Christmas Conscience

I'm breaking my rule about never blogging after two glasses.  By quite a lot.  Feel free to go away again.

There is a post going around Facebook at the moment which is entitled 'When your Mummy says she is fat.'.  I read about two sentences and then gave up.  For all my kids' problems in the world, they will not learn about low-self-image from their mother.  Fact.

However, they do learn a lot of shit from me.  They are tired, over-excited and we are all slightly emotional after some wider family issues this week.  This has led me at various points to refer to either of them as spoilt, selfish, horrible and nasty.  My children don't really deserve any of that nastiness.  If we were to look at it as a whole picture maybe we would see that their bordering on spoilt-selfish-horrible-nastiness could possibly be a reflection of my drunken-busy-boring-selfishness.

I even gave them a lecture on Jesus this afternoon.  What was Christmas all about?  We got as far as a baby, a King and a little bit of goodness.  I leapt on the goodness to achieve my aim of trying to instil the fact that as a family we need to be dead nice to each other over the festive period.

I feel sorry for them though.  Stu works from home and regardless of all my extra-curricular, chosen arrangements, I actually only go to work two days a week.  I'm expecting more therefore from my summer-born Year 2 and Reception Year boys after their first term than I'm willing to provide from myself.  An afternoon of Veuve drinking with a lovely, bigger family than ours has put things in persective somewhat.  Christmas is about loving our nearest and dearest as hard as we possibly can, and being grateful for what we have been blessed with.  Thank the Lord for alcohol though and as I was watching the 'Outnumbered' Christmas Special the other night, I was delighted to see the Mum reaching for the wine bottle and then being told off as it was only 11am.  She put it back for a minute and then grabbed it again saying, "Oh, it's ok, it's Christmas."

Amen.

Time after Time

I did bath and bed for both boys tonight whereas normally we do one each when Stu's around.  It was slightly more frenetic than usual as they were tired and it left me reflecting on generally how much easier the bedtime routine is now they are a bit older.  I remember when Zak was nearly two and Seb was only a few weeks old flying into a complete panic when Stu had to work a bit later one night than normal.  "But... you HAVE to be home for bath time, how on earth am I meant to do both of them on my own otherwise?!"  Somebody more sane than myself would probably have sacked bathtime off for that night, put CBeebies on and had a large gin and tonic.  I always strictly adhered to the sacred bedtime routine however and could not break it, whatever shit was going down, (and a lot of shit went down in those days)!

This all led me to wondering what people in the 'non-small kid world' filled their time with in the busy tea/bath/bed time between 5 and 7pm?  I know it is no different to filling two hours any other time of the day but it is so ingrained in me now though that I can't possibly imagine what I would otherwise be doing.  I'm slightly afraid to imagine that Stu and I may well fill that time in the future firmly in the pub.  Surely not on a no-alcohol Monday though?

I'm a right clock-watcher.  Our whole lives run to a military-style regime that is ruled over by the Great Master Time.  I remember a friend quizzing me a few years ago on what really would happen if my kids' tea was served up at 5.05pm instead of 5pm one night. I'm sure nothing untoward would happen but I doubt very much that we will ever find out.

I am fully aware of how anal this all sounds but it works for me.  Shelley can't understand how I always cram so much in and am never late.  She claims it is because I know precisely how long everything takes and can't understand how that is.  I guess you learn how long things take when you do them at EXACTLY the same time each day...

I honestly have no idea how Stu fits into all of this, normally quite cheerfully.  At least the kids have been born into it so don't know any different.  Stu had a carefree, easy existence though, fluidly not worrying about any time, apart from maybe what time he arrived at work each day.  I guess he has just been trained; conditioned; brainwashed?  It amused me when he went to stay with a single mate of his a while back and came home honestly disgusted about how dirty his house was.  A changed man from the one whose open packet of green chicken slices I surreptitiously binned from his fridge the first night I stayed over there!

Anyway, forgive me, must dash.  It is 7.38pm and the dishwasher will need emptying in a moment in the Corrie adverts.  Joking!  Or am I?

'They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.'

This quote sprung into my mind over tea preparation this evening as I was teaching Zak the 'correct' (and only) way to behead a boiled egg.  It made me reflect for a second on who the hell did I think I was dictating to this child that there was only one possible way to achieve this task.  I think I was probably in a deeper zone than usual, as half an hour previously I had been at Trestle in a full mask having a silent dialogue with another mask about the best way to skin a rabbit.  Luckily for the local rabbit population there were only eggs available when I arrived at home.

I remember having impassioned debates when I arrived at University, (the first time, properly, back in the day), with fellow students, about whether butter/ketchup should be kept in the fridge or not (of course it should/definitely not, are you mad?!)  I realise now that this was the first time we had all lived with people who hadn't lived in our own families growing up, and so, I certainly, had not registered that there was any other way of doing things.  Needless to say I never converted away from my own deep-rooted chilled or cupboard habits.

I keep making the mistake of thinking that my children's personalities are set already.  I think Sebi is more structured into who he will be as an adult than Zak is, but of course there is a long way to go.  Seb shoots the odd look every now and then which can only be translated as "fuck off", and I'm sure this will remain part of him for the rest of his life.  Zak was waiting anxiously for me by the front door as I returned home this evening, whereas this time last year he wouldn't have given much of a monkeys where I was or what time I was coming home.

My Mum was very shy as a child as was determined that her daughter would not suffer the same fate.  She therefore spent a large amount of my childhood instilling in me how pretty, clever, funny and important I was.  She was the first one to point out to me as an adult that she thought she had overdone it somewhat.

My Dad parented, (oh OK, who am I kidding?), PARENTS me in a very similar way to I parent my boys.  The school of thought that I want you to develop your own mind so think about the many different ways there are of doing things and then figure out in the end that my way is the right and only way.  I would place bets on Seb one day parenting in a similar fashion.  Luckily for my children they also have Stuart, to bring a little flexibility and fluidity into their lives, otherwise it might well be like living in a very efficiently run military academy...

I think the main problem with having such an overinflated, egotistical idea of self-worth as I do, is that you cannot possibly imagine that anyone else could do anything better.  I'm the potter and my poor unsuspecting offspring are my clay.  I am fully aware that I'm going to come unstuck one day, as they find their more independent voices and rebel away from their control-freak mother.  Here's hoping the years of groundwork will have paid off.  After all, what else in the world is as important as being able to properly serve up a dippy egg?

Friday on my Mind

Today, I am seriously at peace with the world.  Surprising really, as due to a series of unfortunate events I will be looking after my own kids this weekend instead of the planned palming-off-on-the-in-laws.

I have worked out that if I try and do most of the boring day-off shit on a Monday and a Wednesday, come Friday, I can eat, drink, and mainly not have to freeze on the school run in my running gear.  Happy days.

So, at the beginning to the week I achieved my house-cleaning/Nana-visiting/MA reading/running.  I am trying to ease my parents' burden slightly by doing an hour's Nana-visiting a week.  It is definitely a duty rather than a pleasure I'm afraid to say.  It is awful to think that I clock-watch whilst I'm there but I'm afraid I do somewhat.  The moral dilemma comes though when one arrives to find the visitee otherwise engaged in the bathroom. As I tend to leave this visitation until the last hour before I have to pick the boys up, this means I have to deduct toilet-time from the allotted hour.  Possibly a little harsh but I guess from both sides it is nigh on impossible to plan these things.

I don't want to be old.  Even in the nicest (and seriously most expensive) nursing home in St. Albans, it is a miserable fucking existence.  If there is any justice in this world I won't make old bones.  I'm not sure the running and fruit n' veg intake in my thirties can undo the damage inflicted on my body in my twenties; however, my Dad is 73, and by rights, he should also fall under that rule.  My maternal Grandmother was in her nineties when she died and Nana is still going strong at 99 so who knows.  If I do ever get that old, I'm going to be permanently drunk and miserable.  No change then.

I don't really understand why old people aren't shitfaced the entire time.  There's nothing to lose then is there?  There is one old boy in Verulam House who is a friend of my Dad's, (shock), who seems to get through a bottle of whiskey each day.  There has got to be some merit in that.  Who cares if you offend people, you'll most likely be dead before you see them next anyway!

I wonder if my Nana-visiting will provide me one day, through karma, a granddaughter that visits me in my dotage?  My inkling last year that Sebi might be gay, and therefore although I had two boys I would still have someone to look after their poor old Mum, has gone away.  My pink-loving dancer turned into a little thug as soon as he started school and had a dramatic haircut.

I have achieved an essay plan today.  That's nearly an essay right?  I'm such a knob. Even though I know it is me that is going to have to fathom my plan out next week when I write the actual essay, I write things like "All performance is haunted by death - I don't think I agree," and leave it as that.  I don't bloody know why I don't agree but I just think I don't and can't be bothered yet to argue it out.

I suggested a pub lunch to my husband, then suggested he paid, then had to negotiate a large glass of wine instead of chips with my cheeseburger.  Tightwad.  (Thanks though Stu - was lovely - let's do it again soon.)  Fridays also mean that we are allowed to just watch tele after school instead of any meaningful playing so Mummy can go and submerge with a large glass of wine in hot water for an hour in preparation for tonight. Maybe I could cope with living till 100 after all?  I may well be submerging myself in wine by then though...

Pussy Passing

I didn't think when I started this blog that it would ever involve a cat obituary, but I guess you just have to roll with it sometimes...

