Mol lying in bed. Groaning. "I have a sore tummy." Oh for goodness sake Girl! Is that all? Be quiet! Go sit on the loo or go back to sleep it's still night time was the sympathetic response from less spring-like Husband who clomped back upstairs adrenaline all pumped out and need for sleep returning fast.
"aaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhh" thump thump stumble stumble thump thump, whack (that's the loo seat) choke cough gasp splutter choke some more moan moan uggggg spit spit choke pant cough wretch-noise drippy-gooey-drippy noises... The sound of poor neglected "go back to sleep" Mol vomming what was left in her stomach from last nights sausage beans & chip dinner (yeah yeah ok we're not that healthy I accept...).
We both "leap" (me more like crank myself out - feeling very full of cold and having had a night in a pool of sweat) out of bed and "run" downstairs to the location of the noises... Mol! No! A very pale drooping confused upset little Mol was standing forlornly by the loo which was now full of stringy yellow biley liquidy-yukkyness... Some of the stringy yellow biley liquidy-yukkiness was also dangling out of Mols mouth onto her PJ's and over the loo seat and stringing its way to the floor.
Oh lazy parents! Feeling guilty we wrapped the empty child up in a towel and wiped up the stinky stringy mess and popped her back in bed.
Fifteen minutes later more moans more thumping and whacking and ugging and wretching and heaving and moaning and stringy yukkiness down the loo. More towel wrapping and water and suggestions to brush teeth. Meanwhile Husband & I "calmly & maturely discuss" who's work is more doable from home. Clearly Husband's is because he works off a laptop and phone and my work on a Tuesday is based in a school with the children who go to that school ("um, hi, would you mind bringing your 11year old down to Harringay? so sorry, my daughter is ill with the voms so I can't get into school but you're welcome to come to me!"). But Husband has important meetings and a complicated schedule to organise for a shoot he's on next week (Sardinia! 4* hotel! - is it really a shoot or is he off with that fancy bird from Bognor..?). After a bit of stroppy foot stamping Husband gathers his wits, wizzes into town and collects his work and wizzes back. What a champ.
As I leave the house at 10.45am, Mol has been sick on her feet, on the bathroom floor, in the downstairs loo, on the downstairs loo floor, all over her pj's, in her hair (woops, must wash it). I have just put on the 3rd round of washing. The house has that smell of disinfectant. Mol has a very sore tummy.
Just as I'm getting to the school my mob rings. "Do we have any more disinfectant? Mol has been sick in her bed..."

The First Cold.

I think Autumn has struck me with her crinkly-leafed-finger. I woke this morning at 2am to the sound of Liz in full wail ("where's my duvet?") and as I stumbled blindly down the stairs to rescue her duvet I realised I was completely drenched in sweat. It was dripping off my nose and my non-existent cleavage resembled bonsai-sized rapids. And as I stumbled back upstairs my t-shirt got cold and my scalp tingled with chill and I fell back into my sweaty pit and then woke this morning with shivery limbs and a clonky throat.
And a few hours on, after a therapeutic trip to Sainsburys and Homebase, one coffee and a handful of grapes later, my limbs still feel shivery and my head has that under-water-what's real and what's not sort of fogginess.
Does the saying 'starve a fever, feed a cold' ring true? Thing is, I'm not all that hungry.
I wonder if I should wash my sheets? Or will I wake up in another pool of fast flowing sweat tonight? If that's the case I don't see any point in the laborious task.
I have taken my echinacea and my vitamin pills. I will take some more. I've got to get Liz to her gym class this afternoon. Drive or Walk? Its raining and I feel weak...
I shall see how I feel after lunch with Liz whether I stamp some more of my carbon footprint on the well stamped route to the YMCA where gym takes place.
To snottily be continued over the course of the week.

autumn

You know its autumn when all around you people are sneezing, coughing, looking a bit pale suddenly, looking a bit over or under dressed, snot rags dangling about with careless abandon and all the children get flu.
Oh, and also the leaves turn brown and fall off the trees hiding all the dog shit.
"Look mummy, can I go play in the leaves?" shrieks of delight followed by groans of repulsion from mummy who then has to pick out the horrendous turds from the ridges in Start Right shoes. Have you done that?
I got home once from a very splendid walk in the park and un-beknownst to me I had dog(I hope)faeces all over my trainer. I joyously walked through the house. Up and down stair carpets. Across floor boards. Onto white laminate bathroom tiles. And it was just before having to go and collect Mol from school. I had about 5minutes to get a drink and leave the house. And then I got whiff of something that didn't belong in the house. Yet here it was. In the house. Stomach does small lurch of of-for-fucking-shit's-sake. Check the shoe. Offending brown turd smeared all over sole. Kick off shoe. Then look at clock. Then realise I have less than 3 minutes to clean crap off 3/4's of my floors before Mol is left standing at the school gates forlornly assuming she's been abandoned forever and ever.
I was like a cartoon character with those go-faster-wind-whoosh-movements spurting out from the feet: I raced around the house swearing very loudly a lot (fucking dogs fucking disgusting smell fucking irresponsible selfish dog owners should be shot etc.) with a marigold on one hand, a large wiry sponge and a bucket of not nearly hot enough water and an evil "lemon fresh" cleaning agent in the gloveless hand.
The house smelt of lemon for weeks. The poo I think was obliterated. My obsession with dogs in London (or not being in London, at all) increased 10-fold.
Which reminds me of another more recent poor story. My neice (who is nearly same age as Liz) was romping through Finsbury Park. And for some reason the family was in a bit of a hurry, so my brother kindly picked up his sweet rosy cheeked daughter and gave her a lift (laughing all the way) to the car. When he got to the car he had that 'something smells dodgy here' moment. Sniffing deeply he realised the smell was very close to home. Worryingly close to home. It turned out that Nieces shoe was covered in the shit. Her shoe was no longer pink leather. It was brown sludge. And my brother was now smeared from head to foot (literally, it was on his shoulder, it was on his stomach, it was on his arms, thighs and ankles) in shit too. It was a classic moment as my brother who is usually a pool of calm started on a voyage of simultaneous cussing and stripping down to his birthday suit (kept pants on) whilst applying copious amounts of baby-wipes to his daughter himself his clothing her shoes... They had an hour to drive down to Putney. I know they made it down but - gawd - an hour in a car with a load of stuff stinking of dog-shit?
Beware the autumn leaves...

