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....