I had Toby put down today.  Anyone who has seen my relationship with my cat in the last few years will know that I sometimes got more than a little frustrated at his constant miaowing and clawing but I was surprised at how traumatised I was by his demise!

Through my tear-filled eyes at the vets, I was however impressed at the dignity and pain-free swiftness of feline euthanasia.  I would be lying if I said it didn't flit through my mind that this could be a good option for Nana, although as she is so near 100, I think we should probably give her a couple of months.

I had to fill in a form first to give permission for the act. I would like to think that it will be the first and last death warrant I will sign, but I suppose we never know what is around the next corner... (Mwah, ha, ha.) There was a tick box for what I wanted to happen to Toby after the event.  I went for (a) General Cremation.  I was upset but I do have the perspective that he was, after all, just a cat.  Option (b) was to take his ashes home with me but I had visions of them being found and duly eaten/rubbed in hair/scattered in the lounge by my sprogs.  Option (c) was to take the body home with me.  Erm, no thanks. We had a 'situation' when Shelley and I lived in the flat together where a pissed and well-meaning neighbour presented us with a dead ginger cat in a box and we all lamented over another bottle of wine until Toby walked jauntily through the cat flap.  "Can anyone else see that cat?" said aforementioned intoxicated neighbour.  I then had a dead cat in a box to deal with, so I don't want another one, thanks all the same.

I was actually too emotional in the vet's to pay.  No honest!  When I phoned up half an hour later to sort it out, the veterinary nurse was very, very gentle with me on the phone until I gave her by card number and she told me it was £99.  "Ninety-nine quid!", I shouted, "I was only bloody there for five minutes!"  The sympathy seemed to melt away quite quickly at that point.

Talking to the wonderfully sympathetic Anna on the phone a few minutes later, she gently enquired how I thought the boys would react.  I explained that I'd decided I probably just wouldn't mention it and hope they didn't notice.  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised that it didn't sound like the best thought-through plan.  Zak, Sebi and I therefore had a lively discussion on the way home from school about the loveliness of Cat-Heaven.  Tis amazing how inventive one's animal theology can become when put under pressure.

As I sit writing this, an enormous black cat has just nipped in through our cat flap and tried to get in the kitchen.  Bloody cheek.  How do they know?

"Word in the alley is guys that the old ginger one from number 12 has carked it.  Anyone fancy a recky to see if there's any food left out still?"  I bet Tobes turning in his cheap-mass-grave.

I-Zakbot

The iPad is the centre of my eldest son's Universe and, quite often, the bane of my life.

Stu and I have often pondered on if we let Zak play it for as long as he wanted in a day, whether he would actually do anything else at all.  The jury's out, but I reckon he would probably only stop a few times to eat.

We try to responsibly-parent when it comes to the iPad.  They have to share, they are only allowed on it for a certain amount of time, before breakfast and after tea, and if it causes arguments it goes off.  For a spontaneous Saturday-afternoon-shag those rules do however get occasionally broken.

The current game of choice is the intellectually named, 'Plant Vs. Zombies'.  It does what it says on the tin.  My latest issue has arrived in the fact that Stuart seems as zombified by the bloody game as the boys.  In the kitchen the other day, I heard an argument starting over the iPad and entered the lounge ready to let heads roll when in fact I discovered that it was 'Daddy' who wasn't sharing.  Seriously, what hope do they have?   ;-)  As I type this Stu is busily blasting zombies with overgrown virtual cabbages and I don't expect any  conversation for the rest of the evening.  At least it means that he is the one that will eagerly converse about the silly game with the children.

There are a million studies out about how gaming rewires developing children's brains. Nobody can agree on how much is too much though, I guess that varies from child to child.  I would like to think that my two are not into the danger zone but it does worry me how addicted Zak is to anything technological.  He passed the iPad to Stu the other day and couldn't walk straight out of the room without physically swerving past it on the way out.  At least I'll recognise the signs of dependency in him if I ever need to at later stages in his life!

When you ask Zak what he wants to do when he grows up he says that he wants to play the iPad all day.  I translate this to people as "he wants to be a computer programmer, how clever!"; but I'm blatantly lying.  He is a delightful child: polite, considerate, conversational, articulate and intelligent.  It is however, all a complete façade.  He is really wishing we would piss off and leave him zapping cacti to his little heart's content.  The look of horror on his face when he saw my Mum with her newly acquired iPad the other day and she told him that there weren't any games on it.  "But Granny, that is SUCH a waste!"  Just imagine, someone owning their own iPad that they can play on any time they want to, with no restrictions, and them not availing themselves of it!  Utterly bonkers.

Rugrat Respite

My children are currently on their way to Redditch to spend happy few days with my in-laws.  They were meant to be going tomorrow morning but Stu's Mum suggested we brought it forward to today because of the impending storm and who am I to argue?

She is welcome to them.  There is something about the thought of imminent separation from my boys that makes me immediately less tolerant, (and I'm not very tolerant at the best of times), and in a lovely, maternal, pink and fluffy way, absolutely desperate to get rid of them as soon as possible.  We were making them do circuits out the front on their bike and scooter earlier trying to wear them out a little bit so they weren't completely as high as kites when Margaret received them.  Sebi managed to pull his trousers and pants down one-handed, whilst scooting on one leg and waggle his willy to the slightly shocked looking more elderly members of the close.  If I wasn't so mortified I may have been quite impressed with his skills.  Naked exhibitionism is obviously another warped personality trait I have handed to down to my youngest; at least I know he will have grown out of it in approximately 29 years or so.  Oh God.

When I asked Zak what he wanted to do yesterday and gave him various options: zoo, park, play area etc, he said quite definitely, "pub please".  Tempting as it was, we thought that at 10am on a Saturday morning it would have been pushing it somewhat, even by mine and Stu's standards.  We compromised with Sunday lunch at the pub today with my parents.  I had a little chat with the boys in the car on the way there about appropriate topics for lunchtime conversation with grandparents as they had mainly been discussing how much it would hurt to be shot somewhere in the body when you didn't die immediately but just poured out lots of blood until you got weaker and weaker and then died slowly.  Lovely little chaps aren't they?  Zak just spent the entire lunch drawing bombs, blood and dying soldiers instead.  That's fine.  It's art innit.

So I intend on spending the next few days in one of the following three states (a) drunk (b) asleep (c) stuffing my face.  Possibly a combination of two of them at any one time is more likely.  Dog with two dicks.

MAgic

I'm pretty convinced that my blog posts will become less frequent from now on as I started my MA today and have just found out about the 12000 words I need to write this year and the 20000 I will be writing next year.  Wow.

My opening line of, "Did anyone else sign up to this pissed?", this morning went down a treat with my fellow academic students, as you can well imagine.  I think I forget sometimes that other people might take me more seriously than I intend to be taken.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I don't give a flying fuck actually do I?

It was so good being back as the learner again instead of the teacher.  I was so excited and bouncing around like an irritating over-sized puppy from the word go.  There is something 'special' (and take that in whichever way you want) about a bunch of mature drama students.  It is impossible to introduce yourself without jazz hands and within ten minutes of the course every single person in the room is going to be one of your best friends for life, even the ones you don't like.  As I said, special.

I got a bit over-excited in our first still image and whilst clambering on to a guy's thigh to express my physicality of 'joy' I ended up kicking him in the bollocks.  Oops.  Would've been OK if I hadn't slammed a door in his face an hour later.  I bet his blog post tonight isn't describing me as one of his new bezzies.

One of the third year students that I met today, (and boy were we in awe of them), I had examined for in last year's GCSE practical.  Luckily she was happy with the marks she'd been awarded.  That could've been a nasty, nasty situation if I was the newbie student and she was the old hand and she hated me to the core.  The world of Drama teaching is dangerously small sometimes.

I loved it.  Every single sweaty-footed-poncy-step of the wonderful day.  I got so carried away with 'playing' that I found myself looking at a bloke going over and getting out a notebook and wondering what he was doing.  Then I remembered.  This wasn't a jolly, no matter how sugar-coated it is.  I need to be able to write intelligently about this one day soon.  I'm guessing this blog can't be submitted towards it?   Probably not.

My family survived without me today.  I consciously did not comment on the fact that I was told excitedly that they had eaten gingerbread men AND biscuits AND lollipops through the course of the day.  Similarly, the butter smears on the table mats/crumbs on the carpet/toys all over the house didn't matter.  It killed me to shut the fuck up for once, (although technically I'm voicing the whinge now to a wider audience), but I think my long-suffering-husband deserves a lot of credit tonight for holding the fort and letting me freely indulge my passion.

Zak found it hilarious when I was talking about 'Ken' and he discovered that was Mummy's teacher.  "But Mummy, YOU are the teacher", he patiently explained to me.  It must be difficult for him having a mother that struggles to understand the basic concepts of her life.

A bottle of fizz tonight to celebrate the first day (really, any fucking excuse), then back on it for six hours tomorrow.  The people who are travelling for three hours there and back to get here each day must love the fact that I come from down the road and am still managing to have a half-decent weekend by drinking and rolling out of bed at 9am.  Not that I've mentioned it at all as you can well imagine.  Not much.

BOOM!

Last running blog for a while I promise.  In fact, last bit of running for a while.  10K done.