lipstick & nail varnish

I don't really like seeing small girls in make up. It is all a bit yukky and sickly and makes me think of those adverts on Ch5 in the morning with small girls wearing make up as they rock their pink baby to sleep (the one that cries and wets itself) and they slightly also make you want to vomit. Its not really their fault but it does still induce nausea.
Anyway.
So here's a story about make up and small girls wearing make up.
We had The South London Cousins for lunch today. Liz has a nearly-twin-in-age-cousin and together they make mischief and play in a cheeky funny way. I have visions of them aged 16 in Leicester Square pissed out their brains tripping over their high heels and wondering how to get home without Cross Parents noticing they stink of cider.
So. Today, as we were enjoying Global Warming with a bbq and eating out in the garden, soaking up some hot sun, we noticed that there was a bit of a kid-free-silence. Hm. I wonder where the small people are, I thought.
But it was a not very important thought as we sat chewing our way through sausages and sea bream and end of season over-chewy-under-sweet-sweet-corn. We were lost in chat about horror films and what some old and wrinkled rock-star had chosen for his Desert Island Disk. Really important issues.
And then I thought. Hm, its still kind of quiet. So I sent Husband on a reckee to see what was going on.
About 3 minutes later he came down with Liz & her cousin. At first glance all looked fine. And then at closer inspection we realised that Liz was covered, from her forehead down to her toes in shiny pink lipstick, all greased up like a pig on a spit. And Cousin had an open pot of nail varnish, plus, lipstick all over her face, and some over-gloopy lip-gloss dripping like honey off her little cherry lips. (Both offending articles were old cast-offs of mine which I'd donated to Mol a few months ago. In fact she never uses them. So, I hold my hands up. I'm actually kind of responsible for this sick charade...)
And they came up to us very pleased and chipper: don't we look good?
Ughh!
No!
Gross!
And so in true mother style we spat on bits of kitchen roll and wiped the gloop and grease off the soft peachy skin and told them we didn't want our little cherubs turning into chav tarts at the age of 3. That learned them that did.

hot hot hot!

Sunbathing? At the end of September?
Shall I start a rant about global warming and the end is nigh?

Nah! Fuck it! I so loved sitting in a slump in the garden with hot rays bathing my bod.
Bring it on!
(And my last 10 tomatoes now have a chance of getting ripe.)

