I think I'm going to change the name of Mothers Ruin.
I just did a Google Search and was a.) disheartened by the number of other mothersruin's out there, which all talk about either post-natal depression or mixing alcoholic drinks or giving advice on software, and b.) I couldn't see my little contribution to society anywhere!, and c.) thinking I should find something more appropriate to my life and maybe a bit more accessible, with perhaps less negative connotations ...
Any suggestions please send me a postcard because I'm still not sure how all this internet mallarky actually works.
I thank you. And will keep cherished readers, of which there are by now probably well over 2, posted should the name change.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
The day in the life of a TUESDAY.
What did I do today?
Woke at 6.30am when liz shouted "I need to do a peeeeeeeee". Husband went and had an argument about time of day and possibly to wait half hour more if that's OK.
Cup of tea in bed.
All out of bed and getting dressed by 7.30am.
Breakfast. cereal. cornflakes/shreddies/branflakes today. make M's packed lunch (bagel with ham).
Shower for me. Husband to work (7.50am). Get dressed. Sort out kids hair. Find hats. Apply first layer of factor 50 on their arms and cheeks.
Despite always having plenty of time for hair and finding shoes and book bag we always leave the house in a flurry of "have you got, did you do, where's my..? LIZ GET IN THE BUGGY no you can't do a pee now...". "Oh. OK, better do a pee then. quickly."
Go to school. Get hot.
Come back from school. Dripping.
Do some hoovering. Liz watched bad-tracking-Cinderella on our new 2nd hand VHS player.
Reapply sun cream. Meet friend vanessa for walk & cold drink in local nature reserve. Watched trains and butterflies. Liz needed to poo.
Came home. Very hot. Gallons of water. Put water in freezer for later. And apple juice cartons.
More hoovering. More sweating.
Lunch. Pitta bread ham cucumber cherry toms marmite cream cheese ribena ("can I dip my ham in the 'bena?").
Sweep up kitchen mop floor and unstick bits of ham-soaked-in-'bena off floor.
Liz has siesta on sofa watching rest of Cinderella even more flickery this time but can't be bothered to adjust it she doesn't seem to notice. Durh.
I made supper for tonight. Roasted squash & couscous. to have cold. With beeeeer. hmmmm. Nice.
Filled up paddling pool with liz once Flickery Cinders is over (every time:"but who ripped her dress?"). Sat with veiny (mine not Liz's) feet in the pool. Liz fell in backwards and got totally soaked.
Dry ourselves. Reapply layer three of sun cream. I think my skin feels a bit like the freshly painted windowsills right now.
Walk to school over roasting pavements, past steaming dog-shit and evaporating stinky dog-wee. Pleasant neighbourhood I mutter to myself.
Legs feel like LOGS in this heat! THUMP THUMP THUMP here comes the Mothers Ruin - you can hear her all over North London thumping over the melting pavements splashing through the runny dog poo cursing at the accrid dog pee staining the floor....
Get Mol to ballet. We all feel like we've walked hours and miles hours and miles.
Sit on the grass at the YMCA and get bitten by a bloody ant. Fucker. Right on my arse cheek. Straight in under my shorts. Hm. Nice bit of juicy Bum.
Stagger home along the "New River" where we have a communion with Nature - mother duck with her 3 babies floating on the river on her nest. Sweet.
Home. Sausages. Baked Beans. Toast. Cucumber. Ice lollies. Grapes. Feet back in the paddling pool.
Re-clean kitchen scrape beans off the floor.
Think about the last stage of the day: bath time & books, before I can tuck into Enders / 1664-Kronenburg & cous cous.
The day in the life of a mother is just one endless trail of chasing poo kids pee food dirt more poo ... and somewhere underneath is a woman crying out for an office, a power suit with extra large shoulder pads and a personal assistant bringing her coffee and croissant and going over today's meetings.
Woke at 6.30am when liz shouted "I need to do a peeeeeeeee". Husband went and had an argument about time of day and possibly to wait half hour more if that's OK.
Cup of tea in bed.
All out of bed and getting dressed by 7.30am.
Breakfast. cereal. cornflakes/shreddies/branflakes today. make M's packed lunch (bagel with ham).
Shower for me. Husband to work (7.50am). Get dressed. Sort out kids hair. Find hats. Apply first layer of factor 50 on their arms and cheeks.
Despite always having plenty of time for hair and finding shoes and book bag we always leave the house in a flurry of "have you got, did you do, where's my..? LIZ GET IN THE BUGGY no you can't do a pee now...". "Oh. OK, better do a pee then. quickly."
Go to school. Get hot.
Come back from school. Dripping.
Do some hoovering. Liz watched bad-tracking-Cinderella on our new 2nd hand VHS player.
Reapply sun cream. Meet friend vanessa for walk & cold drink in local nature reserve. Watched trains and butterflies. Liz needed to poo.
Came home. Very hot. Gallons of water. Put water in freezer for later. And apple juice cartons.
More hoovering. More sweating.
Lunch. Pitta bread ham cucumber cherry toms marmite cream cheese ribena ("can I dip my ham in the 'bena?").
Sweep up kitchen mop floor and unstick bits of ham-soaked-in-'bena off floor.
Liz has siesta on sofa watching rest of Cinderella even more flickery this time but can't be bothered to adjust it she doesn't seem to notice. Durh.
I made supper for tonight. Roasted squash & couscous. to have cold. With beeeeer. hmmmm. Nice.
Filled up paddling pool with liz once Flickery Cinders is over (every time:"but who ripped her dress?"). Sat with veiny (mine not Liz's) feet in the pool. Liz fell in backwards and got totally soaked.
Dry ourselves. Reapply layer three of sun cream. I think my skin feels a bit like the freshly painted windowsills right now.
Walk to school over roasting pavements, past steaming dog-shit and evaporating stinky dog-wee. Pleasant neighbourhood I mutter to myself.
Legs feel like LOGS in this heat! THUMP THUMP THUMP here comes the Mothers Ruin - you can hear her all over North London thumping over the melting pavements splashing through the runny dog poo cursing at the accrid dog pee staining the floor....
Get Mol to ballet. We all feel like we've walked hours and miles hours and miles.
Sit on the grass at the YMCA and get bitten by a bloody ant. Fucker. Right on my arse cheek. Straight in under my shorts. Hm. Nice bit of juicy Bum.
Stagger home along the "New River" where we have a communion with Nature - mother duck with her 3 babies floating on the river on her nest. Sweet.
Home. Sausages. Baked Beans. Toast. Cucumber. Ice lollies. Grapes. Feet back in the paddling pool.
Re-clean kitchen scrape beans off the floor.
Think about the last stage of the day: bath time & books, before I can tuck into Enders / 1664-Kronenburg & cous cous.
The day in the life of a mother is just one endless trail of chasing poo kids pee food dirt more poo ... and somewhere underneath is a woman crying out for an office, a power suit with extra large shoulder pads and a personal assistant bringing her coffee and croissant and going over today's meetings.
Hot hot hot!
No one is allowed to complain about this completely gorgeous hot weather. Not even small babies or old ladies. Not even those who have to clamber on to the (oh my god it must be fierce down there) tube. Its hot! Its England! Its not raining!
I have two half litres of water in my freezer and some apple juice. For either drinking or just pressing against hot parts of my body at various points in the day.
I'm hoping the heat will dry out the god-darned snails / slugs demolishing my new and not so gold marigolds.
However, what are the chances, now that I've bought a frock for a wedding on Saturday, that it pee's with rain all weekend?
Deneise & Lucas! Back on with a passionate kiss which I caught a glimpse of whilst flicking between Murray & Enders (well it was 5 sets afterall, not like 1/2hour would make much difference. Was it just me or was the post-match-interview just completely idiotic pointless and painful to watch? Poor dehydrated utterly exhausted Muz - first time I've ever felt sympathy for Muzza - you could see he was just dying to get off court and sit on the loo for a couple of hours reading The Daily Mail, and all the moronic guy with the mike could do was ask him what he'd be dreaming later... DUH? ).
Bradley - just a bumbling idiot who has no control over anything he ever wants to do (except for blushing - like, for-real, on set). Predictable love story coming up AGAIN with Jack & Roxie. Yawn. What if Ronnie comes back? But Amy needs you, Jack. Oh, confusion between two equally rough sisters with bad hair. And OH! Phil you old love rat you. Stealing Minty's girlfriend from under his nose. I can't work out which is the worse of Phil or Minty? As an actress having to snog one or the other which is the least offensive? They both have sagging jowels. I once saw Minty in Crouch End sitting outside a pub with a few empty jars of beer in front of him. That's about as exciting a story as I can muster about an Enders 'star'.
Actually I don't really care for any of these sub-plots. The most important thing has been pushed aside: Stacey! Where has she gone? She's been off the script for ages - does this mean she's rehearsing extra-hard to learn how to become a right-proper-loon? It better be a good plot when she returns.
Actually. I can't really be bothered to think about East Enders at all. Oh no? What's happened? Has it lost its mojo? Have i lost my mojo? God! shit! is this something to do with turning 35? Over night I become allergic to soap opera's and develop an interest in self-help books? Maybe I should find a self help book on learning to love soap again? There must be one out there.
Or maybe my antipathy has something to do with the weather. I can't even be arsed to tell Liz to switch off the TV which she's been in front of since yesterday lunch time. I think she's seen 8 cycles of C-Beebies without noticing. And I just can't be bothered.
Come on. Bake snails, Bake.
I have two half litres of water in my freezer and some apple juice. For either drinking or just pressing against hot parts of my body at various points in the day.
I'm hoping the heat will dry out the god-darned snails / slugs demolishing my new and not so gold marigolds.
However, what are the chances, now that I've bought a frock for a wedding on Saturday, that it pee's with rain all weekend?
Deneise & Lucas! Back on with a passionate kiss which I caught a glimpse of whilst flicking between Murray & Enders (well it was 5 sets afterall, not like 1/2hour would make much difference. Was it just me or was the post-match-interview just completely idiotic pointless and painful to watch? Poor dehydrated utterly exhausted Muz - first time I've ever felt sympathy for Muzza - you could see he was just dying to get off court and sit on the loo for a couple of hours reading The Daily Mail, and all the moronic guy with the mike could do was ask him what he'd be dreaming later... DUH? ).
Bradley - just a bumbling idiot who has no control over anything he ever wants to do (except for blushing - like, for-real, on set). Predictable love story coming up AGAIN with Jack & Roxie. Yawn. What if Ronnie comes back? But Amy needs you, Jack. Oh, confusion between two equally rough sisters with bad hair. And OH! Phil you old love rat you. Stealing Minty's girlfriend from under his nose. I can't work out which is the worse of Phil or Minty? As an actress having to snog one or the other which is the least offensive? They both have sagging jowels. I once saw Minty in Crouch End sitting outside a pub with a few empty jars of beer in front of him. That's about as exciting a story as I can muster about an Enders 'star'.
Actually I don't really care for any of these sub-plots. The most important thing has been pushed aside: Stacey! Where has she gone? She's been off the script for ages - does this mean she's rehearsing extra-hard to learn how to become a right-proper-loon? It better be a good plot when she returns.
Actually. I can't really be bothered to think about East Enders at all. Oh no? What's happened? Has it lost its mojo? Have i lost my mojo? God! shit! is this something to do with turning 35? Over night I become allergic to soap opera's and develop an interest in self-help books? Maybe I should find a self help book on learning to love soap again? There must be one out there.
Or maybe my antipathy has something to do with the weather. I can't even be arsed to tell Liz to switch off the TV which she's been in front of since yesterday lunch time. I think she's seen 8 cycles of C-Beebies without noticing. And I just can't be bothered.
Come on. Bake snails, Bake.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Cake Hangover.