It is pissing down today.  All the excitement that was building up inside me yesterday had done one this morning.  I hate running in the rain even more than I hate running.  My dear friend Anna offered to write me a sick-note yesterday when we saw the weather forecast but I thought that was probably taking the piss out of all the people that had sponsored me.  My husband and bezzies gamely offered to come and support me this morning but I decided that there was no point at all in any more of us getting cold, wet and miserable than was completely necessary.  I had a moment with a girl in the queue for the bogs before we started when we were trying to work out which was the more attractive option: doing the race in the pissing rain or hiding in the stinky portaloos for an hour instead?  It was close.

Much of the course is through fields so it was a mud bath.  For the first kilometre or so I was running around the puddles doing the nearest thing to ballet that I have ever achieved I reckon.  This was until I realised that I was probably doubling the distance that I was running by doing this so decided soggy feet and a muddy arse was doable for an hour or so.  The first three kilometres were a dream.  I was a dog with two dicks wondering why the hell I had been so worried about this and was already signing up in my head for the St. Albans Half Marathon next year.  Then came the 4 - 5 km hill of death.  I had no idea where I was as I had been too scared to look at the route map previously but I must say that I had never before realised that Harpenden was such a mountainous region!

It took a couple of km after that to get my equilibrium back but I think once you are halfway you realise that you probably are going to actually make it.  One of Stu's bezzies, Parky, once said to me that your body can do anything and it is just your mind that stops you.  I kept telling my mind this throughout and it seemed to work.

The crowds rocked up from about 6km and that improved things greatly.  I do sometimes loathe running but my love of being stared at and clapped fully outweighs this so I was beaming away at people who were absolutely nothing to do with me.

I tried to think of the km milestones like labour.  In labour you are striving for the magic 10cms dilation and here I was striving to finish at 10K.  Each km that you pass you know that the pain is a little bit closer to ending, plus you don't have a newborn to deal with at the end of it!  I missed the sign for 7km and that nearly finished me off but the joy of hitting 8km instead was indescribable.

Job done.  No more sober Saturday nights for me for a while, sorry, EVER.  They should put some 10K events on Tuesdays, after No-Alcohol Mondays, for the serious boozer-runners.

What I don't understand is why, when I got out of the bath just now, my tummy is still flibbedy-flobbedy.  Is Mother Nature not aware of what I have endured?  I should be a lean, muscular being now without an inch of flab.  Life just isn't fair sometimes.

All work and a Play.

I have always sat happily on the fence of the working Mum debate.  As a part-time working Mum with a lot of good friends in both camps, I've felt that I can absolutely agree with all sides.  I'm always amazed at what a passionate issue this is.  I am carefully not naming names as I badly mis-quote all my nearest and dearest in the following few sentences.  Working Mums can be militant about needing to do it for financial reasons. Nobody in the world can argue with that.  For the non-financially stretched though it seems as if it is a right that should not be taken away.  If a man can work with a family, why can't a woman?  The Stay-at-Home Mums are equally as fervent with the knowledge that they are giving up the freedom of life at work that they could have, all for the sake of the welfare of their children.  Both valid arguments, I think.

Normally, I work two days a week.  It's creeping up however now that my kids are both in school.  I've recently been promoted up the examining ladder and my masters degree is starting in ten days time.  Someone has decided to pay me £100 an hour; NO, not for that, you dirty Mo-Fos, but for some professional training and I would be lying if it said it hadn't gone to my head somewhat.  Let's hope the powers that be never read this blog; my invitation would be removed before you could say "Who on earth would waste a ton on this Fuckwit?"

This week is Harvest Festival at school and I am in work every day.  To the Working Mums there is no need to even make a big deal of this "Why would you not be?" and I can feel the Stay-at-Home Mums rightly worrying about the state of my house and the state of my children.  My family runs beautifully like a military operation and we are at the point now where I can be absent in the mornings or after school and the kids still eat and are bathed/teeth are still cleaned and spellings are still learnt.  It is easy to get sucked into the idea that your domestic life can function perfectly well without you in it.  Not so much.  I've said before that it is impossible to be simultaneously a good Mother/Wife/Employee and Daughter and I stand by that.  My Dad was telling me the same thing, that I needed to put my kids first at all times; as we stood in the pub together this evening.  This was after I had picked the kids from after-school club, bollocked Seb for losing his fleece, chucked the boys at Stu and legged it back out the door to go to the boozer.  Something wrong there.

I spent a few minutes encouraging a lovely Year 2 boy at work today who was worried about his performance tomorrow and we had a bit of a moment as I realised I had made his day better and he was feeling good about the play now.  I thought on my way back from the pub this evening that I hadn't spent that much time talking one-on-one to either of my own children today.  Luckily, I was in time to remedy this and found out stuff about Zak and Sebi's day that would have been lost forever if I hadn't had that revelation.  There were things that happened to them yesterday that I will never know about now.

Forgive the twee-ness.  Unusual I know.  I'm a nasty creature when I'm bored but maybe I need to learn to constantly re-evaluate my work-life balance.  My babies aren't my babies any more but they need me as much today, in different ways, as they did when they were tiny.  Poor old Stuart has accepted that he is nearly at the bottom of the pile and pretty much fends for himself.  At least as long as the cat is alive he has a slightly more elevated status in the household...

Birthday Brummies

Once again, hungover, I headed up to my husband's homeland with him yesterday for the wonderful Daniel's 40th birthday.  My parents had given us 24 hours' babysitting from 1pm yesterday so needless to say we dropped the kids off and legged it at a respectable 1.02pm.

Man Utd kicked off at 5.30pm so the plan was that Stu would head to the pub while I had a bath.  I was worried about navigating my way around a strange town but luckily we were staying in a Travelodge in the pub car park.  Convenient.  Really fucking nasty, but convenient.

I got my gladrags on and opened our bedroom door to go and join my husband in the boozer.  However, I opened my bedroom door to find one of Stu's bezzies, Nick, standing right outside it.  He claims he was waiting for another mate of his who was staying in the room next door to me.  I saw no evidence of this bloke being in that room though and just warned Nick that if I found him outside my room at a later point in the evening, I would not be so understanding. ;-)

All 17 of us were in the pub by 6pm.  These guys know how to party and a soft pansy southerner like myself had to strap my drinking boots firmly on to have any chance of keeping up.  We hit the curry house at 7pm and Stu had a big gay fit as I hadn't saved him a seat and he'd gone deaf in one ear so couldn't hear anything where he was sitting. Luckily, he downed a bottle of Cava in about 20 minutes and that seemed to sort him out....well in one way anyway...

I seemed to be at the more raucous end of the table.  I met a bloke called Damon that I hadn't come across before.  I thought we were having a great time so I don't know what he meant when he caught Stu after two hours of my company and said, "Now I understand why you look so haggard mate".  Funny.

I was in my comfort zone as the conversation was on to anal sex by 7.30pm.  These brummies always have to take it a step further though and soon we had moved onto sex with goats.  Well, we hadn't moved on to having sex with goats we had moved on to talking about having sex with goats.  I 'kid' you not.  The dilemma being discussed by the table was whether if a bloke was to shag a goat, did it make it more acceptable if the goat was female.  I thought it probably didn't matter so much.  Baaaaa-ha-ha.

The waiters tried to throw us out at 10pm.  It didn't go so well for them.  Apparently, there were some guys outside that needed out table and were going crazy.  One of our party decided to show them that us going crazy inside was potentially more lethal.  We left shortly afterwards through the kitchen door.

Back to the pub next door to our hotel but that would be far too convenient to stay in, wouldn't it?  We therefore trekked half an hour in stillettos (some of us, I'm not naming names), to the hideousness of the Dog and Pheasant in Bromsgrove.  I thought I was pretty drunk until I got in there.  Jeesus.  My stripy trousers were apparently too much for the people of Bromsgrove and I seemed to be nicknamed 'Beetlejuice' within minutes. Oh well, I've been called worse.  We weren't possibly going to go straight home having walked the walk of death to get there so on of our party decided to solve it in a tried and tested Brummie night out fashion:  "Drugs?  Drugs?  Anyone, got any drugs?"  We settled for vodka and a quick shuffle around the dancefloor then headed back to the smelly Travelodge.

Having babysat overnight for us, my parents told us to meet them in the pub for a roast (LOVE THEM).  They didn't get much conversation out of us if I'm honest but delighted in telling us how good the boys had been.  At that point, Sebi threw a tantrum of unbelievable proportions and nearly cleared the pub in five minutes.  My Mother's response; "Well, he is obviously very bright."  Amazing.

We love you Danny-Boy.  Thank you for a top, top night. xxxx

This 10K Marathong

Yes, I know there is a mistake in the title.  I'm trying to make the whole thing less serious. Two weeks left until this bloody run and I am bored.  Bored of running, bored of healthy (ish) living, bored of the thought of a sober weekend in two weeks time.

That is however, getting less sober by the minute.  Next weekend is mahoosive with Book Club including the return of a brand new member all the way from Melbourne, followed by a mad dash to Redditch and a 40th birthday.  I will have to drink on Sunday to sort my miserable self out but then that was going to be it until the race.  I'm already rethinking this.  I'm currently on an alcohol free lifestyle, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I thought that maybe a whole week off just to run 10K could be excessive.  Proper marathon runners have a week or so off the sauce don't they and I'm only doing a quarter of that so technically I only need two days off.  Well, as there aren't actually eight days in a week meaning I can't divide a week into quarters, so let's call it one and a bit days. Which really means I could drink on the Friday night and then run on the Sunday morning - nearly 36 hours see?  Sorted.