Burning Bottom

Ouch. I just had a bath with really amazing bath salts (Burts Bee's) given to me for my birthday but I don't think the salts dissolved 100% so as I lay there in the close-to-boiling-bath-water (how I like it) reading my book (such a good book even though I've forgotten what its called) I realised that my arse was actually burning. Not like smoking burning (that would be hard in a bath) but sort of stinging burning and I realised that I was lying on undissolved megga-strong-Burts Bee's Bath Salts which were now dissolving my bottom skin rather than dissolving directly into my close-to-boiling-bath-water.
The idea behind the bath was a cleanse-the-body-from-the-weekend-of-excess - but not to purge myself by consciously skinning parts of my body. Anyhow, I'm not sure that burning my arse on Burts Bee's Bath Salts would absolve me of my booze sins and disgraceful dancing on Saturday night at The Wedding.
So. A short lived Bath. One chapter claimed of my book (was aiming for 2 or 3...).
Talking of absolving me of my booze sins from the weekend reminds me of the weekend and what an extra-lovely (booze fueled) weekend it was.
Looking back on my previous blog entry I'm wondering how I faired when it came to my wedding prep-hit-list?
I certainly ate at least half a loaf of white bread on Sunday morning to soak up the champagne & wine & beer & fags (and the same at lunch and then a large pizza for dinner).
I certainly danced exceptionally brilliantly, no, wait, check that - cast my mind back 48 hours, oh, no, not brilliantly! BADLY! to Dancing Queen AND Don't Stop Me Now (Queen, ah, gawd-bless-you-Freddie... I'll never forget hearing about your Death. I was in a woodwork lesson at school and Radio One (Steve Right?) was on. And then me and Mirry ran to our study and wrote to Radio One declaring our undying love for the now dead Freddie).
Amazingly given the height of my not-real-gold-shoes I didn't fall over at all and the loo's were in a field too which was difficult terrain to master. But I saw two women fall off their chairs in between speeches (high heels sticking up in the air, pants and tights a-kimbo, all dignity and sobriety out the marquee window...) and then I captured on camera another woman climbing out of a bush having fallen into it on her way back from the porta-loo.
Our gorgeous friend The Bride really was the star of the show. A luminescent Audrey-Hepburn-esque presence. Floating around in a gown fit for film-stars with the broadest smile of happiness. Glowing&Gorgeous. Drop-dead. And now I believe her and her new husband are off in Italia soaking up the remaining September sun and drinking in the Chianti and sucking on olives. I am more than mildly jealous.
But it is true that only the best couples go to Italy for their honeymoons.
As far as I know that really is the truth about honeymoons and couples. Scientifically proven. By me.
So as I sit here with a tingly bottom, purging myself of the last few units of incredibly delicious champagne, I'm thinking, yes, weddings really are splendid and I'm wondering, who's next? and How long do I have to wait till I can don another pair of silly high heels and wobble my way through a night of excellent frolics with all my most-excellent friends?
(Someone mentioned they may get divorced just so that they can get married again... well, if all else fails...)
In the meantime I have snapfish for memories, flashbacks of dancefloor anthems and the image of a lady climbing out of a bush trying to retain her dignity whilst actually nearly peeing herself (again) laughing.
I love weddings.

In preparation of a wedding.

In preparation of a wedding there are certain things a girl with any amount of vanity (that's any amount, even if its pin-head-size. Some girls loudly ascertain that they are definitely not vain. Well. That's just a load of cow-pat if you ask me. Every girl has a certain level of vanity. Its ingrained. Society grains it into small girls from the age of 1 day, when they gaze at the baby and say, ah, isn't she just gorgeous? And from that day on the baby feels pressure to be gorgeous and will permanently mirror check, wrinkle-check, smelly-nappy-check, cute-smile-check, and first-curl-check. etc.) must do.
First.
Kill a chicken (best by hand). At mid-day the day prior to the wedding make a jelly from the jiblets. Apply chicken jelly liberally to entire body and soak in a bath of chilly oil for one hour whilst reading Grazia.
After one hour skin should appear smooth, silky, young, and your persona will take on the pezazz from the chilly, creating a hot-chick on the dance floor. Literally. This is the truth. I have just come from my chilly bath.
What the?

Here's the REAL wedding prep-hit-list:
1.) Go to Boots. Find the sharpest razor in the Mens Toiletry section. Find most wrinkle-smoothing skin toning moisturiser. Bring home. Soak in bath (read approx 1 chapter of good book). Apply mans razor gently but firmly (huh?) to forestry areas (applications for deforestation need to be received by council at least 1month prior to destruction date). Pat skin dry with old grey towel. Liberally apply cream to deforested areas. Run for loo roll to catch drips of blood where deforestation has led to ruptures.
2.) Cut nails of toes (new shoes hurt with long nails) and fingers. Find emery board. File nails. Rummage for 1/2 hour in over-stuffed bathroom cabinet for ancient used-once-a-year-for-weddings-nail-polish. Apply to finger nails. Avoid finger tips knuckles palms of hands wrists clothing floor or white walls. (House and body can resemble scene of murder otherwise.)
3.) Remind Husband once a day for a week or two that he needs to check his suit is clean. Get rebuffed once a day for being repetitive nag.
4.) Get very excited.
5.) Imagine self on dance floor very drunk singing to DANCING QUEEN with old friends.
6.) Imagine self not drinking so much that one is sick in bed at 3am.
7.) Imagine self next morning eating half a loaf of bread and pretending to be sober and looking forward to going to bed that night.
8.) Finally. Go to bed the night before the wedding trying not to worry about forgetting part of extremely glamorous and over-planned outfit.
9.) Final finally. Remind self that the wedding is not about me but about the beautiful blushing bride throwing herself into the arms of her best beloved.
10.) Really. Last finally. Aren't weddings just the best?
Who's next...?