Yesterday. The School Fete.
After 4hours (12pm - 4pm) pretty much none-stop (two loo breaks don't really count?) of cutting up cakes, picking up cakes, putting cakes into little bags, serving ice-cream-cones, cutting up watermelon, peeling lollies from sticky wrappers, then cutting up more cakes, whilst surrounded by swarms of children clammy in the heat, all poking at the cakes, reaching and poking and pushing and jostling - my fingers transformed into one gigantic sticky piece of human sellotape.
Towards the end of the fete as I rummaged in my (now I know what it feels like to be Stacy on the market with a money-apron! Come on! Tenna for this tacky mini-skirt!) money-apron for change my hands would come out with huge clumps of money stuck to them, like dead flies on the tape in an unhygenic restaurant kitchen.
If I worked the cake stall for 4hours, how many cakes were there to start with? I'd like to say THOUSANDS of cakes but that'd be more than on a Sainsbury's shelf (not that I count the number of cakes on a Sainsbury's shelf). Hundreds, perhaps.
But as of yesterday I vowed I never wanted to make taste cut handle sell bag up another bleedin' cake again. EVER. Unless its for a member of my family on their birthday. Just the word cake which in fact used to be my most favorite word to roll around my mouth - now my fingers start to tingle in an anti-stick-panic and my stomach sort of wants to turn itself inside out. Maybe what I am experiencing is a cake-hangover. Maybe by tomorrow I will be back on cake.
The best thing about yesterday was that my very quickly whipped up banana-cake (whilst totally ignoring my wrestling children somewhere upstairs, screaming and kicking about completely hating each other for 1/2hour) won the Best Cake Contest. I think I get a certificate (definitely framing that one - much better than a degree) from Patience, the school cook who judged the competition. After I slipped her a tenner I knew the prize was mine. Ha ha ha! All mine! I'm THE cake maker... (queue strange power-fueled-psycho voice).
(No, honestly I didn't slip her a tenner. I'm not that loaded! £10! Couldn't even have slipped her a one-er...)
And that was basically my experience of the School Fete. A wholesome get together of the local communi-dee a lot of burgers (we had some banter, us cake-ladies and the burger-boys... yeah. Like, can we borrow some change lads? or hey, fancy a free bun, men-with-metal-spatula's...? -you know, that sort of hilarious off the cuff improvisation) some singing from the (sweet) children, some dancing from the (sweet) children and some (sweet) children in my face for 4hours demanding ice-creams, cakes (NOT that one, THIS ONE), ice-lollies (sorry they've all run out) and watermelon. And fingers like human-sellotape.
Hey! Put me on the rosta for next year!
After 4hours (12pm - 4pm) pretty much none-stop (two loo breaks don't really count?) of cutting up cakes, picking up cakes, putting cakes into little bags, serving ice-cream-cones, cutting up watermelon, peeling lollies from sticky wrappers, then cutting up more cakes, whilst surrounded by swarms of children clammy in the heat, all poking at the cakes, reaching and poking and pushing and jostling - my fingers transformed into one gigantic sticky piece of human sellotape.
Towards the end of the fete as I rummaged in my (now I know what it feels like to be Stacy on the market with a money-apron! Come on! Tenna for this tacky mini-skirt!) money-apron for change my hands would come out with huge clumps of money stuck to them, like dead flies on the tape in an unhygenic restaurant kitchen.
If I worked the cake stall for 4hours, how many cakes were there to start with? I'd like to say THOUSANDS of cakes but that'd be more than on a Sainsbury's shelf (not that I count the number of cakes on a Sainsbury's shelf). Hundreds, perhaps.
But as of yesterday I vowed I never wanted to make taste cut handle sell bag up another bleedin' cake again. EVER. Unless its for a member of my family on their birthday. Just the word cake which in fact used to be my most favorite word to roll around my mouth - now my fingers start to tingle in an anti-stick-panic and my stomach sort of wants to turn itself inside out. Maybe what I am experiencing is a cake-hangover. Maybe by tomorrow I will be back on cake.
The best thing about yesterday was that my very quickly whipped up banana-cake (whilst totally ignoring my wrestling children somewhere upstairs, screaming and kicking about completely hating each other for 1/2hour) won the Best Cake Contest. I think I get a certificate (definitely framing that one - much better than a degree) from Patience, the school cook who judged the competition. After I slipped her a tenner I knew the prize was mine. Ha ha ha! All mine! I'm THE cake maker... (queue strange power-fueled-psycho voice).
(No, honestly I didn't slip her a tenner. I'm not that loaded! £10! Couldn't even have slipped her a one-er...)
And that was basically my experience of the School Fete. A wholesome get together of the local communi-dee a lot of burgers (we had some banter, us cake-ladies and the burger-boys... yeah. Like, can we borrow some change lads? or hey, fancy a free bun, men-with-metal-spatula's...? -you know, that sort of hilarious off the cuff improvisation) some singing from the (sweet) children, some dancing from the (sweet) children and some (sweet) children in my face for 4hours demanding ice-creams, cakes (NOT that one, THIS ONE), ice-lollies (sorry they've all run out) and watermelon. And fingers like human-sellotape.
Hey! Put me on the rosta for next year!
Saturday, 27 June 2009
The Fed. Large Ladies. Pimms.
I realise how pathetic I am and how sucked into the celeb culture I have become when I'm more excited by how many famous people I saw yesterday at Wimbledon than how many games of tennis. But its FUN! Starting with Clare Balding (didn't make any teeth jokes or, you look a bit like a man? comments), then Pat Cash, then Sheila Hancock, then some recognisably tall thin model, then Husband spotted some ex-Rugby-captain, then the One And Only Terry Wogan, Bobby Carlton - no sorry, Charlton - and these guys weren't even playing tennis. On court - I am not worthy, Centre Court no less, the first game was the God of Tennis himself, Monseiur Le Federer. Husband started using this sort of language the moment The Fed walked onto court: "How silky he is..." and "he really nailed that one" and "ah, another single handed back hand, just so much cleaner than double"... pretending to be a 5-Live comentator (every boys dream).
Meanwhile I was thinking, "when does he change his t-shirt" and "shame we're not sitting behind the umpire because that's where he throws his sweaty head-bands after the match" and "come on swap ends and come a bit closer to me..." and "oh, does he really have a pregnant wife?" I think I was aware of the game. He is very clever with his balls (fnar). But really! He is! He can do things like spin it! And get it back over the net VERY fast! And return serves that are over 125mph! Oooh, Ouch! Poor Federer! You slipped over. How many ladies want to help you back up?
So that was a good game.
The seats in Centre Court are a bit small and a bit sweaty and a bit close to each other. So when the largest lady out of all the 15,000 people seated in the arena squeezed in next to Husband, in a sort of lycra-cotton-mix-floral-low-cut-high-legged-skin-tight dress (and she looked like Vanessa Feltz! uncanny - but she wasn't) with tiny little stillettoes furnishing her rather swollen looking feet we got a bit juvenile & giggly and a bit hotter. And then, shock! A bumble bee mistook her for an extra-large-magnolia and flew up her sweaty skirt! Luckily no pollination took place and our Feltz-look-a-like flicked it out. But the Bee, determined to get some action, then landed back on her upper thigh and took a walk north. She meanwhile was discussing her stillettoes with her equally strange looking friend oblivious to Bee on leg. I insisted Husband alert her to the dangers (the idea of extra-large-magnolia being stung by a bee and going into shock during The Fed's game- too much... Husband giving mouth-to-mouth on her over-painted-red-lips... its enough to put anyone into shock just the thought...). She flicked said-Bee away and it flew carefree down towards our Tennis Hero... (Oh to be a bee... carefree, flying towards Ye...)
Anyway. Wimbledon. Top day out! So many people to watch! All the Clapham-ites there in their white jeans and pink Ralph Lauren shirts & slip on brogues. Lots of comedy people in wigs and 1970's tight shorts. Girls in minute designer dresses. Old people with macs (rain, not apple) just in case. Young people clutching beer & pimms. One fresh looking baby up in the stands screaming during a crucial set point for Mardy Fish (what a name! no wonder he lost!). Bewildered tourists. Camera's pointing to everyone everything everywhere. A strange couple sat in front of us... A man of about 55-60 escorting a young maybe Russian (well she had an accent...) extremely glamorous blond with piles of makeup and a complicated corsetted dress, pretty revealing - however her outfit was slightly down-graded by the fact she had some green loo roll stuck to her high-heel and on her back unbeknonwst to her, a large white pimple... I was this close to popping it.
All good wholesome London stuff.
Meanwhile Mol had a sleepover with her best buddy. Liz had a semi-sleep-over (I collected her when I got home) with her best buddy from nursery. When I went to get her, her best buddy had passed out on the sofa in front of a Michael Jackson Tribute (who is sad about this?) and Liz was in bed with best-buddy's-older-sister having an indepth conversation about their teddies. Covered in sweat as the room was way hot.
Ah. kids. wimbledon. life!
Meanwhile I was thinking, "when does he change his t-shirt" and "shame we're not sitting behind the umpire because that's where he throws his sweaty head-bands after the match" and "come on swap ends and come a bit closer to me..." and "oh, does he really have a pregnant wife?" I think I was aware of the game. He is very clever with his balls (fnar). But really! He is! He can do things like spin it! And get it back over the net VERY fast! And return serves that are over 125mph! Oooh, Ouch! Poor Federer! You slipped over. How many ladies want to help you back up?
So that was a good game.
The seats in Centre Court are a bit small and a bit sweaty and a bit close to each other. So when the largest lady out of all the 15,000 people seated in the arena squeezed in next to Husband, in a sort of lycra-cotton-mix-floral-low-cut-high-legged-skin-tight dress (and she looked like Vanessa Feltz! uncanny - but she wasn't) with tiny little stillettoes furnishing her rather swollen looking feet we got a bit juvenile & giggly and a bit hotter. And then, shock! A bumble bee mistook her for an extra-large-magnolia and flew up her sweaty skirt! Luckily no pollination took place and our Feltz-look-a-like flicked it out. But the Bee, determined to get some action, then landed back on her upper thigh and took a walk north. She meanwhile was discussing her stillettoes with her equally strange looking friend oblivious to Bee on leg. I insisted Husband alert her to the dangers (the idea of extra-large-magnolia being stung by a bee and going into shock during The Fed's game- too much... Husband giving mouth-to-mouth on her over-painted-red-lips... its enough to put anyone into shock just the thought...). She flicked said-Bee away and it flew carefree down towards our Tennis Hero... (Oh to be a bee... carefree, flying towards Ye...)
Anyway. Wimbledon. Top day out! So many people to watch! All the Clapham-ites there in their white jeans and pink Ralph Lauren shirts & slip on brogues. Lots of comedy people in wigs and 1970's tight shorts. Girls in minute designer dresses. Old people with macs (rain, not apple) just in case. Young people clutching beer & pimms. One fresh looking baby up in the stands screaming during a crucial set point for Mardy Fish (what a name! no wonder he lost!). Bewildered tourists. Camera's pointing to everyone everything everywhere. A strange couple sat in front of us... A man of about 55-60 escorting a young maybe Russian (well she had an accent...) extremely glamorous blond with piles of makeup and a complicated corsetted dress, pretty revealing - however her outfit was slightly down-graded by the fact she had some green loo roll stuck to her high-heel and on her back unbeknonwst to her, a large white pimple... I was this close to popping it.
All good wholesome London stuff.
Meanwhile Mol had a sleepover with her best buddy. Liz had a semi-sleep-over (I collected her when I got home) with her best buddy from nursery. When I went to get her, her best buddy had passed out on the sofa in front of a Michael Jackson Tribute (who is sad about this?) and Liz was in bed with best-buddy's-older-sister having an indepth conversation about their teddies. Covered in sweat as the room was way hot.