The lack of boozing has been boring me the most.  I've always had No-Alcohol Mondays, religiously; but over the last year or so I've added Wednesday into the mix as that is what that funny 'Change for Life' advertising advises.  That's just about do-able due to a sadistically timed 8am meeting at school on a Thursday.  Adding Tuesday to it as well though just makes the beginning of the week hardly worth getting out of bed for.  I work on Tuesdays and I always find a day's work flows more freely with the promise of wine at the end of it.  It does mean that I'm doing exactly what all the health advisors tell you not to do and that is binge-drinking from Thursday through Sunday.  Last Thursday evening, Stuart said that I had had three glasses of wine by 7.30!  The only blessing is that at least as my body isn't used to it I pass out at 9pm thus limiting further damage.  Seb's at school now so that leaves the opportunity for a little snifter with my Pa on a Friday lunchtime. Yesterday, I found myself drinking gin and tonics in the armpit that is the Baton with my bezzie at 4.30pm, because, erm, well, just because really.  Sunday lunch is a boozing religion in my family and I've discovered over the last few weeks that slow consumption of wine continued when we get home on a Sunday afternoon makes me much cheerier at about 6pm than a miserable early-evening hangover.  Maybe healthy living isn't so bad after all?

So, my running.  I've upped from two runs a week to three whilst I am officially 'in training'. Monday and Wednesday mornings and Thursdays after school.  As you will have gathered from my description of my Sundays, Monday morning runs are pretty much a lame stagger back from school and round the block a bit whilst sweating 90% alcohol. Wednesdays are the days that I'm trying to build up mileage and it is a slow and painful process.  I do feel a sense of achievement when I've added a nanomillimetre onto my distance from the week before but it is just so dull.  I do actually enjoy running for about 7 minutes.  Add another 35 minutes into the equation and I am pissed off and knackered. Thursday I co-run (b'doom) an after-school running activity with a colleague.  (This is compulsory timetabled time for me, I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart, just in case you were thinking I'd changed.)  This is probably the shortest distance I run but Lordy it is FAST.  I'm not quite sure what speed I reckoned 10-12 year old boys ran at when I signed up for this but I struggle not to be last.  Thank goodness for "Fred" let's call him who is hitting adolescent laziness and gets a stitch within seconds of starting off. Somebody needs to hang back and look after him, poor chap.

I've instructed Shelley, Sam and Stuart to keep a check on my enthusiasm in the future and remind me that 10K is where I should peak.  If I looked back at this achievement through rose-coloured spectacles and started attempting to sign up for a half marathon at any point I should be bound and gagged and locked in the under-stairs cupboard until I have come to my senses.  Sam rightly pointed out that there was no point making these sorts of plans as I will just get pissed and sign up for something at 2am in the morning and then it will be too late to do anything about it.  She's got a point.  Shit.

Anyway, must dash.  There are only a good couple of drinking hours left in today and Sober Suicide Monday is looming heavy on my mind.  Cheers!

Bye Bye Baby

Sebi starts school next week.  I'm sure he was actually only pulled out of my stomach about five days ago.  When the hell did all this happen?  I'm obviously in denial as I only got him out of a high chair a month or so ago, (he's small OK?!), and until last week I was still helping him go to the toilet for some reason when actually he has been completely capable for a year or so.  I think it may all be a bit of a wrench come Wednesday.

We went for our final visit to his teacher on Friday.  She asked Sebi to draw his family and then wanted him to put the drawing in his work folder.  He refused, predictably.  I didn't realise that it was so important but the teacher was not backing down; that piece of paper was going in the folder.  There was a huge stand off.  Our meeting was about three times as long as everybody else's as Sebi sat cross-legged on the floor, (on top of his drawing), with his back to the teacher, and I tried to make light of the situation: "I have no idea where he gets this kind of behaviour from", followed by an unnaturally high-pitched nervous giggle.  I was beginning to regret talking about my own teaching experience with this teacher as she was obviously wondering how I could possibly handle a class full of boys when I had absolutely no control over this particular one.  We compromised with the fact that Seb would do another drawing to put into his work folder and he could take the original drawing home.  He nonchalantly strolled over to the drawing table and looked me in the eye whilst doing the smallest, crappest scribble on a piece of paper and handing it to the teacher.  If he knew how to stick two fingers up and what it meant, he would've done that to all of us at that precise moment.  I feel Miss Lockyer may have met her match in the same way that I have.

So the baby is off to school.  I am embracing my freedom with both hands and have had no more new baby wobbles.  I had the delightful company of my gorgeous 7 month old Godson this morning for a couple of hours, and I loved every second, but when I handed him back I was relieved that I was at the stage of not having to watch my offspring every minute any more.  A colleague of mine asked me this week if I was going to try and find another job to fill in the other three days that I'm not working now Sebi is starting school. Erm, no thanks.  She assented that of course the children were still very young but then looked a little shocked when I said I was a part-timer by trade these days and could never see me going back to a full-time position.  There will still always be miles to be run, books to be read and lunches to be eaten, won't there?  Bring.  It.  On.

Lefkas: The Sequel

Returning somewhere that you had the time of your life when you went previously is always a risk in case it doesn't live up to expectations.  Take some of your closest friends with you and that risk doubles as they might arrive and wonder what you were making such a fuss about.

The Renner family's more immediate problem however, was that they didn't actually arrive; well not on the first day anyway.  We were flying from Gatwick and we drove down and parked; Kate and Ralph were getting the train.  As we were getting the bus to the airport from the car park, Ralph sent Stu a text saying that they were just having breakfast and aiming to get to the airport for 2pm.  The flight was leaving at 1.10pm.  Before Stu had a small heart attack I told him that Ralph was definitely on the wind up.  Another couple of texts confirmed this and we all had a big laugh about it... until their train broke down five minutes later.  So, they missed their plane and ended up doing a 24 hour marathon via Corfu and arriving a day later than expected and at least a grand worse off! Yowch.

They took it in their stride and we were soon into a happy routine of swimming in the morning and booting the kids into kids club in the afternoon indulging in some serious R&R.  Another great bunch of people this year by the pool and lo and behold only one couple that seriously got up my nose.  They were mind-numbingly and painfully dull.  I was slightly chastised and told that they were probably just very shy.  I'm not convinced. They were EVERYWHERE.  Surely, if you're shy you don't stand in the middle of a group of people at the bar?  If you were really really shy you would be watching the group of people at the bar from behind a bush?  Talking of bushes; Jon (one half of my favourite couple from this year) decided that the boring/frumpy exterior was merely a cover up for this dreadful woman being a filthy dirty minx.  I remain unconvinced.

Remaining with that thought however, Kate and I were lying by the pool one day discussing our fellow holidaymakers.  I was expressing the opinion that everyone was a little too perfect for my liking and it felt a bit like Stepford Wives on tour.  This led into the discussion about which of the ladies had ever taken it up the bum, which ended up with us howling with laughter on our sunbeds.  They were probably looking at us thinking we were such nice girls too!  Maybe not actually?

Kate and I did some drunken night swimming in Gen and Jon's pool.  It got progressively darker and darker as the complex turned all the lights off until we decided it was time we headed home.  Kate couldn't find her flip flops in the pitch black and so I crawled on my hands and knees feeling for them all around the pool until she remembered that she had actually come out with bare feet that night!

Sebi became famous in his own right by doing a dance to Gangnam Style at one of the pyjama parties.  I was obviously seriously impressed but didn't realise what an overnight sensation he had become in Lefkas until we hit the pool the next morning and all the older kids were shouting out "There he is!"  "Alright Sebi?"  "Great dancing!".  Seb was un-phased by all the attention and carried on floating about with a number of Mickey Mouse theme buoyancy aids.  I think he gets his night-time behaviour from his mother and his daytime modesty from his father...

Ralph and I are both pretty dominant, strong-minded, obstinate and stubborn creatures.  I joked a lot before we went on holiday about how I was going to drink a bottle (or two) of wine every night and have a go at him.  It all went according to plan and we had some very heated debates.  One night, he asked me to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Some sober bit of my mind nagged me that this probably wasn't a particularly sensible idea so I asked my dear husband what I should do.  Stu decided that I could tell Ralph exactly what I thought of him for precisely 30 seconds and then Ralph was not allowed to say anything in response.  It got better and better.  I think I crapped on for at least a minute in the end and then there was a deathly silence...  We all remained good friends in the morning though as Ralph (professes) that he can't remember anything I said.  The final battle of our holiday war ensued on the way to the airport on our return journey. Ralph decided to follow me even though I said there was no need as even a monkey could navigate the 25 minute journey from our villas to the airport.  Nevertheless, we set off, in convoy.  Then I got lost.  Ralph found his way there before we did in the end, although I had put him through another "we're going to miss our flight", unnecessary panic.  In the check-in queue I admitted defeat and that we ended the holiday with him being absolutely right and me being totally wrong.  Stu and I were laughing that some people who were still in their swimmers by the pool when we left for the airport were ahead of us in the queue then....  Ooops.

I finished my holiday as every by drinking a bottle of champagne on the plane on the way home.  Delish.  Stu wasn't drinking as he was driving from Gatwick but so I didn't look gluttonously alcoholic, I asked the flight attendants to chill some champagne "as a surprise for my husband".  I then told Stu that he had to look surprised and delighted as the champagne was delivered that he was not going to drink.  Lucky chap.