gimmegimmegimme

Maybe I have writers block or maybe my brain has finally gone on permanent vacation (if I was it I'd be heading somewhere like Mexico, the beans are so good down there and so is the tequilla even the bottles with uggy sort of grub things in them)? But I feel like there is so much going on right now that I can't actually process it and make sense of it.
There doesn't seem to be a good starting point.
I could start from where I left off (Cricket, damp jock straps, tall-men) which would mean that I'd be starting the process of processing from Monday (school) but I think I'd miss other crucial bits of information and then I'd be misrepresenting of my overly fascinating life.
I'll try starting from Sunday night. Me and Mol went to Hyde Park to see an Abba Tribute. (This IS a good starting point, now I come to think of it.) I've never been to a Hyde Park concert - I've been in London for 12 years now. Mol is 6.5years and I suspect this marks the beginning of an expensive ('but its cultural mum, to go watch Girls Love Pink in Hyde Park and where is my mini-skirt', 'there is NO WAY you're going out in that belt Mol' etc) habit.
It was a bit cold and a bit blowy but I had a bottle of rose hidden in my un-suitably un-spangly bag and Mol had a packet of Chewitts - so we were well equipped for a night of hard partying and singing our lungs out.
And there were 30,000 people there! How bonkers is that?! I've been to a football match where there are lots of utterly vomit-inducing men and I've been to a concert in Wembley (Stone Roses! how old am I?) with lots of stoned students, but this outdoor concert malarky is a whole different kettle of chips. Just loads and loads and loads of people! My very intelligent friend (whose brain is never on vacation, but that's probably because she uses it) suggested we wrote our phone numbers on to our childrens arms so that if they got lost they could ask a nice stranger (in flares and wig) to call us and reunite us. So I did. I think that slightly freaked Mol out. The thought of getting lost in a crowd so big all she could see were peoples bums and bad shoes. So once I'd tattooed my number to her arm, she then climbed on board and I had her on my shoulders for pretty much the entire concert. No chance of losing her then.
I chugged my rose.
Mol chewed her chewitts.
We sang very loudly.
We shimmied.
We shammied.
We admired Kylie and her outfits.
We laughed at Chris Evans' rotating ginger wig.
We crowd watched.
We ooed and ah-ed at the end-of-concert fireworks.
And then Friend-with-brain brilliantly gave us a lift back home and Mol fell into bed in an Abba-induced coma.
I can't believe there are people out there who don't like Abba? Who are you criminals? Its just unthinkable that you couldn't not want to dance when Dancing Queen strikes up... (ooh, that reminds me... I've got a wedding this weekend... I hope hope hope we have a bit of Abba... that'll totally ruin my new golden stilletoes! watch this space, I'll probably be checking in next week with a broken ankle...)
Today I have a sore throat. Singing for 2.5hours at full blast clearly not the best thing for throats.
Thank you for the music.
Honey honey honey.
I love you. Shmorgersboard.

cricket tea

Husband got back from Sardinia with bags under his eyes and nothing in his bags for me or the girls. Disappointed from N8. Where are our Italian souvenirs? Not even a curl of penne or a moldy olive from the crust of a pizza. Dreadful.
And today was Husband's cricket match against the Greenwich Giants. That makes them sound like an exotic team of Americans. But what I mean is that they're actual biological giants. The average height of the opposing team is probably about 6ft-4inches. The average height of the Ladder Eleven is what, maybe 5ft-2inches? The air is more polluted up in N8. We're all a bit stunted. So anyway. I gather from upset-Husband in SE10 that the Giants squashed the Eleven (David and Gollaeth is a fable afterall) and have probably since put them on the bbq and actually eaten them half-cooked, cricket bats as skewers and the balls, well, enough said.
I realised as I drove down to SE10 that I was the only cricket wife attending from Husbands' team, except for my gorgeous sister in law (who forgot her cake...) and I realised why as the teams got on with their standing around on the pitch for 5hours. The cricket tea and the kiddy-care. Its all left up to the wife (and her loyal wife-helpers). I mean. I like my kids and I like tea. But somehow on the side of a cricket pitch it just doesn't have the same delightful ring to it.
So I had this ridiculous conversation with one of the team-players of Husbands team whilst Husband was on the pitch having Giants chuck fast balls at his balls (not sure I noticed his jock-strap going on - hm, potential for real pain I thought, and when I was sorting out the tea, I found a jock-strap, kind of scrumpled up and a bit sweaty looking right by the sandwich box. A bit un-savoury thought I, and then I thought, (cue evil laughter) I could just pop it ON the sandwiches and the boys would never know... A bit like the waiter spitting in the pea soup...).
Anyway, conversation went along the lines of:
me: so, how long till I need to get the sandwiches out and prepare the tea?
him: oh, about 26 overs.
me: right. so how long till I need to get the sandwiches out and prepare the tea?
him: oh, yes. well, probably in about 182 balls.
me: look you stupid fuck, I don't work in overs or balls. just tell me how many minutes?
him: (looking at me with fear) I don't know.
So I got the tea stuff out and cut the sandwiches thinking, wish I'd rubbed the jock strap on these and I hope they go stale and curl. That'd show them! I mean, god...tell the time in sodding OVERS what is THAT about?
So. That was cricket tea.
It's really good fun. Michelle, you'd have loved it. Honest to god.
XX