Ah. kids. wimbledon. life!
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Peeing
Liz's new fad.
Strip off clothes (which is a very complicated procedure in itself as she can never work out which limb has to come out of which hole... and buttons get stuck in her hair and then she falls over her pants as she tries to clamber out of them and anyway its no fun trying to get leggings off when Crocks (god i hate those shoes but i love them too because they're so easy to take off put on take off put on...) are still on feet. Its kind of like something from Rodney in Only Fools and Horses - just always getting it not quite right.)
Go into the garden.
Find some nice looking grass.
Pose strangely. Like a New Zealand Rugby Player doing a Hukka(?) she stands there, naked, legs akimbo, chest out, proudly like a peacock (or New Zealand Rugby Player). And then she pees. But she only does a mini-pee. And then she shuffles, like a crab or something else that moves sideways, to another spot on the grass, and pees again. And then, one more shuffle sideways, she does another pee.
Then, ritual over, she goes off and continues with whatever she was playing with before. Oblivious to her very wierd behaviour and oblivious to her nakedness. she just picks up where she left off.
I always thought she was a bit like a bear of little brains, and now I wonder if she's actually related to some sort of terrier or king-charles-spaniel?
And finally will my grass die overnight? And actually, this is my final question: is toddler pee good to scare off snails?
I tried to remind my children that it is my birthday tomorrow. I may as well have told them that the FTSE one hundred was down again on closing tonight.
Strip off clothes (which is a very complicated procedure in itself as she can never work out which limb has to come out of which hole... and buttons get stuck in her hair and then she falls over her pants as she tries to clamber out of them and anyway its no fun trying to get leggings off when Crocks (god i hate those shoes but i love them too because they're so easy to take off put on take off put on...) are still on feet. Its kind of like something from Rodney in Only Fools and Horses - just always getting it not quite right.)
Go into the garden.
Find some nice looking grass.
Pose strangely. Like a New Zealand Rugby Player doing a Hukka(?) she stands there, naked, legs akimbo, chest out, proudly like a peacock (or New Zealand Rugby Player). And then she pees. But she only does a mini-pee. And then she shuffles, like a crab or something else that moves sideways, to another spot on the grass, and pees again. And then, one more shuffle sideways, she does another pee.
Then, ritual over, she goes off and continues with whatever she was playing with before. Oblivious to her very wierd behaviour and oblivious to her nakedness. she just picks up where she left off.
I always thought she was a bit like a bear of little brains, and now I wonder if she's actually related to some sort of terrier or king-charles-spaniel?
And finally will my grass die overnight? And actually, this is my final question: is toddler pee good to scare off snails?
I tried to remind my children that it is my birthday tomorrow. I may as well have told them that the FTSE one hundred was down again on closing tonight.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
spitting from N8
After weeks of looking forward to tonight, it ends in devastating let-down. Sadlers Wells, Sylvie Guilem, Russell Maliphant, uber music, uber lights... what could go wrong? Oh! The choreographer forgot to put any bloody dancing in the sodding show. So, Sylvie who has a body that is more than hypnotic did a lot of sort of not a huge amount and Russell did a bit more of that too and 90 minutes later I was still waiting for the big dancing to start, and then the show ended. What was all that about?
So, £64 down and I'm spitting from N8 - I just, what? I don't understand - where was the dancing? All the right ingredients but nothing came out the oven. Just a few flash lights, some swishing of swords, a couple of costume changes and some (actually this was quite good, in fact the best bit of the show) slightly breathless (not sure why they would've been breathless given the lack of action) dancers reciting poetry from 17th-Centure France.
You know when you go to a gallery and you look at the stuff in it and you come out and you go, I could have done that! NO, in fact, Mol could've done that. NO! In fact Liz, aged not even 3 could've bleedin' well done it. Well, that's what I feel like tonight. Could've been put together by a team of 4year olds with an understanding of French history and a penchant for quirky spot-lights.
Bring on Wimbledon this Friday.
Bring. It. On. Murray and all. (Federer? Murray? Who cares! Champagne strawberries no kids idle chat sunshine and no poncy dancers prancing around in painted tights waving broom handles at each other. Cheers!)
So, £64 down and I'm spitting from N8 - I just, what? I don't understand - where was the dancing? All the right ingredients but nothing came out the oven. Just a few flash lights, some swishing of swords, a couple of costume changes and some (actually this was quite good, in fact the best bit of the show) slightly breathless (not sure why they would've been breathless given the lack of action) dancers reciting poetry from 17th-Centure France.
You know when you go to a gallery and you look at the stuff in it and you come out and you go, I could have done that! NO, in fact, Mol could've done that. NO! In fact Liz, aged not even 3 could've bleedin' well done it. Well, that's what I feel like tonight. Could've been put together by a team of 4year olds with an understanding of French history and a penchant for quirky spot-lights.
Bring on Wimbledon this Friday.
Bring. It. On. Murray and all. (Federer? Murray? Who cares! Champagne strawberries no kids idle chat sunshine and no poncy dancers prancing around in painted tights waving broom handles at each other. Cheers!)
Sunday, 21 June 2009
weekender
I have this tune in my head.
Weekender by Flowered Up.
It's something Husband used to play to me when we were at university together. Loads of drugs and clubbing and being off your face and blissed out and rushing and care free weekender-ing as students.
It's in my head not because I've just had a pill-piled-high-spliff-fueled-clubbing-tastic-weekend. My weekender activity isn't quite what it used to be.
I think I'm now singing it ironically.
Oh weekender.
(Oh what a GREAT episode of Enders on Friday night!! Christian and "IT'S AGAINST GODS WILL" Syeed! Snogging in the Unit!)
Weekender by Flowered Up.
It's something Husband used to play to me when we were at university together. Loads of drugs and clubbing and being off your face and blissed out and rushing and care free weekender-ing as students.
It's in my head not because I've just had a pill-piled-high-spliff-fueled-clubbing-tastic-weekend. My weekender activity isn't quite what it used to be.
I think I'm now singing it ironically.
Oh weekender.
(Oh what a GREAT episode of Enders on Friday night!! Christian and "IT'S AGAINST GODS WILL" Syeed! Snogging in the Unit!)
Scrapes & cakes & karaoke
I just heard the voice of an angel! A 9 year old angel singing at a street party on a karaoke machine whitney houston:- iiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiii-Will Always Love youuuuuuuuuu!
We all thought it was the record - Get that cheese off! And then saw this little girl standing stiff as a board, except for her vocals warbling away, like a 9 year old whitney. Unfortunately no one wanted to follow in her footsteps so she did 6 songs in a row. and then definitely no one wanted to pick up the mike... so she sang on, and on and on..... And then Mol said. But mum, I can sing really well too. i'd sing baa-baa-black-sheep. (yes dear, that would really get the crowd roaring for more...)
Anyway. So we were on our way to a local street party (with home made bunting and real tressle tables loaded with slightly melting cakes and 3litre bottles of sprite and popcorn scattered everywhere and a dog eating everything it could (its owner looking anxiously as it scoffed another plate of jelly...It'll do a fucking massive shit later, she said eloquently...) as small children covered in chocolate and sand dropped more chicken bones on the road, and this kid singing karaoke way too well, plus a raffle - I won a candle! - all wholesome goodness) and Mol in her haste to get her face painted as (another) butterfly was running down our road which is a bit like a not-quite-as-steep-ski-jump-run-up and she totally wiped out.
Sharp intake of breath. Short pause. Mol flat on stomach on filthy pavement, her head near someones gate-post (probably covered in dog-pee) legs and arms a-kim-bo. Deluded I take my time heading down because the pause leads me to believe no damage done! Ha STUPID Mothers Ruin! The Pause is the dramatic effect kids like to embelish - post pause, its all lung space to the deck and out comes a blood curdling ROAR - windows shattering, old ladies running for cover (its another doodle-bug dear), people on mobile phones up in the Virgin 1st Class Cabin wonder what the interference is?
I scrape Mol off the stinking pavement and there, officially, is a nasty graze on the knee. It re-opened an older wound too. Oh bad luck old chap. Come on, lets go find the face-paint.
Liz tries to touch the gushing scrape. Mol recoils and screams some more. (Lace curtains twitch on the street...) And I wonder whether to abandon the whole trip out...
Meanwhile Husband on Fathers Day, fair-do I guess, took himself off to watch men in white pads chuck balls very fast at each other and run to-and-fro to earn points (But why do they run back and back again all the time Mummy? Excellent question Mol).
I even accept defeat in the tiredness test.
If anyone out there is interested, the spot which was so volcanic last week has quietened down. Having scabbed over on Thurs/Fri, the weekend has been a joyous time of picking very slowly at the scab to reveal the new and a bit pink skin below.
Skin review: clear for the next couple of days, possible smatterings later on in the week.
We all thought it was the record - Get that cheese off! And then saw this little girl standing stiff as a board, except for her vocals warbling away, like a 9 year old whitney. Unfortunately no one wanted to follow in her footsteps so she did 6 songs in a row. and then definitely no one wanted to pick up the mike... so she sang on, and on and on..... And then Mol said. But mum, I can sing really well too. i'd sing baa-baa-black-sheep. (yes dear, that would really get the crowd roaring for more...)
Anyway. So we were on our way to a local street party (with home made bunting and real tressle tables loaded with slightly melting cakes and 3litre bottles of sprite and popcorn scattered everywhere and a dog eating everything it could (its owner looking anxiously as it scoffed another plate of jelly...It'll do a fucking massive shit later, she said eloquently...) as small children covered in chocolate and sand dropped more chicken bones on the road, and this kid singing karaoke way too well, plus a raffle - I won a candle! - all wholesome goodness) and Mol in her haste to get her face painted as (another) butterfly was running down our road which is a bit like a not-quite-as-steep-ski-jump-run-up and she totally wiped out.
Sharp intake of breath. Short pause. Mol flat on stomach on filthy pavement, her head near someones gate-post (probably covered in dog-pee) legs and arms a-kim-bo. Deluded I take my time heading down because the pause leads me to believe no damage done! Ha STUPID Mothers Ruin! The Pause is the dramatic effect kids like to embelish - post pause, its all lung space to the deck and out comes a blood curdling ROAR - windows shattering, old ladies running for cover (its another doodle-bug dear), people on mobile phones up in the Virgin 1st Class Cabin wonder what the interference is?
I scrape Mol off the stinking pavement and there, officially, is a nasty graze on the knee. It re-opened an older wound too. Oh bad luck old chap. Come on, lets go find the face-paint.
Liz tries to touch the gushing scrape. Mol recoils and screams some more. (Lace curtains twitch on the street...) And I wonder whether to abandon the whole trip out...
Meanwhile Husband on Fathers Day, fair-do I guess, took himself off to watch men in white pads chuck balls very fast at each other and run to-and-fro to earn points (But why do they run back and back again all the time Mummy? Excellent question Mol).
I even accept defeat in the tiredness test.
If anyone out there is interested, the spot which was so volcanic last week has quietened down. Having scabbed over on Thurs/Fri, the weekend has been a joyous time of picking very slowly at the scab to reveal the new and a bit pink skin below.
Skin review: clear for the next couple of days, possible smatterings later on in the week.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Friday news...
Oh. And I just got offered the job in the garden centre... So. My life will be beginning a new and greener chapter sometime in early July.
Star struck? Moi?
Oh.
MY.
GOD.
(In a nasal Chandlers-ex-girlfriend-(Friends)-sort-of-voice.)