See You Next Tuesday

During my Book Club dinner in a nice pub in Redbourn last night, one of my party said 'Cunt' really quite loudly at the table, (and, for once, it wasn't me).

The tumbleweed blew slowly through the room and a couple of other tables of diners began to stare at us, in quite a menacing way.  It started quite an animated discussion at our table.  Poor old Heather, who was driving and therefore the only sober one among us, looked as if she would quite like the ground to swallow her up but luckily she was at the furthest end of the table from the 'starers'.

I have no problem with the word.  I think that perhaps people have become slightly over-sensitive about it, particularly women, leaving it with a 'cult' status, making it untouchable and unspeakable and therefore giving it more power than it deserves.  A little bit like people in dramatic circles being afraid to talk about 'Macbeth', although cunt is a little less Shakespearian.

Kate felt quite strongly that it was a justified use of the word by she-who-will-not-be-named-at-book-club as we were talking about an Afghan Warlord who had murdered small children and done a number of other horrific things.  I agree absolutely but I have also realised I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

I throw 'cunt' around in new circles, showing off, loving to shock, etc, etc; but actually if I had been out to dinner with my parents last night, or in fact, my children, I would have taken umbrage at someone shouting it out at a table near me.  Why is it therefore alright to change your values, vocabulary and behaviour depending on the company you are currently keeping?

If someone said that they would give me £10,000 to say 'cunt' at my parents' Sunday lunch table, I would refuse absolutely.  I may consider it for £100,000 but that is only because I would then have the means to leave the country for quite a long time, immediately afterwards.

As a parent myself, I can imagine that I would have a small coronary incident if either of my boys came home bandying it around in my company.  I think that luckily we are a few years off that however as 'poo' and 'wee' are (a) still absolutely hilarious to them and (b) very frowned upon by me.

I think I'm at the extreme end of the scale of different behaviour for different situations. Many of my friends and family act in quite a similar fashion whoever they happen to be with.  I like to think that this makes me interesting, vibrant and exciting but in actual fact it probably makes me an exhibitionist who will develop into a caricature of my former self as I get older and lose my amazing good looks and razor sharp wit. ;-)

Anyway, back to last night.  We considerately moved outside a few minutes after the C-Bomb incident.  One of the gentlemen from the table of starers gave us a wave and a cheery 'Cheerio' as he got into his taxi later.  I reckon he ran a foul-mouthed Book Club back in his day too.

Run Forrest Run!

I went running at 7.30am today and I need to show off about it.

*Pauses and waits for 90% of the readership to leave the post*

Seven-fucking-thirty.  Amazing.  I don't normally even surface until 7.35 on a school day. Stu was asleep, Sebi was fast asleep, only Zak was awake to applaud me in my efforts and he only managed a swivelled eyeball away from the Ipad to shoot me a confused look before returning to shoot something in Angry Birds Star Wars.

I didn't even have breakfast.  A banana and a pint of water and I was off.  For the first 0.2 of a km I was full of it.  Look at me.  Really.  Look at me.  Running the streets of St. Albans whilst the masses still had their curtains closed.  Then at 0.3 of a km I got hungry. Really hungry.  Eaten-a-big-fat-plate-of-pasta-last-night-and-stretched-my-stomach-muscles-and-then-decided-to-go-running-without-brekkie kind of hungry.  Arse.  I'm stubborn though and I carried on the route I had planned trying to remember who it was that told me I would burn serious calories for the rest of the day with this early morning burst of fitness.

I realised I had become a member of a club I had never asked to join.  You tend to exchange a smile with opposite-direction runners whenever you are running.  From them, I think, it is normally an encouraging smile or a smile of camaraderie.  From me, it is always, always, me laughing at the pair of us for putting ourselves something so horrific for the sake of beauty.  The 7.30am jogging club has a different kind of smile from both sides: we are all seriously fucking smug.  I can be smug while it lasts, I can't imagine it happening again this decade if I'm honest.  I normally run after school drop off but the tropics of St. Albans are ensuring that even 8.45am at the moment makes me an unusually sweaty Betty.

All this showing off and how far did I run I hear you ask?  1.75 miles.  I reckon there must be some kind of Bermuda Triangle hiding somewhere up Jersey Lane.  I felt like I ran for miles and was out for ages but no; 18 sodding minutes and 1.75 miles.  Arse, arse.

As I drove past McDonalds at 10.30am I toyed with the idea of a Large Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal.  After all, (a) it must definitely be lunchtime as I had been up for so long, and (b) a 1.75 mile run first thing must surely cover those calories and then allow me lunch as well?  Luckily, as it was so bloody hot, I couldn't face the Maccy D smell today otherwise my healthy day could've drifted into minus points quite early on.  As it is, I've rewarded myself with a couple of wines in the pub with my Daddy and a couple more with my hubby.  I would imagine that the other early-rising joggers are already tucked up in bed with a carrot juice ready for tomorrow's outing.  Good luck to them.

A Couple of Pairs

My family is split neatly in two.  From the moment Zak was born, he looked like Stu, walked like Stu, laughed like Stu and comedy danced like Stu.  They have a shared sense of humour that only the two of them get, (and I'm afraid to say that I judge it nearer a six-year old's than a 38 year old's but that could just be me not 'getting it').

All very sweet and very lovely and it would be fine because I would receive my mini-me girl second-time around.  Oh no.  Mini-me he is but he is no girl.  Don't worry, I won't crap on about the lack of women in my house (as I have spent quite enough time on that before).

Stu and Zak are a pair of pliable, funny, friendly, happy-eaters, kind, crowd-pleasers, sociable, early-risers.

Seb and I are a couple of stubborn, friend-picky, late-risers, hilarious, pig-headed, musical, loving, sleepy, awkward, mother-fuckers.

It's interesting because of the way you end up parenting your two children.  Many of my best friends will argue with this, but, I don't have a favourite.  I absolutely love Zak and Sebi equally but in totally different ways.  I am constantly amazed by Zak and his compassion and intelligence but I fail at reaching out to him when it come to what interests him.  I have to summon up every ounce of concentration to listen at breakfast to yet another oh-so-fascinating analysis of the latest workings of the most recent game on the IPad.  I really, really don't care, but I have to, otherwise we won't connect, ever!  I frustrate Zak already with my incessant demands for kisses and cuddles AT BEDTIME. Seriously.  He is only just six.  Surely that is acceptable?  I won't be trying my luck at 16, or even 10, but at 6 I think I deserve a shot.

I find Sebi completely manageable, but to Stu he is a bit of an enigma, (as I imagine, am I).  They have a good and fun relationship but Stu doesn't understand the way Seb works at all, and he will be the first to admit that.  In the same way I have to work to find common ground with Zak, I can understand precisely what is going through Seb's head 95% of the time.  It's really quite odd.  

I had a lovely weekend a couple of weeks ago with my Uni friends when Stu took the boys up to Redditch.  They went out of a meal for Sunday lunch and Seb ordered his dinner, yet when it arrived, he threw a blue fit and refused to eat it.  Stu then ordered him a different dinner.  I pass no judgement on this, (on here anyway), as, as I have said, I was having a lovely drunken time on my own.  However, I can just imagine the bloody glint in Sebastian's eye as he achieved what he never would have done had Mummy been around.

My Dad has a lot of fellow-feeling with Sebi being a second-boy-child in quite a short space of time too.  Seb hardly owns any clothes that aren't hand-me-downs and my Dad was appalled to hear that I put him in Zak's second-hand pants.  Not quite as appalled as when I suggested that he had probably spent the best part of his childhood in Uncle Ted' pants...

Luckily, considering they are so different, Zak and Sebi have a wonderful sibling-relationship.  Thank the Lord that Zak is the elder brother however, as I think that him having the controlling power through age is what makes is work so well.  Seb worships the ground he walks on and is subservient to Zak and Zak only.  Stu holds the age card on me but somehow it doesn't quite work in the same way. ;-)

When We Were Very Young...

I was originally going to call this post, 'If Carlsberg made weekends...' as it has been so fabulous but I feel that is rather over used, although not as much as the bloody 'Keep Calm and...' which tends to throw me into a very un-calm state whenever I see it.

I went racing at Newmarket on Friday night.  Dad had a couple of horses running, neither of which won, but coming in third and fourth they didn't disgrace themselves.  Kate, Aly and I decided we were born to the lifestyle of sitting in the owners enclosure drinking champagne bought by other people.  Aly suggested that we pool our winnings at the start of the evening.  She's a clever girl as I won on the first race and then Kate on the third! Luckily she pulled it out of the bag on 'Tax Free' and we came away splitting a very respectable £115.  Unfortunately, we had the taste for champagne by then and 115 quid doesn't last very long when Bar 62 have sold out of everything apart from vintage champagne and so it is unthinkable that you wouldn't buy that and would lower your class of drink later on in the evening...

According to my dear husband, I don't make enough of an effort to come in quietly when I've had a shandy or three so he offered to sleep in the spare room on Friday night so that I wouldn't wake him up.  I'd already changed the bed for my ladies who were arriving on Saturday so he wasn't allowed to and I headed out the door at 5pm promising to come home late and loudly.  Lucky chap.  His main complaint is that I turn on every light in the house so I dutifully stumbled around the in dark instead probably making twice as much noise.  He should be grateful I wasn't giggling, hiccuping or vomiting however, as all of the above have been known to happen on occasion.