spiders

You'll be delighted to hear that Mothersruin is back up and firing on most cylinders once again. After Saturdays shenanigans I was beginning to doubt I'd ever squeeze the last drop of Lauren Perier out of my soggy muscles, but as it turns out biology (in't biology bwilliant!) won over and I am pure once again.
Which means that in the absence of Husband (got to pop off to Sardinia luvvy, back on Wednesday... oh. work or pleasure?) I have achieved achieved achieved. My house is a haven of beauty and smells like freshly baked cakes (not much change there then) and my garden could have been lifted from Hampton Court so well pruned and tweaked is it. I wouldn't be surprised if a scout from Elle Deco dropped by to congratulate me on my success.
But has anyone noticed that the spiders are back? Or is it just my house and its strange Haringey location - plonked between two bachelors' houses on top of a steep hill, a magpie nest in a nearby tree and cats everywhere - it sounds like the makings of a witches den... Often there is a strange old man who sits on my roof, in a moss-green-cloak, I can't see his face, but he holds a crow and cythe... I don't know, all very suspicious.
Anyway, back to the real world. So, I have spiders in every nook and cranny of the house.
First thing in the morning - I get into the shower. The shower door is currently housing a spider and web. Not an obvious place for passing flies and grubs, perhaps Winkworths has been applauding itself on another fantastic rip-off sale in the neighbourhood...
In the kitchen above the kettle if I follow the path of the steam as it boils (takes forever our kettle, I could read War & Peace AND watch Broke Back Mountain and it'd still be on the warming up stage) there is a spider just to the side of the spot the steam hits. Again, not an obvious location. What's it doing there? Is it waiting for me to be hungover again and then fall happily onto my nose? Bastardo.
Outside the front door there is a whoppa who each night weaves a complicated and probably quite beautiful web which I put my head through every morning (well, for the last two mornings when I've been first up & out of the house, Mol appears to be below web-level so doesn't get that clingy stringy thurpy ug ug stuff in her face). Gross.
And then just today, as I was doing my wonderful tweeing-up of the garden it was a constant stream of hurl-inducing-webs - on my legs/arms/head/hair, even my eye-lashes (so long and lustrous are they). As I climbed the ladder to chop a very spiky bit of neighbours hawthorn (SUCH an antisocial bloody thorny bush to plant) I saw a seriously ugly spider, well, more ugly than the rest, in that it was greeny-transparenty-long-leggedy-grosso-ey make-me-slightly-screech/wretch at the same-time-y. Of course I wasn't physically vomiting and I didn't kill it but my natural reaction was to kind of flick it with a very globby paint brush.
And then the man in the cloak on my roof waved his cythe at me and his crow delivered a message in its croaky voice: do not interfere with even the ugliest of spiders, great strife will fall upon your shoulders. I'm like shit. But yeah, like, its well ugly and its on my ladder and for god-sake I'm imagining that Death is sitting on my roof so I really suspect great strife has befallen me deja, ya?
And now, after freaking myself out with my strange ramblings, I am actually quite looking forward to Husband returning tomorrow.

very tiny hangover

I have a very tiny hangover.
But that's what is to be expected when Mothers Ruin finds herself kidnapped by wreckless no good wino's and drinking Lauren Perier champagne at 1am in Claridges.
There I am walking along Bond Street (doesn't happen often) in my M&S platforms when WOOSH this bunch of well quoiffed ladies grab me by the (not so brown any more) arms and threaten my life if I don't obey their orders. You must drink lots of wine and then when your body is full, go on and drink some more. And then really push the boat out, break your 12am curfew and chuck back more booze, this time fizzy, even if it spills out of the side of your mouth, YOU MUST DRINK.
So my body does feel a bit hungover this morning. But all in the good name of fun.
Actually this shouldn't be about me but the friend who's not-hen-party/birthday we were out celebrating. But because its my blog I can actually shift the focus of attention to me because, well, I can.
Actually I think I'm still a bit drunk so I should probably stop writing. I think I'll go cut some grass in my garden. Fresh air is a good hangover cure I believe.
Hope you girls are all feeling as happy and rough as I do this morning!

asbestos hair

My hair dryer what I was given when I was 9 years old and on my way to Boarding School (yes at 9 years old. I've seen 9 year olds. They're small. Why was I sent away at 9 years old? Was I really that bad? Has it scarred me for life? Am I bitter and twisted and permanently damaged? Did I ever call my matron Mum and my ginger-bearded-science teacher Dad? Why do I dream so much of school as a wrinkled adult?) is dying.
Last night was the fortnightly "Mol, we have to wash your hair. You have creatures living in there and they're not from this world" hair washing session. Actually, the older she has become the better the session is. There is less AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO thrashing and more, oh, yeah, I like this Pantene stuff, wow, my hair is like WAY smooth. But I still have to dry it because she has long hair and I was told by my Mum, no, I mean my Matron Tamsin, that to go to bed with wet hair was like a walk down pneumonia alley and kissing death hello. So. We do the hair wash. ("Mum feel my hair its like silk" - maybe I should film and send to Pantene and see if she can be their next shampoo-model.) And then I get my creaky hair dryer out. The box has long since disintegrated. I admit, over the last few years I've been hearing strange noises come from my old Braun friend. Ignoring them because I don't want anything to be wrong. But last night the noises were no longer ignorable, the rattle was the sound of parts which no longer wanted to be together. It was as though in the quiet days in between use they had been having a big discussion about breaking up.
You know, I don't like these shiny red walls any more. And hey, I feel old and tired. I need a change. And you're not the macho fan you once were. Well, you can talk. You just blow hot air down a tube. Badly.
And then when I slide the switch to ON, there is this almighty rumpus, and then I notice as the hot air blows weakly down the tube that bits of 'stuff' are being spat out onto Mols hair. It looks like asbestos. But surely I can't have been 9 SO long ago that hair dryers were made of asbestos? And then there is this dilemma. Do I carry on drying Mols hair and let bits of asbestos spit out all over her precious head, or do I quit the drying and let her go to bed with wet hair and therefore invite pneumonia into her room on a red carpet? Being sort of mostly English and a bit incapable of making firm decisions (sometimes) I went for the middle of the road: dried the top of the hair (which now has bits of asbestos nesting at the roots) and left the long bits wet. Which basically was probably the worse option, but as I type she's has a whole day of being OK no weird asbestos side effects and no pale pneumonic looking chest. I guess I ought to investigate a new machine. Sad though. The old model being replaced by the new. There are many fun dorm memories attached with that old red hair dryer. Singing to Eye of the Tiger or Take my breath away (mainly down deodorant cans but occasionally if there was a shortage out came the hair dryer). Maybe I could do some modern art with it, turn it into a kind of shrine, attach it to the wall in a frame - could be a new movement - and I'd be the founder of it, me and my Braun. I can't be so flippant and just chuck it. I think not.