I thought yesterday was good. And then it got better. So, Mother In Law came to hold the fort and blow-dry Mol's hair and read to snot-bag-Liz and get them to bed whilst I scampered off (no time to change even! Harringay Mother At Theatre In Trainers - Shocker - see distressing pictures P2) to Sadlers Wells to watch some dancing I didn't know much about other than Mrs Balhams friend was dancing as head-dancer in the first piece (he was in fact being God! imagine that! - well - Apollo... he's a god, right?)... First we met Him and He gave us tickets and chatted whilst warming up by doing alarmingly deep plie-s (?SP) so deep in fact I wondered whether his butt would hit the floor and complicated foot-twists. His face was thick with stage makeup. Then we found our seats and watched him being serenaded by 3 beautiful whispy girls and it was very lovely. And he was very impressive. And then there was some more dancing - we saw the Dying Swan - she was amazing and made me well up and that wasn't just because of her Karl Largerfield tutu, then a very beautiful piece called Faun(e) with two men floating around copying and exchanging moves it was entrancing.
But anyway, THEN in the next interval our Apollo came to find us having removed costume and facepaint (funny - on stage he looked ENORMOUS muscles rippling as he leaped all over the place and chucked girls around; in the flesh he looked so petit & silffy (is that a word? what I mean is he looked kind of thin and small - crazy optical illusion of being on stage under lighting...). So he gave us a kiss and then chatted and then he said, oh, 'scuse me, just got to go say hi to a mate... I followed his gaze to his mate. ONLY BLOODY CARLOS ACOSTA. Sloping in a dark corner of the 1st circle bar. There He was. The Ultimate current God of the Ballet World. And there was Apollo, hugging him! Oh Lordy me. I came over in a star studded hot swoon. Yes it really was Him! However, our Apollo didn't introduce us - sadly - and probably quite sensibly as he could probably see the steam rising from my hair and my eyes spinning in opposite directions. I don't think I've EVER been so close to a dance god before. It was quite awesome. Mrs Balham was much more blaze about it, but I'm not sure she was sure who He was and also she's met STEPS (or was it S-Club-7) so she's quite cool about meeting Celebs.
When I got home all was quiet in the house, M-in-L said, well why didn't you get Apollo to properly introduce him to you? I guess she had a point. But it could've been a bit sort of sticky (from my hot-flush clammy hands - not pleasant) and kind of y'know, cheesy? Anyway. I spent a lot of my going-to-sleep time dreaming of the life I never had as a professional dancer, and then I vowed that I'd find myself a dance class and get back to it, however old and rusty my body may be.
Thank you Mrs Balham. It was a truly memorable night.
MY.
GOD.
(In a nasal Chandlers-ex-girlfriend-(Friends)-sort-of-voice.)
I thought yesterday was good. And then it got better. So, Mother In Law came to hold the fort and blow-dry Mol's hair and read to snot-bag-Liz and get them to bed whilst I scampered off (no time to change even! Harringay Mother At Theatre In Trainers - Shocker - see distressing pictures P2) to Sadlers Wells to watch some dancing I didn't know much about other than Mrs Balhams friend was dancing as head-dancer in the first piece (he was in fact being God! imagine that! - well - Apollo... he's a god, right?)... First we met Him and He gave us tickets and chatted whilst warming up by doing alarmingly deep plie-s (?SP) so deep in fact I wondered whether his butt would hit the floor and complicated foot-twists. His face was thick with stage makeup. Then we found our seats and watched him being serenaded by 3 beautiful whispy girls and it was very lovely. And he was very impressive. And then there was some more dancing - we saw the Dying Swan - she was amazing and made me well up and that wasn't just because of her Karl Largerfield tutu, then a very beautiful piece called Faun(e) with two men floating around copying and exchanging moves it was entrancing.
But anyway, THEN in the next interval our Apollo came to find us having removed costume and facepaint (funny - on stage he looked ENORMOUS muscles rippling as he leaped all over the place and chucked girls around; in the flesh he looked so petit & silffy (is that a word? what I mean is he looked kind of thin and small - crazy optical illusion of being on stage under lighting...). So he gave us a kiss and then chatted and then he said, oh, 'scuse me, just got to go say hi to a mate... I followed his gaze to his mate. ONLY BLOODY CARLOS ACOSTA. Sloping in a dark corner of the 1st circle bar. There He was. The Ultimate current God of the Ballet World. And there was Apollo, hugging him! Oh Lordy me. I came over in a star studded hot swoon. Yes it really was Him! However, our Apollo didn't introduce us - sadly - and probably quite sensibly as he could probably see the steam rising from my hair and my eyes spinning in opposite directions. I don't think I've EVER been so close to a dance god before. It was quite awesome. Mrs Balham was much more blaze about it, but I'm not sure she was sure who He was and also she's met STEPS (or was it S-Club-7) so she's quite cool about meeting Celebs.
When I got home all was quiet in the house, M-in-L said, well why didn't you get Apollo to properly introduce him to you? I guess she had a point. But it could've been a bit sort of sticky (from my hot-flush clammy hands - not pleasant) and kind of y'know, cheesy? Anyway. I spent a lot of my going-to-sleep time dreaming of the life I never had as a professional dancer, and then I vowed that I'd find myself a dance class and get back to it, however old and rusty my body may be.
Thank you Mrs Balham. It was a truly memorable night.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
ID me why not?
So today I feel really happy!
Lots of reasons.
1.) Liz is at nursery... (I love you Liz but its SO nice to have some time by myself)
2.) Phil the dude painter has finished, brushed up his flakes (of paint, not scalp-skin) packed up his pots and admitted that it was he who probably let all the tropical rain into my basement by unblocking something which has been blocked for a very long time (my basement is like a sponge) So my house is now my own once more.
3.) I went to Tesco and was buying wine for my friend L who has recently had a really tough time - her mum died after a sudden illness which took 2months of awfulness for L and her family - and the most gorgeous lady at the till asked me how old I was! Ha! 34 luv! But if you think I look 18/19/20/21 then I will love you a lot for a very long time (and that's with my scary spot on my chin... - actually, come to think of it, she was probably blinded by my facial disorder and thought given that she couldn't actually see who was making the purchase she probably ought to double-check, so in fact it probably had nothing to do with my yoof-ful good looks...)
4.) I'm going to Sadlers Wells tonight. I love dancing. I love dance. I love Sadlers Wells. I love having a swift glass of over priced wine in the interval and I love that "do I take a sandwich with me? do I eat before I go? do we get overpriced nibbles at the theatre?" dilemma that takes place every time there is a calling for this sort of culture. All good stuff.
Although, as I write all these outstandingly good reasons for being happy today, on the other hand, now that Phil is gone I have to completely clean the house. Its totally dusty and filthy and flaky and possibly even a bit stinky however many slices of toast I put in the toaster to hide the smell of the spongy basement and the polyfilled windowsills. And I've just parted with SO much money. And my car was broken yesterday and Mr Garage confirmed that the brakes were in dire straights so he's just taken £40 off me for screwing them back together (which pays for 1/4 of his personalised number plate on his silver convertable BMW. class.). And the plumber came yesterday because our soil pipe (poo-ee, soil! in this context that word is just gross. SOIL!) broke last week when Husband was in the shower (christ! what sort of things were going down the pipe from his shower?) and he's about need £140 for mending it. And then Liz has a nursery trip in 3 weeks time and that's going to cost no less than £6! Suddenly I'm feeling stony broke and its not even technically my money that I'm spending. This is why Husband is currently on Salisbury Plain filming tanks and probably getting a sunburnt neck. To fund the upkeep of the house. Next house I buy will be made of plastic from head to foot. The only thing I'll need is a hosepipe to clean it down once a week.
Lots of reasons.
1.) Liz is at nursery... (I love you Liz but its SO nice to have some time by myself)
2.) Phil the dude painter has finished, brushed up his flakes (of paint, not scalp-skin) packed up his pots and admitted that it was he who probably let all the tropical rain into my basement by unblocking something which has been blocked for a very long time (my basement is like a sponge) So my house is now my own once more.
3.) I went to Tesco and was buying wine for my friend L who has recently had a really tough time - her mum died after a sudden illness which took 2months of awfulness for L and her family - and the most gorgeous lady at the till asked me how old I was! Ha! 34 luv! But if you think I look 18/19/20/21 then I will love you a lot for a very long time (and that's with my scary spot on my chin... - actually, come to think of it, she was probably blinded by my facial disorder and thought given that she couldn't actually see who was making the purchase she probably ought to double-check, so in fact it probably had nothing to do with my yoof-ful good looks...)
4.) I'm going to Sadlers Wells tonight. I love dancing. I love dance. I love Sadlers Wells. I love having a swift glass of over priced wine in the interval and I love that "do I take a sandwich with me? do I eat before I go? do we get overpriced nibbles at the theatre?" dilemma that takes place every time there is a calling for this sort of culture. All good stuff.
Although, as I write all these outstandingly good reasons for being happy today, on the other hand, now that Phil is gone I have to completely clean the house. Its totally dusty and filthy and flaky and possibly even a bit stinky however many slices of toast I put in the toaster to hide the smell of the spongy basement and the polyfilled windowsills. And I've just parted with SO much money. And my car was broken yesterday and Mr Garage confirmed that the brakes were in dire straights so he's just taken £40 off me for screwing them back together (which pays for 1/4 of his personalised number plate on his silver convertable BMW. class.). And the plumber came yesterday because our soil pipe (poo-ee, soil! in this context that word is just gross. SOIL!) broke last week when Husband was in the shower (christ! what sort of things were going down the pipe from his shower?) and he's about need £140 for mending it. And then Liz has a nursery trip in 3 weeks time and that's going to cost no less than £6! Suddenly I'm feeling stony broke and its not even technically my money that I'm spending. This is why Husband is currently on Salisbury Plain filming tanks and probably getting a sunburnt neck. To fund the upkeep of the house. Next house I buy will be made of plastic from head to foot. The only thing I'll need is a hosepipe to clean it down once a week.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Ug.
I'm all Iraq-ed out from episode 2 of occupation. lots of close ups of James Nesbitts very wrinkled and over-eye-browed face. A predictable hostage situation with the goodlooking soldier stripping down and putting on the orange boiler suit for the TV news report...
However. Watching the drama, I wonder how much it even skates the surface of reality for the soldiers who were/are out there, or in Afghanistan right now? A constant knot balled up in my stomach as I was watching episode 1 - seeing the soldiers getting out of their armoured vehicle straight into some sort of sniper fire - how frightened would they be in reality? Or would they be high on some adrenaline rush? The reason for my choking down my pitta bread and snotty nose - well, having relatives in the army who have been out in those terror zones - it comes rushing in that its a bloody ridiculous brave stupid irresponsible responsible idiotically dangerious job to do and as a relative to a soldier, well, watching the drama unfold on TV I felt pretty damned, like, sheeesh, what? this is what they do? madness sort of terrifying emotion fall on me. Its all way beyond my control.
And brilliantly and typically I can't even see no3 tomorrow because I'm off being cultural at Sadlers Wells courtesy of uber-friend-from Blah-ham who knows the prima of the English National and FINALLY after years of direct hint dropping (like: when are you going to get me a ticket to watch your mate?) the hint dropped and the tickets have come my way! Woo Hoo. Thank you Balham! I love you! See you tomorrow. I'll probably cry because beautiful dancing has that effect on me. But I'll try not to spit out my pitta bread - it may hit his cod-piece...
I'm all Iraq-ed out from episode 2 of occupation. lots of close ups of James Nesbitts very wrinkled and over-eye-browed face. A predictable hostage situation with the goodlooking soldier stripping down and putting on the orange boiler suit for the TV news report...