Saturday morning I packed my husband and children off to Redditch and indulged in a couple of glasses of medicinal wine over lunch as I waited for my five best friends from Uni to arrive.  We haven't been together for 9 years, as the last time was Lynsey's 30th. She was delighted to keep being reminded of this as we each individually clocked on to the fact that she must therefore be approaching 40.  Poor old Clare is gestating a sproglet at the moment so I can imagine that we were suitably shouty and dull by about 9pm.  All credit to her though she was up until nearly 2am when she firmly packed everybody off to bed.

We dined in 'The Cock' and were waited on some of the time by someone  I used to teach GCSE drama to.  This caused much hilarity at our table because although my St. Albans friends are pretty used to me falling (drunk) over ex-pupils, (and in fact Shelley is particularly adept at removing me from those sorts of situations if I'm a little too merry), my Uni friends still struggle I think with the concept of Nikki Stocker being a proper actual teacher, (don't really blame them).  There was therefore a little bit of interrogation of this girl who then pointed out to me that a boy who used to be in my form and also worked there was seriously trying to hide from me.  I left the poor chap alone, for a while anyway; after the third tequila rose I think there might have been a little bit of name-shouting and waving.  Ugh.

It wouldn't be a night out with these girls without laughing till you cried (and for some I think, till you did a little wee-wee) and crying until you laughed.  I stuck my foot right in it by drunkenly announcing that a girl we went to Uni with had died a few years ago (I'm available for hire to ruin all your parties).  We all knew this, or so I thought, but apparently we all actually didn't.  One of our table ended up in floods of tears and was beside herself for about 15 minutes until we thought it would be cathartic for her to look at a picture of the dead person in happier times on Facebook.  At that point she realised it wasn't actually who she was thinking of and the tears dried up.  Honestly, we are bad and nasty people.

My kids will be back in a few minutes now and it is time for me to stop pretending I'm 21 again and grow back into Mummy.  Regression every once in a while keeps me sane though I think.

A Frosty Reception

We've just had Sebi's induction morning at Reception.  I don't remember doing this with Zak and I just figured that it was a new thing that they had brought in during the last couple of years.  No, apparently not.  It seems as though I may have just 'missed' it last time. That seems relatively slack, even for me.  I know that I deliberately always skip the new parents' talks nowadays as I can't bear all the hot air that tends to be spouted there but surely I would've taken poor old Zak in to see his new classroom?  Maybe not.

Anyway, Sebi and I hit Reception today for an hour, (oh yes, that's a long, long, time to meander around a relatively small classroom with too many children in it), and then lunch. Anyone who knows my 'fuck off I've got enough mates' face from seeing it around school before, would, I think, have been surprised at the new heights it hit today.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't stomp around in silence for an hour but I carefully chose the people I was willing to talk to and those I definitely wasn't.  A mother of a child I have referred to as an abbreviation 'HM' in previous posts was obviously top of this list, but luckily she seems to have got the message, and it fills my heart with joy to report that our loathing seems completely mutual nowadays.  Job done.  There was another lady however, who was desperately following me around and trying to make eye contact for most of the session. I'm sure if you asked ten people who knew her if she was a nice person then all ten would agree that she is, but having observed her from a distance during nursery pick-ups/drop-offs I just know that she would do my head in, immediately, and so we are best not becoming acquainted.  What's wrong with her?  Not a lot.  The fault most definitely lies in my personality, but I cannot cope with over-zealous-highly-competitive-my-perfect-middle-class-life-is-actually-such-hard-work-but-nobody-else-possibly-understands mothers who talk too much.  Ahhhhh, that's better.

She will get the message soon enough in September I'm sure.  I was out to lunch with one of my BFFs Kate the other day and we were frankly discussing the playground politics.  Kate's children are at a different school and she visibly cringes when we talk about how differently we behave in the playground.  Kate is a very friendly, open person and she has come across more difficult personalities like myself in her own playground. She now keeps her distance from those scary witches.

So, back to today.  Over lunch, the Headmaster came and sat next to Sebi for a few minutes.  Seb studiously ignored him and carried on eating his bread and butter.  After a little prompting and a poke from his mother in the ribs he deigned to answer one of the Head's earnest questions with a small nod; avoiding all eye contact however.  He hasn't managed to hone his antisocial skills effectively enough yet to realise that whilst cheerfully discounting the masses we can't be bothered with, it is important to always make time for the big cheeses in life.  We'll get there in time.

Busy Bee

Hello.  I'm aware it's been a while.  I am slowly coming up to the surface after moderation month.  Last year was the first time I had done it and I wasn't prepared for the fact it would be a month of absolutely no fun, drowning in a sea of paper and videos and mopping up the mess of other drama teachers.  This year I was more prepared but I was not ready for the fact that my school plonked report deadline day on exactly the same day as the moderation deadline.  How the hell did that happen?  My feet haven't touched the ground.  I have been saving time by prepping reports in my dreams (yes really) and then just typing them up when I woke up and with five days to go I have half a centre left for moderating and 38 reports left to write.  Believe me, considering where I was this time last week, that is a happy place to be.

I'm not whinging I promise.  There have been times in the last month when I have thought if I watch one more video of one more class exploring 'Blood Brothers' I may do myself or my TV some harm.  I do love it though, otherwise I wouldn't do it.  However, I have been hanging out for it to be over and for me to get my life back.

So I went out last night.  My BFF and I wandered up to a local pub for dinner.  We made a strategic decision not to go into town so that there was no late night option.  Over the years we have learnt that it is important to plan against drunken foolish decisions before one is drunken and foolish.  How then did I end up head first in a bush somewhere around the Ridgeway at 1.30am this morning?  I blame the council.  All the bloody streetlights were out and what with the Ridgeway being a bit of a curly road it is easy to get disorientated and stray from the path, over a wall and into someone's front garden. Thank the Lord that (a) it was dark and (b) I don't teach in St. Albans anymore so can revel in this dreadful behaviour without the risk of being caught by pupils or worse still parents of pupils that you then have to try and convince you are actually a civilised professional instead of a drunken scumbag at the next parents' evening.

I had a moment of clarity as I realised I was too drunk to pull myself straight out of the flowerbed last night and instead had to drag myself back over the wall.  If I have a lot more free time now that examinations and moderation have finished I may find myself stuck in a bush (stop it you filthy minded lot) more often.  That's not necessarily a good thing.  I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume that my quiet-night-out turning into raucous debauchery last night was just a release of the stress I have been under for the last few weeks.  Just in case though, I've decided to keep myself busy for another couple of years and today have signed up to do an MA starting in September.  It could be a slightly knee-jerk hangover reaction but I think it is better for my family and the residents of Marshalswick in general if I keep myself busy and out of trouble.

Surely with two degrees I am bound to then be grown up and sensible.  We live in hope.  I will keep you posted.

Home Alone

A beautiful sunny evening at the beginning of an bank holiday weekend and I am sitting in alone in my lounge whilst my husband gallavants on a roof terrace of a pub in London. Jealous?  Much?  Actually, no.  I'm revelling in the company of a bottle of pink Lanson and a Corrie/Stenders sarnie.

Stu is due back at lunchtime tomorrow.  He is therefore able to have a pretty large night out and is staying in the darkest depths of South-East London with his bezzie.  I'm happier with him staying away so that I can lock the door and not worry about being woken up by a snoring/farting/stumbling intruder in the early hours.

I used to be a lot less chilled about Stu's nights out.  It's funny, but when I was thinner and younger with no baby scars and I serviced my man on a near-daily basis, I was a lot more paranoid about what he was going to get up to when I wasn't with him.  Maybe our seven-year marriage has produced less of an itch and more of a security blanket?  There is the school of thought that says why would you have a burger out when you can have a steak at home...  I'm sure that the way men are made they would take both if they thought they could get away with it!  I reckon Stuart would be more excited about the idea of an ACTUAL burger followed by an ACTUAL steak on the side than the analogy however.  I think at 36 I've just realised that worrying about these things unnecessarily won't actually change the likelihood of them happening!

Even the thought of a solo Saturday morning doesn't fill me with dread anymore.  Zak will creep downstairs, (he knows how to keep on the best side of his mother), and amuse himself on the IPad, and Seb stays in bed till you go and get him, so my day shouldn't get going until 8 or 9.  The days of 5.30am on a Saturday morning staring through tear-filled bleary eyes at the playroom wall with a baby and a toddler are luckily a far-distant memory.  I'm sorry if I sound irritatingly smug.  Actually, I'm not sorry; I did my time.

There is also the beautiful concept of a Super-King size bed for one.  It's funny how I sleep quite happily and neatly on my side of the bed the majority of the time but the moment I'm given the whole caboodle I spread and cover the entire thing like an enormous snoring starfish.  Happy days.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder in my marriage.  I will welcome my (slightly stinking) hubby back with open arms tomorrow and revel in his witty and scintillating tales of his misdemeanours for a good half an hour, before I vanish off to the beauticians for the rest of the afternoon, leaving him with his hangover and his boys. Well, I'm sure he will have missed them.

Raising Little Martians

I've always been slightly obsessive about raising nice children.  I'm currently wondering if I have overdone it somewhat.  Take this morning, for instance, Zak started a new swimming lesson and in one of the widths he was slightly ahead of the boy next to him. The boy next to him grabbed Zak's float and tried to pull him under the water.  Little shite. Zak didn't say or do anything but moved himself to a different position so that the next time they did a width that boy was nowhere near him.  This is exactly what I would've told him to do if he could hear me and I told him afterwards that I was very proud of him.  Why then, when it was happening, did quite a large part of me want Zak to shove the Little Shite's head under the water and hold it there for a while?