Oh my god! Lucas! East Enders! Ex-wife dead on a rake! Who'd Adam n Eve it? We watched her bleeding to death! Before 8pm! SO. GOOD.

On a final note I'd just like to congratulate the new mums in my life. Congratulations New Mums in my life. You're amazing! New babies! Sore bits! Long nights! No sleep! Loads of washing! I am a girl - no, sorry, not true, I am a woman (with wrinkles) - with a few words of advice: eat cake (by that I mean good home made cake); not too many visitors; get into East Enders as soon as possible and be nice to your man once a day if you can, otherwise he'll stop bringing you tea. Mind you its highly unlikely that any new mum will be reading this so I really shouldn't bother.

tick tock...

...is the sound of my biological clock but more importantly the sound of the end of the holidays fast approaching. I'm not so concerned right now about my biological clock, except perhaps that as it ticks the wrinkles find themselves more permanently attached to the corners of my eyes. No. I'm more worried about the fact that now bank holiday has been and gone I have this sort of pit in my stomach that reminds me increasingly regularly that Monday marks a new term, a new academic year, a new career opportunity for me, my kids growing taller and gaining Norf Larndan Aa-tit-tood, innit?, the onset of wrinkles, sorry I mean Winter (have you noticed the colder air...?), another 15 weeks chasing our tails and living for Friday nights and getting blue (hopefully not because we're hypathermic) on Sunday afternoons.
Having spoken to a few Mum-friends I have been having conversations along the lines of "thank goodness its nearly over" and "god I can't wait for them to get back to school" and "I think they're bored of being at home" and "I'm going nuts" and "I'm sick of spending all day clearing up after them" and "I think teachers should be paid more money" and "teachers must be insane" and you get the message. I can see their point. The house is no longer the ordered peaceful haven it was 6 weeks ago. The dirt is prolific. The mess is giant sized. But for all the endless clearing up after them and the repetitive conversations "what are we doing today? who with? where? are we going now? can I watch TV? Actually, can I watch a DVD instead? I don't like peas. I don't need the loo. I have brushed my teeth. I haven't brushed my hair. I forgot to wash my face. Do we have to go to Sainsbury's again? Where are my shoes? Can A/B/C come and play? Can we go to the soft play centre? I still don't like peas..." I have had a splendiferous time this holidays with Liz & Mol.
After 2years of the girls apparently completely hating each other - fighting and shouting and hitting and pushing each other down the stairs and under passing taxis, or where Liz simply was too baby-blob like to play - this holidays has finally seen them come-together as relatively good play-partners. OK they still occasionally hit/push/shout but they have developed one or two games which keep them going for hours: teachers (Mol patronizes Liz for 2hours); Nursery (Mol patronizes Liz for another two hours); doctors (Liz sticks cellotape on Mol's arms and legs and inserts a plastic spoon in her ears/nose/throat); princesses (complicated network of silk scarves draped over the bunk-bed which turns into a sort of innocent - I think - harem where they then pose and drape themselves in elegant princess like fashion whilst listening to Classic FM). Which is really nice. And then I get to prune the over grown plants in my tiny patch of shit-filled-garden and make fairy cakes for my little doctors/princesses/teacher-girls.
Harmony.
So I am in fact not looking forward to them going back to their institutions where the under-paid teachers in their over-filled class-rooms try to teach them numbers and letters. I am going to miss the chaos. I am going to miss their daft questions about totally random unrelated things. And I am going to miss not having to worry about what time it is in the morning... tick tock brrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. UG!

Bank holidays

bank holidays. the end of the summer. the last bbq. the last weekend before the kids go back to school in their new Clarks shoes and their new Sainsburys outfits and their new pencil case tucked into their bags ready to get lost within a few hours of putting them down in the classroom.
the last of the hot sun.
the first of the major downpours that last until the following May.
getting stuck in a mass-exodus-from-London-traffic jam.
having an argument about whether to get off the M road.
forgetting to pack any waterproof jackets. therefore getting caught in rain.
should I start planting my autumn bulbs?
I can't believe Gal sailed off with Dawn into the sunset last night on Enders.
hmm. that smell of autumn bonfires.
picking blackberries.
squashed apples on the floor and too many wasps.
dusting off the alarm clock and thinking about the new routine which will be starting in just over one week.
the last glass of white wine before moving onto red which always warms the fingers a bit better than icy chardonnay, as the nights close in and the air gets crisper.
and watch out! don't be tempted to step on that pile of leaves! there WILL be dog shit in it.
oooh. jumpers.