However. Watching the drama, I wonder how much it even skates the surface of reality for the soldiers who were/are out there, or in Afghanistan right now? A constant knot balled up in my stomach as I was watching episode 1 - seeing the soldiers getting out of their armoured vehicle straight into some sort of sniper fire - how frightened would they be in reality? Or would they be high on some adrenaline rush? The reason for my choking down my pitta bread and snotty nose - well, having relatives in the army who have been out in those terror zones - it comes rushing in that its a bloody ridiculous brave stupid irresponsible responsible idiotically dangerious job to do and as a relative to a soldier, well, watching the drama unfold on TV I felt pretty damned, like, sheeesh, what? this is what they do? madness sort of terrifying emotion fall on me. Its all way beyond my control.
And brilliantly and typically I can't even see no3 tomorrow because I'm off being cultural at Sadlers Wells courtesy of uber-friend-from Blah-ham who knows the prima of the English National and FINALLY after years of direct hint dropping (like: when are you going to get me a ticket to watch your mate?) the hint dropped and the tickets have come my way! Woo Hoo. Thank you Balham! I love you! See you tomorrow. I'll probably cry because beautiful dancing has that effect on me. But I'll try not to spit out my pitta bread - it may hit his cod-piece...
Occupation
I just spent 1hour spitting and choking down my pitta bread as I sat watching Occupation. its on again in a minute. I'm too emotional to be watching this sort of drama. My neighbour came and banged on the door (postcard in the wrong letter box) and I had snot and tears streaking down my face/nose/mouth with bits of pitta bread and tomato going round like cement in a mixer in my mouth. Poor Karen must have got a bit of a shock. So James Nesbitt is being a soldier / mercinary in Iraq. People dying being bombed emotional hugs between comrades... And now I'm going to watch part 2. More choking up here in N8.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
The Interview
Ah well, another 45 mins spent in a strange room with two strange people asking me a strange mix of questions ("do you know Mrs Del up in Highbury?" "Um, yes, she's my mother in law." "Oh, I thought so, yes we JP* together. Do you think she'd look after your children in the summer holidays? Just that I'm a grandmother too, and have, rather naively, commited to one day a week with my grandson who is 6months old and I'm not sure it was such a good idea after all! Ha ha ha. I pushed the pram out too far into the road, nearly got hit by a car! So do you think she'd want to do it for you? Can you assume that line of care is secure?")(*JP - justice of peace.) She was wearing great big squares of gold dangling from her dangly ear lobes. And had glasses that she abused by pushing into her hair and letting drop down her nose and then pushing back up again, and drop down. As a glass wearer, abuse of glasses in this way is painful to watch. The slack fitting means the wearer doesn't respect the frames and also, actually, is not suffering very problematic eyesight as they can choose whether the glasses are up or down. As a severely - I'm probably nearly BLIND - short sighted astigmatised mother (that means my eyes aren't totally round (i know, i know, eyes aren't round but i've forgotten what that shape is called) they're rugby ball shape) I can't afford to let my glasses slip off my nose for a second else I'd walk straight under a bus without realising what the big red blur coming towards me making lots of noise was until - shame - too late.
And her colleague sat on the other side of me (they had sort of cornered me) in a purple shop-t-shirt, and he asked a few pertinent questions about my CV... ("you never seem to stay at jobs very long do you?)
Then the 64,000 dollar $$$$$$ question came up: Can you do power point?
At that point I hope her glasses were slipping off her face so that she couldn't tell my (just a white) lie "oh, well, yes a bit I did a course a while back (make that over 10 years ago) so would just need to brush up a bit (no idea what the hell the programme is even for)..." blush blush blush look down look up look around don't make eye contact they'll SEE through my LIE...
Anyway. We shall see. I was interested at the point she made: we're very into presentation here; which made me wonder why she had forced all her staff (not herself though) to wear shocking purple t-shirts and why the office was a dark windowless airless dump?
I'd like to get the job because maybe I'd get some cheap plants. But not for the purple t. She said would I mind counting Christmas trees at Christmas time? I was like, yeah, no problem, think I'm OK at counting. "We get 800 delivered in one go on the pavement."
OK.
I forgot to put in the interests part of the applications: Gardening / plants / shrubs etc. Oh well. We shall see. We shall see! (or not if my glasses are squashed under a London bus...)
The one and only awesome Uncle Scratchy looked after M&L whilst I did my interview. He said L was ok but she fell off her bike three times on the way to get M from school. Is this normal he said? Um, no, Uncle Scratchy. Maybe something to do with the half packet of Pringles and Chocolate Fingers you gave her after I left? Some sort of hideous biological sugar-salt over load? Total co-ordination failure?
And back to East Enders. Oh Stacey Stacy Stacey. What a mess. And this was like such a racy episode! Every other scene someone kissing someone else - Max & Tanya were kissing for the duration of TWO episodes! The longest kiss ever! And then, after all that, she got cold feet. Poor Max. All revved up and nowhere to burn rubber.
And her colleague sat on the other side of me (they had sort of cornered me) in a purple shop-t-shirt, and he asked a few pertinent questions about my CV... ("you never seem to stay at jobs very long do you?)
Then the 64,000 dollar $$$$$$ question came up: Can you do power point?
At that point I hope her glasses were slipping off her face so that she couldn't tell my (just a white) lie "oh, well, yes a bit I did a course a while back (make that over 10 years ago) so would just need to brush up a bit (no idea what the hell the programme is even for)..." blush blush blush look down look up look around don't make eye contact they'll SEE through my LIE...
Anyway. We shall see. I was interested at the point she made: we're very into presentation here; which made me wonder why she had forced all her staff (not herself though) to wear shocking purple t-shirts and why the office was a dark windowless airless dump?
I'd like to get the job because maybe I'd get some cheap plants. But not for the purple t. She said would I mind counting Christmas trees at Christmas time? I was like, yeah, no problem, think I'm OK at counting. "We get 800 delivered in one go on the pavement."
OK.
I forgot to put in the interests part of the applications: Gardening / plants / shrubs etc. Oh well. We shall see. We shall see! (or not if my glasses are squashed under a London bus...)
The one and only awesome Uncle Scratchy looked after M&L whilst I did my interview. He said L was ok but she fell off her bike three times on the way to get M from school. Is this normal he said? Um, no, Uncle Scratchy. Maybe something to do with the half packet of Pringles and Chocolate Fingers you gave her after I left? Some sort of hideous biological sugar-salt over load? Total co-ordination failure?
And back to East Enders. Oh Stacey Stacy Stacey. What a mess. And this was like such a racy episode! Every other scene someone kissing someone else - Max & Tanya were kissing for the duration of TWO episodes! The longest kiss ever! And then, after all that, she got cold feet. Poor Max. All revved up and nowhere to burn rubber.
No nightmares last night.
But I'm going to have to stop swearing quite so much as the other day in Sainsburys, in fact, yesterday only, as Liz & I approached the donut section (was getting jam donut for M post-ballet-exam treat) I saw there were NO jam donuts. And I exclaimed, "oh, no, no jam donuts". Liz added to my frustration by saying "shit no donuts". I said, "what did you say?", the smooth talker replied "shit no donuts".
Ee-gad.
But I'm going to have to stop swearing quite so much as the other day in Sainsburys, in fact, yesterday only, as Liz & I approached the donut section (was getting jam donut for M post-ballet-exam treat) I saw there were NO jam donuts. And I exclaimed, "oh, no, no jam donuts". Liz added to my frustration by saying "shit no donuts". I said, "what did you say?", the smooth talker replied "shit no donuts".
Ee-gad.
Monday, 15 June 2009
nightmares
I'm going to have nightmares. And I blame Richard E Grant entirely with that film of his How to get a head (or is it ahead?) in advertising.
Its that giant alter-ego-SPOT thing that grows out of his neck and rears its ugly face in critical moments of his day.
I am going around the house covering all the mirrors with tea-towels so that there is no risk of them cracking each time I pass, with my puss-tulating (actually not sure that's a word but it sounds quite dramatic so I shall use it anyway) chin proudly projecting like bloody Ben Nevis or worse, Kilimanjaro. I don't want to, like, go mad with the exaggerations and say Everest, because clearly that's an untruth. No one could carry a spot that big. (Although there was a guy at school who maybe had an Everest Foothill disorder on his face at various times in his late teens...) (Depressingly he's probably never had a spot since, and now, here I am, 34 going on 15 in the spot department, 34 going on 45 in the wrinkles department, 34 going on 86 in the brains department, I could go on...)
The hot bath option clearly didn't work last week. I'll give Green Tea two more days. And then its back to Phil the painter for his scraper & polyfiller.
Its that giant alter-ego-SPOT thing that grows out of his neck and rears its ugly face in critical moments of his day.
I am going around the house covering all the mirrors with tea-towels so that there is no risk of them cracking each time I pass, with my puss-tulating (actually not sure that's a word but it sounds quite dramatic so I shall use it anyway) chin proudly projecting like bloody Ben Nevis or worse, Kilimanjaro. I don't want to, like, go mad with the exaggerations and say Everest, because clearly that's an untruth. No one could carry a spot that big. (Although there was a guy at school who maybe had an Everest Foothill disorder on his face at various times in his late teens...) (Depressingly he's probably never had a spot since, and now, here I am, 34 going on 15 in the spot department, 34 going on 45 in the wrinkles department, 34 going on 86 in the brains department, I could go on...)
The hot bath option clearly didn't work last week. I'll give Green Tea two more days. And then its back to Phil the painter for his scraper & polyfiller.
Green Tea
Am just sitting here sipping my first ever cup of Green Tea. I bought a box today in a bid to gain health. I hear people rave about Green Tea the whole time.
But what are they raving about?
1st sip: bitter
2nd sip: bitter-er
3rd sip: I'm wondering how many more sips i have to take for it to make my skin stop sagging in the wrong places and to tame my spots?
4th sip: now i'm wondering whether I should've taken out the tea bag after the first sip?
If only I had technical prowess I'd probably have a friend email me or comment on this very page and advise me on how to drink it (there are probably also instructions on the tea-box, but, as IF i'd ever read them? - I really can't bring myself to read instructions on how to make a cup of tea, it's too belittling and anyway I don't think my shit eyesight would be able to read the small print).
Anyway. Its bloody grim. but I'll have a few more cups (clearly not tonight unless I want to make myself chuck up) in the next few days and see if I can adjust my taste buds to put up with it.
Stacey Slater. I just know its going to get good again. The East Ender Lull is officially over.
But now, and this is such a treat because Husband is away, I can go feast my eyes on some very thick girls who are all vying to become Britains Next Top Model. He he he.
But what are they raving about?
1st sip: bitter
2nd sip: bitter-er
3rd sip: I'm wondering how many more sips i have to take for it to make my skin stop sagging in the wrong places and to tame my spots?
4th sip: now i'm wondering whether I should've taken out the tea bag after the first sip?
If only I had technical prowess I'd probably have a friend email me or comment on this very page and advise me on how to drink it (there are probably also instructions on the tea-box, but, as IF i'd ever read them? - I really can't bring myself to read instructions on how to make a cup of tea, it's too belittling and anyway I don't think my shit eyesight would be able to read the small print).
Anyway. Its bloody grim. but I'll have a few more cups (clearly not tonight unless I want to make myself chuck up) in the next few days and see if I can adjust my taste buds to put up with it.
Stacey Slater. I just know its going to get good again. The East Ender Lull is officially over.
But now, and this is such a treat because Husband is away, I can go feast my eyes on some very thick girls who are all vying to become Britains Next Top Model. He he he.
difficult letter
My weekend wasn't all fluffy chicks and English roses in full bloom.