The boys know that being kind to other children is of paramount importance to Mummy.  I can't stand mean kids but part of me feels like I'm putting them on the back foot in their day-to-day lives.  Kids aren't kind as a rule.  Boys of all ages seem to live in a perpetual state of competition.  At this age it tends to be who is the fastest/strongest/cleverest.  In ten years time it will be who's the best looking/best at pulling the ladies/has the biggest willy.  As grown men the biggest willy race seems to merge into who has the biggest car and for many the competition seems to be all about who has the most money.

Zak does walk away from trouble and is always keen to report back to me that he has done that and tried his best to be kind.  All well and good but does this mean I'm raising a child who is going to come a cropper in a few years when someone repays his 'kindness' with a slap?  I think my husband secretly thinks so.  Stu seems to have a different view on childhood to me having grown up in a different atmosphere and also as a male.  When I suggested we might enroll Zak in a local Beavers group Stu pissed himself laughing and said he used to throw things at cubs when he was a lad!

I remember when I was pregnant with Zak one of my colleagues saying to me that if my baby looked like Stu and had my attitude nobody was ever going to mess with him. Luckily Zak seems to be going the way of a brick shithouse so I don't think he will ever be a real victim.

I think Sebi may be the one to watch.  Although it doesn't look as if he will be as big as Zak, he has perfected his mother's fuck-off-and-die stare beautifully at the tender age of three.  I think Zak may have his work cut out as they grow up bailing his little brother out of all the trouble he will get himself into.  Probably quite a similar experience to Stuart being married to me really.

Tied onto the Wagon

How the mighty have fallen.  All my showing-off birthday shenanigans last week on top of not-properly-treated cystitis led to a little bit of an internal crisis for me last weekend.  Now I can nearly laugh at myself doing rigorous pilates accompanied by a glass of champagne on Saturday night, thinking I had put my back out dancing on the table the night before, when actually my kidneys were being ravaged by e-coli.  Oops.

So, I find myself five days later on the second course of kick-arse antibiotics with the potential promise of another week's worth landing on me on Monday.  I think today I must finally be starting to feel a bit better as I have started pondering the absence of alcohol in my life.  I haven't had a drink for 5 days.  Five days.  I'm not lying to you when I say that the last time I reckon that happened was 1993.  I always drink, I love drinking, I drink too much and I'm not quite sure what to do now that I'm not drinking.

On the positive side of things I've decided that this definitely proves I'm not an alcoholic.  I reckon the 'proper' alcoholics would have drunk anyway over the last few days.  It really hasn't even crossed my mind until today.  Cross my mind it has now however with the promise of a sober weekend ahead and a definite four days before I can drink again; possibly eleven.

Stu's out tonight, lucky bastard.  Although, it's probably best as I'm a miserable MF at the moment.  I welled up when he was telling me about the Mexican restaurant he's going to pre-gig and the Margaritas he was going to drink.  Tact isn't his strongest point but still I think me crying over missed cocktails on a night out I wasn't even ever going on when I don't even drink Margaritas shows that I've got some issues.

I've just been interrogating Sam over a glass of water, (oh yes, no tea or coffee for me either), about what you are meant to do to entertain yourself when you don't drink.  She claims only to drink once a week, (can't say I've ever noticed, I'm obviously always too pissed), but has definitely cut down while she has a broken arm so that she doesn't break the other one.  Cinema or Bingo was all we could come up with, neither of which set me on fire with enthusiasm.

"I drink to make other people more interesting." - Ernest Hemingway.  Possibly, I agree with him.  I also tend to surround myself with fellow-boozers.  I can only think of two people I know that are tee-total and they tend to bore the arse off me, (don't worry, they aren't blog readers.)  Maybe that's just coincidence?  I think drink makes a lot of things more interesting; certainly it makes sitting in on your own and watching tele less tedious...

Samantha, (sorry love), also suggested that if being off the booze was distressing me so much then that obviously showed I had an issue with it and that I should maybe look at that.  I beg to differ.  I'm proving it.  I'm living the miserable sober life as a temporary emergency measure but the evening I'm properly better I have a date with a beautiful bottle of pink Lanson and a straw.  See, if I was a proper alkie I wouldn't wait until the evening.

Birthday Bubbles and Bodily Bits.

It was my birthday party last night.  Needless to say I'm teetering on the edge of impending death today having drunk my body weight in champagne and not crawled into my pit until 3am.  I've decided at 36 (!) I'm getting too bloody old for these shenanigans.

The party was in my kitchen, birds only.  I had the time of my life.  It started off oh so civilised with champagne, polite introductions and Waitrose canapés.  Within an hour however I was showing off the new underwear bought by my husband, trousers round my ankles whilst I paraded on my kitchen top.  I'm not shy, never have been, but as referred to in a previous blog post I thought the days had gone of me getting my bits out to all and sundry.  Apparently not.  I obviously just need more of a concrete reason these days.

A very old friend turned up as a semi-surprise from Hastings.  That's an impressive journey in one night.  She handed me a wrapped gift and I immediately asked "is it porn?" Randomly, it was.  The next half an hour was spent very happily with me getting my kit off (again) and recreating the pose on the front of the DVD.  Haven't watched the film but from the title and the pictures I'm pretty sure it focuses on gentlemen with an impressively sized particular area of their anatomy.

I love it when you are looking around a party and seeing people getting to know each other and thinking why isn't anyone very drunk yet?  Ten minutes later and people that were perfect strangers a couple of hours ago suddenly have their arms round each other and sharing their life histories.

We were dancing on the chairs and the tables to a classy combination of Rick Astley, Bros, Madonna and Kylie.  Apparently Agadoo was a step too far however and I was told it should be relegated to a playlist for the boys' birthdays instead.

My dear husband arrived into what he described as a 'war zone' about 12.45am.  I could be wrong but I doubt he has ever had so many drunken women draped all over him at the same time.  He said he was just hit by a wall of noise.  Everyone had been congratulating me all night on how clever I was getting my kids to sleep so early and to sleep through the party.  Stu obviously noticed when he arrived home that actually Zak was shouting at us to be quiet.  Oops.  Mother of the year.

My best mate Shelley and I walked each other home with a plastic glass of instant Pinot at 2.30am reminding each other how fucking fabulous and hilarious we were.  Having had a baby eight weeks ago I was seriously impressed with her staying power.  I bet she is having a just lovely time today however...

Another year older, none the wiser, slightly more pickled, cheerfully hanging.

Growing Old Begrudgingly

I've spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the beauty salon this afternoon.  The delightful young beauty therapist, (who for the sake of her street cred should remain nameless, let's just refer to her as DYBT), pampered me beautifully and I exited a different woman, well, sort of.  For an 18 year old she confidently managed my brazilian wax in a blasé fashion as if it was completely normal to be ripping the hair off the holiest of holies from a woman that was teaching you drama when you were 11.  Poor girl.  I bet that wasn't what came up as a possibility when she had her career interviews at school.

DYBT and I spent a lot of time together today.  We had a run through our respective weekends.  Hers promised to be a hell of a lot more exciting than mine although she made a good show of making them sound on a par.  Whilst chatting, I realised that with her being 18 and me turning 36 on Thursday, I was a few days off being double her age! Shocking!  Me thinking we were on the same page and chatting amiably about nights out in Watford, (ok, ok, the clubs are the same even if the names have changed five times since I last went), was like a 72 year old thinking they were akin to me.  Actually, that's exactly what my Dad does and he's 72.  I'm such a chip off the old block it's terrifying.

The moment of realisation came when I was asking DYBT about the sort of music would be in the club she was going to tomorrow.  She said doubtfully; well, it's a house night? The question mark at the end of the sentence was definitely more pronounced than that.  I know house music.  I'm not that old, surely?  I may not listen to it but I reckon in a line-up of music types I would have a definite shot at getting 'house' right.  Maybe it's changed since my day however.  Maybe I wouldn't have a fucking clue.

DYBT and I agreed on a lovely shade of sparkly gold for my nails that I'm really rather pleased with heading into my celebration week (wedding anniversary and a birthday occurring people - my poor husband).  I wondered out loud how many more years I could get away with glittery fingers.  My DYBT obviously told me I could wear glitter for as long as I liked, (she got a big tip).  We then got into a discussion about how long we reckoned people had fanny waxes for.  We came to the conclusion that it would probably be for as long as they were 'active', if you get my drift....  I certainly can't imagine that in double my birthday years I'll still be bothered.  Who knows though.

So my BFF Shelley and I have decided that at 36 we might have to stop being in our early thirties at last.  Shame.  We eeked it out for a while.  Her birthday is the 21st April and year in year out for those 17 bloody days in April I don't hear the end of quite how old I am. I seem to remember one year I may have been texted about it on practically a daily basis. Perhaps I do her a disservice.

I was hurtling to the supermarket at 9am this morning to buy emergency Easter Eggs.  (It remains a generic supermarket as I am ashamed to say I darkened the doors of the nearest one to me instead of travelling across town to the more one with the more palatable clientele.)  I found myself involuntarily turning my nose up at a couple of mini-skirted staggerers obviously on their way home from a cracking night out.  What a short memory I have.  It wasn't THAT long ago, surely.

