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....