In fact on Saturday I went to a farewell commemoration for a friends mother who tragically ended her life 2 weeks ago. The guests to the church were asked to not wear black, so the congregation was a sea of bright cheerful colours - and visible style - which reflected the style of the beautiful lady herself. The family spoke courageously about their mother/wife, and painted a fine representation with their words. After the service (where we sang Bread of Heaven very loudly and sniffily) we ambled in the sun over to the house for a garden party which felt truly celebrational and uplifting. Champagne, wine, sandwiches, cake, children running on the lawns, people hugging and laughing and crying and laughing some more, old family friends reunited, old school friends reunited, smiles and tears - all rolled into one green Hampshire garden. It was almost slightly surreal - the sense of composure, yet high spirits combined with such a dreadful reason for all being there - but what an incredible way to remember your mother. A proper tea party for a proper mother, as she was described in the service. I will write to the family, but after such an event I feel that anything I send will be lacking the effervescence of the occasion. So it is going to be a difficult letter to write.
I am relieved the service has been and gone - I don't think any one of the friends or family who went had any idea how it would pan out. The inspiring family made it beautiful, memorable, and so easy for us to handle. How much energy it must have taken for themselves to remain level headed throughout I can't imagine. But the word which keeps going round my head is inspiring, for all its cliche-ness, at this particular time it couldn't be more appropriate.
And so to WORD I click... Dear... and so will follow some more cliches and so I will post it feeling most dis-satisfied. But such is my upbringing that letter-writing must take place.
Hey. Ho.
In fact on Saturday I went to a farewell commemoration for a friends mother who tragically ended her life 2 weeks ago. The guests to the church were asked to not wear black, so the congregation was a sea of bright cheerful colours - and visible style - which reflected the style of the beautiful lady herself. The family spoke courageously about their mother/wife, and painted a fine representation with their words. After the service (where we sang Bread of Heaven very loudly and sniffily) we ambled in the sun over to the house for a garden party which felt truly celebrational and uplifting. Champagne, wine, sandwiches, cake, children running on the lawns, people hugging and laughing and crying and laughing some more, old family friends reunited, old school friends reunited, smiles and tears - all rolled into one green Hampshire garden. It was almost slightly surreal - the sense of composure, yet high spirits combined with such a dreadful reason for all being there - but what an incredible way to remember your mother. A proper tea party for a proper mother, as she was described in the service. I will write to the family, but after such an event I feel that anything I send will be lacking the effervescence of the occasion. So it is going to be a difficult letter to write.
I am relieved the service has been and gone - I don't think any one of the friends or family who went had any idea how it would pan out. The inspiring family made it beautiful, memorable, and so easy for us to handle. How much energy it must have taken for themselves to remain level headed throughout I can't imagine. But the word which keeps going round my head is inspiring, for all its cliche-ness, at this particular time it couldn't be more appropriate.
And so to WORD I click... Dear... and so will follow some more cliches and so I will post it feeling most dis-satisfied. But such is my upbringing that letter-writing must take place.
Hey. Ho.
Burnt bottom
Oh MothersRuin! Stupid girl! I have just realised that Liz has a sunburnt, not even sun-kissed, bottom. Yesterday was spent running around naked in the garden of her cousins. Which (fox/squirrel/pigeon poo aside) was all so wholesome, until I saw The Damage this morning.
woops.
Role in barrage of abuse from Australian friends who wouldn't be so careless as to forget to slather the nether-regions of their children in factor 99.
In fact, during the naked garden run yesterday, I noticed at one point Liz sitting quietly on the rug, studying something in between her legs. And then when I got closer I realised in fact she wasn't actually studying. She was colouring. So bathtime last night was a riot with burnt bottoms and coloured in bits-n-pieces... I really couldn't work out why she was so reluctant to sit down in the nice warm bath - but, well, I guess with a blazing bum the last thing that it wants to go into is a warm bath. Sorry Liz! Careless from N8.
Molly's ballet exam today. Have promised uber-picnic for afterwards. Sod school. We're going on major pringles/donut/sweets picnic after her twirls in the YMCA are over. Must go to Sainsburys for uber-picnic-shop.
woops.
Role in barrage of abuse from Australian friends who wouldn't be so careless as to forget to slather the nether-regions of their children in factor 99.
In fact, during the naked garden run yesterday, I noticed at one point Liz sitting quietly on the rug, studying something in between her legs. And then when I got closer I realised in fact she wasn't actually studying. She was colouring. So bathtime last night was a riot with burnt bottoms and coloured in bits-n-pieces... I really couldn't work out why she was so reluctant to sit down in the nice warm bath - but, well, I guess with a blazing bum the last thing that it wants to go into is a warm bath. Sorry Liz! Careless from N8.
Molly's ballet exam today. Have promised uber-picnic for afterwards. Sod school. We're going on major pringles/donut/sweets picnic after her twirls in the YMCA are over. Must go to Sainsburys for uber-picnic-shop.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
tiredness competition
I feel a significant tiredness competition coming on... Husband is away as of tomorrow (7am - yes I have to leave AT 7am, so probably before any of you even get out of bed) till Friday.
Doing Very Important Work Stuff. So I will be very tired. Probably more tired than you, MothersRuin. Yes, I'm going to have an extremely tiring week, working extremely hard, staying in hotels in Wiltshire and getting up early after late night drinking, cough cough, I mean working with my colleagues and tweaking important schedules. And I probably won't have time to eat properly either. So I'll come home all thin and pale and god, just so tired. Look how much weight I've lost?
Meanwhile, I'm at home, doing my usual routine, but with no one to make me tea in the morning, I suspect I'm going to suffer more tiredness than He can begin to imagine. And Mol has a ballet exam tomorrow (I have to take her out of school - eek, but I left an anonymous letter for the Headteacher explaining so it shoudl be OK permissions wise (she's a mistress, but requested that we call her teacher because Mistress has other implications - I'm like, for god sake, you run a primary school! you're a woman! be a mistress! be proud! get your kitten heals on and wear them like a True Head-Mistress. None of this no-sex-differentiation-shit - oh, we're all equal, so like, you're not a head master and i'm not a head mistress because that infers sexual, like, you know, ORGANS? - or something? Or maybe the 6year olds will start looking for your whip next time they're sent to the office if we call you, god forbid, headMISTRESS?) oh, double brackets, i'll shut the first set here) which means an extra trip to the YMCA and school and back again - so that in itself is EXTRA work. oh. I'm so tired just thinking about it.
This time next week I'll do a tiredness-tally. We'll see who's the most tired. And I think it'll be me, yeah. Get me the flowers ordered already oh-absent-husband.
Doing Very Important Work Stuff. So I will be very tired. Probably more tired than you, MothersRuin. Yes, I'm going to have an extremely tiring week, working extremely hard, staying in hotels in Wiltshire and getting up early after late night drinking, cough cough, I mean working with my colleagues and tweaking important schedules. And I probably won't have time to eat properly either. So I'll come home all thin and pale and god, just so tired. Look how much weight I've lost?
Meanwhile, I'm at home, doing my usual routine, but with no one to make me tea in the morning, I suspect I'm going to suffer more tiredness than He can begin to imagine. And Mol has a ballet exam tomorrow (I have to take her out of school - eek, but I left an anonymous letter for the Headteacher explaining so it shoudl be OK permissions wise (she's a mistress, but requested that we call her teacher because Mistress has other implications - I'm like, for god sake, you run a primary school! you're a woman! be a mistress! be proud! get your kitten heals on and wear them like a True Head-Mistress. None of this no-sex-differentiation-shit - oh, we're all equal, so like, you're not a head master and i'm not a head mistress because that infers sexual, like, you know, ORGANS? - or something? Or maybe the 6year olds will start looking for your whip next time they're sent to the office if we call you, god forbid, headMISTRESS?) oh, double brackets, i'll shut the first set here) which means an extra trip to the YMCA and school and back again - so that in itself is EXTRA work. oh. I'm so tired just thinking about it.
This time next week I'll do a tiredness-tally. We'll see who's the most tired. And I think it'll be me, yeah. Get me the flowers ordered already oh-absent-husband.
Sunday Blues
Back in London.
How can my house smell of damp yet be so stuffy at the same time?
Anyway. I like to congratulate myself each time I get home from a weekend away because I switch off all the water / heating / electrical goods (well, obviously not the fridge and the freezer. imagine, that'd be a fun thing to come back to...) and I think, well, this weekend our house has mostly been inactive so hasn't been contributing to Global Warming, and I quietly award the house and its inhabitants a special invisible but green badge. However, now we're back its a bloody pain because we don't have any hot water and the kids stink from rolling around in a garden all day possibly dipping in and out of the occasional fox poo / squirrel poo / pigeon poo. But the half hour we have to wait to fill up the water tank with hot water means I get to have the joyous task of unpacking all the clothes, sorting out the dirty ones, thinking about the next load for the washing machine. Y'know. All that kind of crazy stuff. Meanwhile Husband plays cards with Mol (its really good for her brain) and Liz watches 64-zoo-lane and laughs out loud when the Hyena laughs out loud even if she doesn't know why its laughing. Bear of little brains. But maybe quite sweet.
I have in the 44minutes of returning to london already achieved monumental things: cut down some bamboo, stuck it into the tomato plants given to me by my dad (who taught me how to de-hair-the-plants-armpits - highly technical gardening terminology but I may not take it to my Garden Centre interview on Tuesday... "So, tell me the best way to get the hair out of your plants' armpits? Or do you just apply the seceteurs (?sp) to your bush?"; repotted a dying basil plant; put slug-resistent copper selotape around the basil plant and also my nearly-dead-sunflower. Well its actually Mol's sunflower. But its mine now that she can't be arsed to look after it. (And so you see Molly, if you can't even look after a sunflower, why should we buy you a rabbit?)
Think the hot water may be hot now.
Oops. Here comes Husband... "what you doing?"
How can my house smell of damp yet be so stuffy at the same time?
Anyway. I like to congratulate myself each time I get home from a weekend away because I switch off all the water / heating / electrical goods (well, obviously not the fridge and the freezer. imagine, that'd be a fun thing to come back to...) and I think, well, this weekend our house has mostly been inactive so hasn't been contributing to Global Warming, and I quietly award the house and its inhabitants a special invisible but green badge. However, now we're back its a bloody pain because we don't have any hot water and the kids stink from rolling around in a garden all day possibly dipping in and out of the occasional fox poo / squirrel poo / pigeon poo. But the half hour we have to wait to fill up the water tank with hot water means I get to have the joyous task of unpacking all the clothes, sorting out the dirty ones, thinking about the next load for the washing machine. Y'know. All that kind of crazy stuff. Meanwhile Husband plays cards with Mol (its really good for her brain) and Liz watches 64-zoo-lane and laughs out loud when the Hyena laughs out loud even if she doesn't know why its laughing. Bear of little brains. But maybe quite sweet.
I have in the 44minutes of returning to london already achieved monumental things: cut down some bamboo, stuck it into the tomato plants given to me by my dad (who taught me how to de-hair-the-plants-armpits - highly technical gardening terminology but I may not take it to my Garden Centre interview on Tuesday... "So, tell me the best way to get the hair out of your plants' armpits? Or do you just apply the seceteurs (?sp) to your bush?"; repotted a dying basil plant; put slug-resistent copper selotape around the basil plant and also my nearly-dead-sunflower. Well its actually Mol's sunflower. But its mine now that she can't be arsed to look after it. (And so you see Molly, if you can't even look after a sunflower, why should we buy you a rabbit?)
Think the hot water may be hot now.
Oops. Here comes Husband... "what you doing?"
Friday, 12 June 2009
don't scare the children
I didn't scare the children and no one pointed their fingers at my face and screamed. So that was good.
I have got phils money. its in a brown envelope. neither of us wanted to hold it so i gave it to him and now he's put it in the fridge with the chicken he's taking home for his dinner (not sure why his chicken is in my fridge but sure there's a super-fab story behind it...). Lets hope he doesn't try to bank the chicken and roast the cash.