Climbing back on

Have had another day of being On The Wagon (why is it a wagon? where is it going? is it pulled by a tired mare with blinkers and hair loss or by a strapping stallion with rippling muscles and the wind in its mane?). That is because Husband is out tonight which means I don't open wine and I get to watch my first episode of East Enders in WEEKS. Months in fact. Its sinful. Shocking. Dis-respectful of me to have missed so much of the Square. But life on a summer holiday is very hard to plan around Fill & Dawns affair and who the father of Evvas' sprog is - 7.30pm is not a convenient time to drop everything and rush to the old TV (its deeper than it is wide. I think if this TV was screwed into a wall like a trendy modern flatscreen I'd have Tony from Next Door screaming in fear as the whole wall collapsed in on us... its a big TV). But tonight I caught a whole whopping 20minutes of it and it ended with Gal punching Fill in the middle of the square and Dawn looking hopelessly on with too much makeup and a seriously trashy wedding dress. Will they get married? Will I be able to watch the episode on Thursday? I'm not sure as we have friends for dinner and I just may have to cook something for them rather than check the make-up continuity of Dawns lips.
But onto healthier things than Enders. My throat hurts and I've told my Brother that he's to REFUSE my pathetic requests for his cigs. I am now going to cut the cord between me and smoking. I'm too old and too unhealthy and you know what? Smoking KILLS. Like knives. Guns. Earthquakes. Illegal dogs. Bad council paving. Airplanes. They all kill. So I've decided to give up smoking because at least I can. I may not be able to give up illegal dogs (our neighbourhood is over run with the creatures, drooling like a rugby player with oversized gumshields and shitting all over our streets for our small children to carelessly run through and then spread all over the inside of their cars or houses - Mummy whats the smell that's making me gag?) and I may well trip over a big crack in the Harringay pavement caused by an undetected earthquake (you don't know what goes on when you're asleep) but I can at least force my brother to stop feeding me cigarettes. Actually I may well give up airplanes too. They're a dreadful invention. Partly because they scare me a lot (even more than my old riding teacher) and also because they do sometimes fall out of the sky and also because they do waste a lot of energy and also because they have horrid loos which when you flush them you think 'am I going to get sucked out of the plane now?' and also air stewards are generally orange and that's quite scary. You also have to go to airports when you get an airplane and they are full of orange people wearing bad clothes to go on holiday in, and there are queues and over priced newspaper shops and too many people in uniform who are mainly out to get you and then the plane gets delayed and all the orange people go to the Ye Olde English Pub and drink beer at 9am and that's quite scary too. So yes. Smoking AND planes (Monsieur Coff I know you'll pick up on this at some point and when I book my next flights to the Costa on the most orange planes of all I'll have to pretend that it was Husband and that he didn't know my latest vow of abstinence...).
So my list for today: no booze, no fags & no planes. I scrub my halo.

totally failed

well. that was a short detox. and I didn't even buy a lemon.