If DYBT was expecting any pearls of wisdom from her aged-ex-teacher-mature-client today she would've been sorely disappointed.  I looked her straight in the eye and told her to get shit-faced as much as possible, as often as possible, because in ten years time she wouldn't be able to do it any more and get away with it. 

Pooing in my Professional Pants

You will be pleased to hear that isn't a post about one of my offspring losing bowel control (unusually) but instead it is me pooing my pants about tomorrow.

This is a self-indulgent cathartic post from myself as I'm not sure how much of what I do as my second job I can talk about in a public forum.  I'm in the MI5 don't you know.  Shit, there goes that job.  Anyway, bear with me, or don't, I don't really mind, as I said this is purely for my benefit today.

Tomorrow morning I'm toddling off to do my job and I'm being observed doing that aforementioned job by the Queen of this particular academic kingdom.  I would be less nervous if the Queen of England was observing me tomorrow as she wouldn't have a clue what she was talking about.  My career Queen not only knows what she is talking about, she hasn't just read the book on it, she wrote the bloody book.  Ugh.

It is the equivalent to a Ferrari and a Skoda, (sorry to any skoda drivers but the stereotype sticks no matter how much re-vamped marketing they undertake), taking a trip around a race track together.  The Ferrari would very kindly show the Skoda the best way to navigate the track but at the end of the day the Ferrari is still a Ferrari and the Skoda is still a Skoda.

The problem with this particular Skoda is that it has ideas above its station and it doesn't want to stay a Skoda forever.  It could probably do the name of Skoda proud tomorrow but it would rather come out of the day being seen as a Golf or even an Audi.  Are you with me?  No, oh well, never mind. This isn't about you.

I am as prepared as I possibly could be.  I don't suffer from nerves particularly badly but I have never been so nervous about anything in my entire life.  Think of me tomorrow morning and send a prayer up in you happen to be that way inclined.  Thanks.

For now, I'm going to check I have the correct paperwork for the millionth time, take some precautionary Immodium (better to be safe than sorry) and spend a good few darkened hours staring at my bedroom ceiling tonight.

Thanks for listening.

Feeding Time at the Pub

We spontaneously went out for dinner tonight, the four of us.  I had a nice time, I'm glad we went; there is no cooking or washing up for me to do this Friday night; great. However, meals out with my kids never quite live up to the rose-coloured vision that I anticipate before we go.

They aren't bad.  They are just little boys that don't quite understand the art of polite conversation over drinks while you wait for your food to arrive.  Friends with older kids do assure me that it does become more pleasant and less frenetic an event, the older they get, and I believe them.  Two years ago when we went out for dinner en famille (why the hell did we bother? what were we thinking?) it was essential that we carried enough raisins to feed them slowly to Sebi between the time he got in his high chair and the time his food arrived.  Of course, he didn't then eat his poxy food as he was stuffed full with 385 raisins (yes, I counted).

We don't believe in ipads or dvd players over dinner.  We have done that once, when we were out for dinner with other children who were watching them and it was the most blissful family meal we have had.  We were able to chat and relax and have more wine.  I do hope however that our anti-gadget meals will eventually pay dividends when the boys are older.....

Back to tonight.  Zak got the waiter and waitress immediately on side by ordering his own dinner and drink with impeccable manners.  Unfortunately, his little brother as a captive audience was too much of a temptation and I don't think the waitress thought he was quite as cute when he said "Bottom!" at the top of his voice.

Sebi tried to order "Champagne, like Mummy" and shot the waiter one of his best killer-death stares when he dared to suggest that apple juice might be slightly more suitable.

Two glasses of champagne in, I held my lovely husband's hand over the table and reminded him that it was so nice that our terrible-twosome got on so beautifully and had such a good time together as some siblings just fight all the time.  In the two seconds during which we were pondering this, Sebi went face-down into his pizza and Zak tried to set his raisin packet on fire with the table candle.

So, two hours later and we are £95 worse off but with nice full bellies.  My husband thinks three glasses of fizz was excessive during a kids' tea-time meal.  I think it was absolutely necessary to achieve Nice-Mummy.

The proof of the pudding was when I popped to say hello to a couple of old work colleagues of mine that I saw sitting over the other side of the pub.  "Oh yes, we saw you when we came in", they said, "and we decided to leave you to it".  My beautiful children have turned us into restaurant-pariahs.  Thank God we don't tend to bump into people we know when we are on aeroplanes....

Body Beautiful

I feel like I'm dying this morning.  In fact, I probably am.  The last of my dinner guests left at 1.30am last night which meant I was on the sauce for six hours solid.  The main problem however with Saturday night drinking is that it is then followed by Sunday lunchtime drinking.  "Well just don't have a drink today", I hear you yell.  That would be the sensible option I agree, but you haven't met my father.  It is a rite of passage that we have some wine on a Sunday lunchtime whatever else is going on in our lives.  In the bad old days pre-kids I remember one occasion of getting in at 5am and then setting my alarm for 11.45 to ensure I was in the pub with Dad at 12.  Craziness.  I've had a glass of wine during the final 'throws' of norovirus, a glass of wine with flu and even when I tried to be good at not drink AT LUNCHTIME when I was pregnant it was all a bit frowned upon.

The last thing I feel like this morning is a drink I must say.  This week is worse than usual as my sister and her husband are staying with my parents and they have both given up booze so poor old Dad has been drinking alone.  Don't worry Pa, here come the Wards to the rescue.  Misery loves company but not nearly as much as boozy Stockers do.

I can't remember when I became fully aware of my own mortality.  Probably not until I had kids.  I put a huge number of unspeakable things into my body during my twenties and somehow have happily survived to tell the tale.  On top of that I hardly ever exercised, ate a lot of take aways but was still nice and thin.  I miss those days.  I think mortality smacks you in the face when you have kids.  You suddenly realise that maybe taking care of yourself is not just a selfish act but a necessary maternal decision.  These days I don't smoke, eat too much junk, I ensure I get my five a day and I run twice a week.  I hardly recognise myself.  My weak link is now and will always be the demon drink.

The government advises two booze free days a week and mostly I adhere to that.  I've always had 'No-alcohol Mondays' but these days I have no-alcohol Wednesdays too.  A weekly 8am staff meeting on a Thursday is a big help there though.  It tends to fall apart a bit in school holidays (which I seem to have quite a lot of these days ;-)) and I'm not sure that the 'government' would advocate the speed in which booze in poked down on the five other days either.

It would be boring to have no vices however and one thing I can never bear to be is dull.  Milk Thistle is my new best friend.  I may have interpreted the bottle slightly differently to how it actually works but apparently it is some kind of wonder-herb that means you can get really pissed without really damaging your liver.  Nice one.  Make mine a small herbal pill and a large pinot please.

On that note I must away to strap on my Sunday-lunchtime drinking wellies and fall back off the wagon again.  Cheers...(Ugh!)

That Bulgarian Business....

Stuart is working very hard these days at his new job and it is going well.  It involves a lot of travelling so my phobia of staying home 'alone' has had to get over itself rather suddenly; a bottle of champagne through a straw seems to do the trick.  His new boss has given him some guidance about working from home and told him it will be hard as you will be around for a few days and your wife will get used to having you about and then it will be difficult for her when you are then away.  "You haven't met my wife" replied Stuart perceptively.

My poor husband told me that he was having to do a business trip to Bulgaria this month. I felt really sorry for him, three days away from home training up some Bulgarians in deepest darkest February.  Then the goalposts shifted just a touch.  The business trip became more temperate as the dates changed to the end of April and I was genuinely pleased for Stuart, much more pleasant.  A few more Sales Men were added to the mix and suddenly it was becoming a bit of a piss up too.  Nice.  Again, good luck to you mate.  I'm examining two of the days he will be away but I don't bear a grudge and I will work my socks off and juggle the kids quite happily while he has a nice time in the Bulgarian sunshine.  More power to him (I'm planning a week's jaunt to Sydney in October so racking up some points....!)

Over dinner the other night my cousin slipped in to the conversation that the 'scenery' in Bulgaria was lovely.  My considerate husband tried to cover up by saying that he had heard it was actually in the middle of an industrial estate.  "No, no, no" said my pissed and not-tactful-at-the-best-of-times cousin, "the SCENERY is really really good."  It came out in the wash that the person Stuart is going to be training and spending all of his time with over there is apparently very beautiful; stunning in fact.  Oh great.

I'm not that jealous a person.  I most definitely used to be but nearly seven years of marriage irons out most of those wrinkles.  I never poke through his emails/texts etc. anymore.  Oh believe me I used to but had my pokey-pointy nose well and truly burnt once on that front so decided that these days ignorance is bliss.  However, the thought of my husband spending three pissed and steamy nights with Miss Bulgaria 2012 does not exactly have me jumping for joy.

I immediately phoned my wise counsel Samantha for some sympathy and advice.  Once she had finished pissing herself with laughter she told me not to worry as Bulgarian women have hairy fannies and armpits and stinky breath.  (She is well racist.)  Probably not true but I will be clinging on to this hope as I wave him off into the ether in two months time.

If anything good is to come out of this I reckon it will be that Stu may well have a gift of a replacement wedding ring sooner rather than later.  I've been dragging my feet on this since he lost it in the Greek sea last summer but maybe the fact that the price of gold has doubled since last time I bought him one isn't so important anymore....