I have packed the bags.
I have remembered to put M's bike in the boot of the car.
I have even hoovered L's bedroom.
So, I feel like the weekend is fast approaching. Bring on the green fields of Hampshire, adios to the smog of Harringay, the sirens, the dog poo - albeit temporarily.
I have got phils money. its in a brown envelope. neither of us wanted to hold it so i gave it to him and now he's put it in the fridge with the chicken he's taking home for his dinner (not sure why his chicken is in my fridge but sure there's a super-fab story behind it...). Lets hope he doesn't try to bank the chicken and roast the cash.
I have packed the bags.
I have remembered to put M's bike in the boot of the car.
I have even hoovered L's bedroom.
So, I feel like the weekend is fast approaching. Bring on the green fields of Hampshire, adios to the smog of Harringay, the sirens, the dog poo - albeit temporarily.
the day in the life of...
Friday. At last. Although the week has wizzed by like the TGV on its way to Nice (wish I was on it).
Friday chores:
1. fill car with petrol (£55...)
2. take out lots of money for phil who is waiting patiently to be paid for two weeks of work
3. pack up overnight bags for me, Husband, Mol & Liz. Dream about having matching sets of luggage from Boden. Remember why we don't have matching sets of bags from Boden. Kerching.
4. remember Mols asthma stuff & antihistamin. (she's allergic to the countryside.)
5. go do reading in Pols class for 1/2 hour
6. remember to take out lots of money for phil because i forgot to do it already
7. think about making picnic tea for kids to eat in the car as we sit in traffic on the way to Hampshire where my parents live
8. remember to pack mums cafetiere (i broke two of hers last time i was there)
9. oh! oh! oh! find someone to look after Mol & Liz after school on Tuesday because I have a job interview! hurrah. In a garden centre no less. (Subconsciously plan what to wear for interview in a garden centre? feel big discussion with wardrobe coming on...)
10. clean the house from top to toe because its covered in a thick layer of paint dust. this job will probably be postponed until next week
11. think some more about the picnic tea for the kids. ham sandwiches? crisps? some of the cast-off-brownie-crusts from yesterday's marathon bake?
12. warn mum (aka Granny Darling / Granny Garden - depending on which child is addressing her) that i need to do one more set of baking when i get to her house
13. lots more to do but no time to write about it must get on
14. make double espresso to kick start doing above list
15. stop writing
16. go to school and do the helping out
17. actually, go to the loo first and check spot situation before facing the children. i don't want to frighten anyones child by arriving looking like an uncooked pizza.
Friday chores:
1. fill car with petrol (£55...)
2. take out lots of money for phil who is waiting patiently to be paid for two weeks of work
3. pack up overnight bags for me, Husband, Mol & Liz. Dream about having matching sets of luggage from Boden. Remember why we don't have matching sets of bags from Boden. Kerching.
4. remember Mols asthma stuff & antihistamin. (she's allergic to the countryside.)
5. go do reading in Pols class for 1/2 hour
6. remember to take out lots of money for phil because i forgot to do it already
7. think about making picnic tea for kids to eat in the car as we sit in traffic on the way to Hampshire where my parents live
8. remember to pack mums cafetiere (i broke two of hers last time i was there)
9. oh! oh! oh! find someone to look after Mol & Liz after school on Tuesday because I have a job interview! hurrah. In a garden centre no less. (Subconsciously plan what to wear for interview in a garden centre? feel big discussion with wardrobe coming on...)
10. clean the house from top to toe because its covered in a thick layer of paint dust. this job will probably be postponed until next week
11. think some more about the picnic tea for the kids. ham sandwiches? crisps? some of the cast-off-brownie-crusts from yesterday's marathon bake?
12. warn mum (aka Granny Darling / Granny Garden - depending on which child is addressing her) that i need to do one more set of baking when i get to her house
13. lots more to do but no time to write about it must get on
14. make double espresso to kick start doing above list
15. stop writing
16. go to school and do the helping out
17. actually, go to the loo first and check spot situation before facing the children. i don't want to frighten anyones child by arriving looking like an uncooked pizza.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
conversations with my body
Will a really totally boiling hot bath sweat the spots out? I'm going to have a go and will see what comes up / out in the morning.
I also want a really totally boiling hot bath because my feet are really totally freezing cold and this could be a good way to get them re-acclimatised. I think my feet in fact think its still winter out there. I suppose in a way they could be right given the shite weather lately but I know, in my heart of hearts, that if I was brave I could get away with wearing just flip flops. So I need to break it to them that gone are the cold days and now is the time to embrace the summer. Reveal the toes. Hair and all.
Maybe they're in fact feeling self conscious, and being very extremely cold all the time is a way of keeping themselves covered up. Its like a little message to me. "Hey, you up there! Until you sort us out, we're staying in!" Does anyone else ever have conversations with their body parts? I have serious one-to-ones with each and every spot which visits my face, usually ending in a frightening bloody argument that is completely unproductive and unfortunately the spot usually wins despite being the one to receive the most physical punishment. And then I have to deal bravely with the fallout, in public, the next day (usually longer in fact). There are other conversations which I have with my body. Like my eyes. We often wonder, together, why they're so useless. I don't get much out of them though. Its a bit one-sided.
So. Off to the really totally boiling hot bath for a major sweat. Ought to keep the feet warm till tomorrow morning even if the spots are still there and alpine like...
I also want a really totally boiling hot bath because my feet are really totally freezing cold and this could be a good way to get them re-acclimatised. I think my feet in fact think its still winter out there. I suppose in a way they could be right given the shite weather lately but I know, in my heart of hearts, that if I was brave I could get away with wearing just flip flops. So I need to break it to them that gone are the cold days and now is the time to embrace the summer. Reveal the toes. Hair and all.
Maybe they're in fact feeling self conscious, and being very extremely cold all the time is a way of keeping themselves covered up. Its like a little message to me. "Hey, you up there! Until you sort us out, we're staying in!" Does anyone else ever have conversations with their body parts? I have serious one-to-ones with each and every spot which visits my face, usually ending in a frightening bloody argument that is completely unproductive and unfortunately the spot usually wins despite being the one to receive the most physical punishment. And then I have to deal bravely with the fallout, in public, the next day (usually longer in fact). There are other conversations which I have with my body. Like my eyes. We often wonder, together, why they're so useless. I don't get much out of them though. Its a bit one-sided.
So. Off to the really totally boiling hot bath for a major sweat. Ought to keep the feet warm till tomorrow morning even if the spots are still there and alpine like...
First entry about my spots.
Whilst the kids are downstairs eating a totally un-nutritious supper of cheese-on-bagel, sausage, marmite, cucumber, humous, carrot & celery, and orange squash (any combination of the aforementioned... Liz has in fact put humous / marmite / squash onto the bagel) I have dashed upstairs to take out my contact lenses. However, whilst facing the mirror I have been distracted by numerous eruptions taking place around my chin-region. The kids, meanwhile are arguing about something to do with their bagels and how much they have to eat before i will give them the cast-offs from the previously baked brownies. Meanwhile, I'm wondering whether Phil can, afterall, lend me some of his wood-filler for my now assisted-eruption-face-issues.
The girls are sensibly wearing their party dresses (lots of sparkles) and ballet shoes. Which is really practical for finger food and dripping greesy Cathedral City 3-for-the-price-of-2 cheese.
The girls are sensibly wearing their party dresses (lots of sparkles) and ballet shoes. Which is really practical for finger food and dripping greesy Cathedral City 3-for-the-price-of-2 cheese.
I'm all caked out.
My house stinks of cake.
God forbid you buy a house that permanently smells of baking. After a while its just plain sickly.
Luckily Phils paint is wafting through the house bringing its sugary sticky bake-y smell down an arrogant notch or two. Hey! Smell me! I'm, like, so tasty!
Mol often says we should open a cafe in our front room. Then we'd have cake all the time! Brilliant! And lots of people in the front room enjoying our cake (but it's my cake! I'd be the one making it! All day! Have you really thought this business plan through thoroughly oh-6-year-old-business-tycoon?)... (oh, and by the way, who'd do all the post-baking-washing up, the extra shopping, the ridiculous amount of sticky-putting-teaspoons of mixture in to godamned idiotically flimsy cup-cake holders? Who'd then have to do all the post-cafe-crumbs-off-floor-sweep? Eh? Moi?)! But Mum, it'd be like a fantastic bakery.
I love the enthusiasm, but given that Mol can't even work out weighing scales I feel it could be a one-sided-project. And there'd be the problem of where the TV would go if the front room was a cafe? So, where would I get to relax after a long day feeding people cake, adding to the NHS obesity bill - where would my Enders Relaxation Period take place? What about me in this whole thing? Not wanting to piss on the child's bonfire I tread carefully around the subject and suggest we wait a bit until Beth is big enough to use a dustpan and brush without causing undue harm to those around her. Seems a fair-enough deal.
So. The morning has been spent making ten tones of the most beautiful brownies and some unending quantity of fairy cakes. Phil has quality checked the brownies. He's not dead so that's a good sign.
My feet ache like I've done a hike up some mountain in flip-flops. I'm not cut out for standing more than a few hours at a time. Must. Go. Put. Feet. Up. Celery. Give me something Non-Sweet to negate the smells...
God forbid you buy a house that permanently smells of baking. After a while its just plain sickly.
Luckily Phils paint is wafting through the house bringing its sugary sticky bake-y smell down an arrogant notch or two. Hey! Smell me! I'm, like, so tasty!
Mol often says we should open a cafe in our front room. Then we'd have cake all the time! Brilliant! And lots of people in the front room enjoying our cake (but it's my cake! I'd be the one making it! All day! Have you really thought this business plan through thoroughly oh-6-year-old-business-tycoon?)... (oh, and by the way, who'd do all the post-baking-washing up, the extra shopping, the ridiculous amount of sticky-putting-teaspoons of mixture in to godamned idiotically flimsy cup-cake holders? Who'd then have to do all the post-cafe-crumbs-off-floor-sweep? Eh? Moi?)! But Mum, it'd be like a fantastic bakery.
I love the enthusiasm, but given that Mol can't even work out weighing scales I feel it could be a one-sided-project. And there'd be the problem of where the TV would go if the front room was a cafe? So, where would I get to relax after a long day feeding people cake, adding to the NHS obesity bill - where would my Enders Relaxation Period take place? What about me in this whole thing? Not wanting to piss on the child's bonfire I tread carefully around the subject and suggest we wait a bit until Beth is big enough to use a dustpan and brush without causing undue harm to those around her. Seems a fair-enough deal.
So. The morning has been spent making ten tones of the most beautiful brownies and some unending quantity of fairy cakes. Phil has quality checked the brownies. He's not dead so that's a good sign.
My feet ache like I've done a hike up some mountain in flip-flops. I'm not cut out for standing more than a few hours at a time. Must. Go. Put. Feet. Up. Celery. Give me something Non-Sweet to negate the smells...
By 9.30am I was back in the kitchen post-drop-off - Mol & Liz deposited in their various institutions - cracking eggs into a bowl of super-gloopy-Nigel Slater chocolate brownie mix (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/18/nigel-slater-chocolate-brownies). My house smells like I'd want it to smell if I was trying to sell it - I'm sure this sort of smell adds about 40% to the sale-price. Guaranteed fresh-baking-smell! This house comes with 3 loos, 100-year-old-cracked-plaster, original cornicing, slightly rotting sash windows and, yes, this could be yours, the smell of freshly baked cakes Every Morning! All for £3,456,999!