curdled liver foggy head

I was reading the contents page of a Sunday paper magazine today - and my heart gave a little hopeful leap as one of the articles was titled Mothers Ruin! Fame at last! I've been reviewed in a Sunday paper! Strange that the journo hasn't contacted me to ask me any pertinent questions about how my writing is inspired and am I a permanent pessimist in real life and how many of my fascinating accounts are truth or fabrication...? But then I read the little side-line attached to the title and realised that the article was nothing to do with ME but something to do with... Oh, crumbs, I've forgotten what the article was about and I've forgotten which paper it was (my sister in law gets the Mail on Sunday which we all sniff our noses at but then find ourselves reading and making oohs and ahs at the EXCLUSIVE headlines about Anne Robinsons latest £12,000 facelift and Husband buys The Observer and we all read it very quietly pretending to absorb important facts about Global Warming and how to mulch a city garden).
Why have I forgotten the name of the paper and what the article was about? I only saw it, what? 5hours ago? I hope the reason I have forgotten is because the article was in fact in The Mail on Sunday and was so mundane that the words didn't even reach the perifory of my brain. What I worry is that the reason I have forgotten is because my body is currently a sponge soaked in cheap white wine and smelling slightly of the raw onion I crunched into by mistake at last nights post-cricket-Hog-Roast-party.
My body has been through the mill of late. A mill created entirely by my weak will, my lilly-livered-behaviour which is fueling my poor liver to actually ripple as I douse it in yet another shower of acidic wine, or possibly an (these are so good: elder-flower-gin&tonic) extra strong gin made by my cocktail-crackers-Dad. But these are the holidays, right? No need to get up in the morning (apart from Thursdays to skip into work where I type letters for Mrs B who tells me in falsetto whispers all about the various members of staff and their vices), what harm will one more glass of cheap white wine do? So down it goes. Maybe accompanied by a cigarette (I don't really smoke, honest... just annoyingly nick of others...) rolled by my brother or maybe a lump of chocolate or a slice of cheese. It's always so good at the time. But come the morning I wake feeling groggy. And recently my stomach has had some gruesome aches which can't be down to stress because this being the summer holidays there is nothing to stress about except whether the wine is not cool enough or the tomatoes need watering. After a long hot day in the park with two kiddies splashing around in a filthy lido there is nothing better than a large icy glass of wine, no? I can't believe you would disagree ('you' being my one reader, although he'd probably opt for a glass of cold beer). So it feels excusable. But I wonder how much my body is reacting to constantly having to process another 2-4 glasses of wine each day?
I have seen that programme "Make my body younger" where some young party animal who drinks and smokes and parties all night gets a "living autopsy" and the doctor says with very dramatic music moaning in the background, "if you carry on with this lifestyle you'll be dead before the end of this programme" and then they stop drinking and smoking and go to the gym and before the end of the programme they have another "living autopsy" and the doctor declares "well done you have reduced your risk of death before the end of this programme by 100%". But my point is this: if I had a living autopsy would the doctor say the same thing when he looked into my liver? Would it be curdled? And would he look down my earholes and see a very foggy brain that only had two fully functioning nerves remaining? How much does a gal have to drink, regularly, before her body has a physical reaction in the Sainsbury's Cheap Wine aisle?
Afterall I am no whipper snapper any more. NO! I am half way through the decade that takes me to the big four-oh. My body cannot snap into shape like it could, um, when it used to snap back into shape.
I just found this website about detoxing. I may try it. And I've got the Green Tea already so I'm half way there. I just hope I remember to do it. What with a foggy brain and a curdled liver its very difficult remembering what one is meant to be doing at all.
Whats on my shopping list for tomorrow? Bread, cheese, chocolate, fags, wine, wine, wine (its still the holidays afterall...). This mother is well and truly ruined.

old children

Well, I survived Thursday's excitements. I guess I was having a surge of vain-glorious-ness as I imagined people actually reading the shit I put up on the inter-web and then taking it to the next level of egotism and me-love.
So, not wanting to let my people down (I have officially got ONE whole follower, and despite knowing who he is, I pretend that its not just ONE and that maybe in google-analytics-language ONE actually means ONE batch of, say, 100,000. So if I had, like 4 "followers" what that really meant was 400,000 followers... oh god I'm desperately pathetic. A bit like the new girl in the playground giving everyone sweets to make people like her...Although I'm sitting at my desk now eating giant Cadbury's chocolate buttons which are so good but I'm not actually sharing them with anyone, so no new friends I guess) I batted off the FBI and the gay Nazi officers and here I am for another round of Its My Life.
Saturday saw the graduation of Liz turning transferring from terrible twos to the fearsome three's. I recall vividly that when Mol turned three I experienced some of the most incomprehensible tantrums - lying on the floor howling over not being allowed another yoghurt or donut or spliff, whatever, and I remember finding black graffiti on her freshly painted walls "Am I bovvered?" (I had it translated by a monkey trainer - he said it looked just like the scrawls they produce just before they're given type writers to see how long it takes to type up a novel) and a lot of "You're not my friend" conversations which get a bit complicated when you say "well you're not my friend either" in friendly retaliation and then they burst into tears because what they actually think you mean is that they're poo's and that you don't love them any more. And then there's a lot of back-peddalling but by then the hole is too deep and the full rage is released once more and the windows start to rattle. So that is where we're at with Liz. Window rattling. I think the cashiers in Sainsbury's a few miles away recognise the sound waves as we approach in the car and suddenly all take their fag breaks at the same time - it can be the only explanation for the lack of people in the shop when get there.
But we had a party. She got her pig cake that she'd decided I had to make her (over 6 months ago, its been a long time coming). And mum and dad didn't kill the wasps in the giant wasps nest that had been the source of pain for at least 4 people when they had the fete in their garden a few weeks ago (if interested see 18/7 entry, bunting bunting) so we spent most of the day panicking that one of the kids had swallowed a stinger and was about to go into shock. And we had a treasure hunt. And a really ropey pass-the-parcel (one girl had the parcel passed to her 3 times and STILL didn't get a sweet... Conclusion: do not delegate parcel making to Husband and godmother after they've drunk a bottle of wine). And generally it was a good day.
So now I own a 3 year old and a 6.5year old. And now I'm batting off my mum who's eyeing up my midrift every now and again to see if there is another one on the way. NO MUM THERE'S NOT IT'S JUST ANOTHER ROUND OF BRIE. Bugger off.
And now I have to go through the fun task of writing thankyou letters on behalf of a screaming toddler who wouldn't have a clue who gave her what, and has probably lost the bits to the new jigsaw already and spilt all the Luxury Waitrose Bubbles all over her new Mermaid costume etc.
I love being a mum.
Now I search for the wine. The paper. And a half-spent felt tip to make the letters look genuinely from a three year old. "dear gwanny. fank u for the tent. I pee'd in it and then it bwoke. love liz."