Anyway. So the house smells good. But it looks pretty awful as we're having it re-painted on the outside, hence reference to rotting sash windows. Phil-painting-guru has discovered that pretty much every windowsill has rotting wood on it somewhere. Which he's picked off with such diligence, a bit like the attention I give to the ever present pimples on my face, and has refilled with some kind of stinky filler - wrinkles cracks & all - gone! Vanished! I'm nearly tempted to get some of his filler and slap it onto my own wrinkles and cracks but the effects may not be so positive on a human being.
I'm baking brownies, and then I'm moving onto banana-fairy-cakes and then hopefully a Victoria Sponge - this a small offering to a friend who has recently gone through the life-mangle, and I'm hoping that the sugar & chocolate & sparkly decorations will provide very small relief at a very horrid time. I have to do the baking now whilst the house is kid free so that M&L don't realise that all this scrumptiousness has been produced for someone else.
5 more minutes on the pinger then down to the kitchen, out with batch3 of brownies. Then down to the ever-handy Tesco Metro at the bottom of my hill, more butter, sugar, eggs (maybe some bagels for lunch) to restock for the next baking adventure.
Anyway. So the house smells good. But it looks pretty awful as we're having it re-painted on the outside, hence reference to rotting sash windows. Phil-painting-guru has discovered that pretty much every windowsill has rotting wood on it somewhere. Which he's picked off with such diligence, a bit like the attention I give to the ever present pimples on my face, and has refilled with some kind of stinky filler - wrinkles cracks & all - gone! Vanished! I'm nearly tempted to get some of his filler and slap it onto my own wrinkles and cracks but the effects may not be so positive on a human being.
I'm baking brownies, and then I'm moving onto banana-fairy-cakes and then hopefully a Victoria Sponge - this a small offering to a friend who has recently gone through the life-mangle, and I'm hoping that the sugar & chocolate & sparkly decorations will provide very small relief at a very horrid time. I have to do the baking now whilst the house is kid free so that M&L don't realise that all this scrumptiousness has been produced for someone else.
5 more minutes on the pinger then down to the kitchen, out with batch3 of brownies. Then down to the ever-handy Tesco Metro at the bottom of my hill, more butter, sugar, eggs (maybe some bagels for lunch) to restock for the next baking adventure.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Enders catch up
I love Virgin replay. After half term when i missed 4 episodes of East Enders I had a luxurious evening when Husband was late at work (working hard) watching 2hours of East Enders and it was so exciting. Bradley saved people from Nick Cotton's terrifying hostage situation where he was getting violent with a REAL STOOL LEG (off one of Ian Beals cafe stools no less) it was so scary we all thought they were going to die either from GBH courtesy of N.Cotton and his stuff-of-nightmares stool leg (I mean, he just, like, smashed a stool, grabbed the leg and then held about 10 people hostage - how realistic!) or from the really realistic gas-leak that suddenly developed over the dirty cafe hob. And Dots hair got curlier and then Max came in and smashed down the door and Phil just kind of cowered in the background drinking brandy or something straight from the bottle. Meanwhile Billy was beaten up by Jases' killer and J forgave Billy and Ronnie has put holes in Jack's condoms because she really wants a baby to replace Danielle who got run over by that BITCH Jenene. God, i just love that programme.
So tonight, because i missed monday AND tuesday (Monday I was cooking dinner for Husband in an unprecedented act of love and loyalty (baked Mackeral, asaparagus, new potatoes - organic, on offer in Sainsburys, 1 glass of red wine); Tuesday i was cooking for Mother In Law in another unprecedented act of love and loyalty (spinach & fresh-pea risotto, followed by lashing of cheese & crackers, 2 glasses of white wine) - thus East Enders cruelly pushed aside) Husband back late (on bike today) i re-ran 1hour of Enders. Not so exciting and Wit's hair was just diabolical and kept changing from really greasy to slightly less greasy and has poor Bianca lost her for the real mother Deborah who is really such a cow? I'm not so bothered about Wits mum but can't believe no one from school has been to follow up her total absence from all the exams bar the slightly buffoony-English Teacher who went to school, i think, with Husband many years ago. So the Wit plot is a bit thin. Nevertheless its so watchable and so nice to sit eating pitta bread stuffed with cheese and chutney (Husband's home made apple chutney recipe courtesy of my paternal grandmother who was Chutney Champion) and tomato, knowing the girls are upstairs singing themselves to sleep (tonight they are mostly singing "I'm walking in the air" by Aled Jones, from the Snowman, which Liz insisted on watching 4 times in a row today and because I am weak, I let her).
I like it when Enders goes through plot lulls. Its like a small break for all concerned. The characters get to do some flippery scenes where its not all about to end in divorce abuse addiction death terminal illness a beating prison kidnapping or something worse. And the viewers get to chew their sandwiches really loudly and not be too alarmed if they miss anything because there is nothing crucial being said anyway in these plot lulls. Mastication and slurping wine noisily is OK at these story-line interval episodes.
Will Ronnie get found out by Jack?
What has happened to Bradleys HUGE and slobbering dog? (does the actor really like having it as his side-kick?)
Has Witneys hair-dresser finally put too much laquer on her hair? Will it ever recover?
And finally. Will Dot get murdered by her evil and crap-actress-grand-daughter?
With these deep and meaningful, yet unanswerable questions, I go and have a bath.
So tonight, because i missed monday AND tuesday (Monday I was cooking dinner for Husband in an unprecedented act of love and loyalty (baked Mackeral, asaparagus, new potatoes - organic, on offer in Sainsburys, 1 glass of red wine); Tuesday i was cooking for Mother In Law in another unprecedented act of love and loyalty (spinach & fresh-pea risotto, followed by lashing of cheese & crackers, 2 glasses of white wine) - thus East Enders cruelly pushed aside) Husband back late (on bike today) i re-ran 1hour of Enders. Not so exciting and Wit's hair was just diabolical and kept changing from really greasy to slightly less greasy and has poor Bianca lost her for the real mother Deborah who is really such a cow? I'm not so bothered about Wits mum but can't believe no one from school has been to follow up her total absence from all the exams bar the slightly buffoony-English Teacher who went to school, i think, with Husband many years ago. So the Wit plot is a bit thin. Nevertheless its so watchable and so nice to sit eating pitta bread stuffed with cheese and chutney (Husband's home made apple chutney recipe courtesy of my paternal grandmother who was Chutney Champion) and tomato, knowing the girls are upstairs singing themselves to sleep (tonight they are mostly singing "I'm walking in the air" by Aled Jones, from the Snowman, which Liz insisted on watching 4 times in a row today and because I am weak, I let her).
I like it when Enders goes through plot lulls. Its like a small break for all concerned. The characters get to do some flippery scenes where its not all about to end in divorce abuse addiction death terminal illness a beating prison kidnapping or something worse. And the viewers get to chew their sandwiches really loudly and not be too alarmed if they miss anything because there is nothing crucial being said anyway in these plot lulls. Mastication and slurping wine noisily is OK at these story-line interval episodes.
Will Ronnie get found out by Jack?
What has happened to Bradleys HUGE and slobbering dog? (does the actor really like having it as his side-kick?)
Has Witneys hair-dresser finally put too much laquer on her hair? Will it ever recover?
And finally. Will Dot get murdered by her evil and crap-actress-grand-daughter?
With these deep and meaningful, yet unanswerable questions, I go and have a bath.
I have been advised to disguise my true identity and that of my children. Of course! How could I be so stupid as to not! Doh!
Identities disguised. And that too of long suffering Husband. Who I shall refer to in the future as, hm, trying to think of original pseudonym here... ha! got it. Husband.
You will never ever find out who I really am! (queue mysterious evil cackle, resonating around a North London borough...)
Identities disguised. And that too of long suffering Husband. Who I shall refer to in the future as, hm, trying to think of original pseudonym here... ha! got it. Husband.
You will never ever find out who I really am! (queue mysterious evil cackle, resonating around a North London borough...)
Wednesday 10 June.
My first day of blogging ever. Mothers Ruin.
I'm a slightly juvenile 34 year old with 2 children (nearly 3, 6.5years) living in North London. This blog is going to be The Diary of my most fascinating life as mother, domestic goddess, professional Sainsburys' shopper (I can fill my trolley in under 20mins that's how well I know the beloved establishment) wine-filled-evenings, addiction to East Enders, and the cycle of life in my neighbourhood. I may even touch on my feelings every now and again. If there is interest I can tell you about the spots on my chin and the various anti-aging creams I find myself buying in a pathetic attempt to reverse the process of wrinkle-onset. But I think I'm a bit late in reversing this process because the onset has started and I don't think that however much Olay or Nivea or Berts Bees remedies I smear around the eyes will actually help. But in this instance positive thinking is very important.
So here I am. This is me. I have short hair. Blue eyes. I'm about 5ft5inch. I wear a lot of Sainsburys clothes now that the local shop stocks them. My girls mostly wear hand-me-downs. I drive my parents handed down Volvo V40 which has an airbag signal lit in red in the dash board. My house is a Victorian terrace on a steep hill. Often when we drive over the brow of the hill Molly (6) says I wish that view was the sea. Would be good if it was the sea rather than a power-station in Tottenham - but if it was actually the sea that'd probably mean that global warming had met a new level of danger, in which case I wouldn't be very pleased to see the sea there at all.
My husband cycles, occasionally when its not raining, into Soho to work each morning. Where he is very very very busy. You wouldn't actually believe how busy he is EVERY day. We have mini unspoken business-exhaustion competitions, listing how many things we did / achieved in the day, then move on to how badly we slept the night before, and therefore how much MORE tired we are than the other. But he's lovely. Except perhaps for the absorbing love of cricket. But that's another page for another day.
My garden in my Victorian terrace is not very big and very full of snails. We paid Molly 1p per snail that she put in a Tescos bag on Sunday. Think she made 45p. And then bought 75p's worth of 1p sweets. So I think we need to do a bit more educating in the money area of life.
My first day of blogging ever. Mothers Ruin.
I'm a slightly juvenile 34 year old with 2 children (nearly 3, 6.5years) living in North London. This blog is going to be The Diary of my most fascinating life as mother, domestic goddess, professional Sainsburys' shopper (I can fill my trolley in under 20mins that's how well I know the beloved establishment) wine-filled-evenings, addiction to East Enders, and the cycle of life in my neighbourhood. I may even touch on my feelings every now and again. If there is interest I can tell you about the spots on my chin and the various anti-aging creams I find myself buying in a pathetic attempt to reverse the process of wrinkle-onset. But I think I'm a bit late in reversing this process because the onset has started and I don't think that however much Olay or Nivea or Berts Bees remedies I smear around the eyes will actually help. But in this instance positive thinking is very important.
So here I am. This is me. I have short hair. Blue eyes. I'm about 5ft5inch. I wear a lot of Sainsburys clothes now that the local shop stocks them. My girls mostly wear hand-me-downs. I drive my parents handed down Volvo V40 which has an airbag signal lit in red in the dash board. My house is a Victorian terrace on a steep hill. Often when we drive over the brow of the hill Molly (6) says I wish that view was the sea. Would be good if it was the sea rather than a power-station in Tottenham - but if it was actually the sea that'd probably mean that global warming had met a new level of danger, in which case I wouldn't be very pleased to see the sea there at all.
My husband cycles, occasionally when its not raining, into Soho to work each morning. Where he is very very very busy. You wouldn't actually believe how busy he is EVERY day. We have mini unspoken business-exhaustion competitions, listing how many things we did / achieved in the day, then move on to how badly we slept the night before, and therefore how much MORE tired we are than the other. But he's lovely. Except perhaps for the absorbing love of cricket. But that's another page for another day.
My garden in my Victorian terrace is not very big and very full of snails. We paid Molly 1p per snail that she put in a Tescos bag on Sunday. Think she made 45p. And then bought 75p's worth of 1p sweets. So I think we need to do a bit more educating in the money area of life.
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