It’s a Rich Man’s World

I have to confess that this week I have been morose. Yes. Morose is the only word I can find to describe my mood.  I don’t know whether I was on a post London weekend comedown or just a more general malaise connected with being surrounded by swarms of children for large parts of my waking life. I don’t know and I don’t really care.  All I know is that I have spent the last few days struggling to do the most basic of things with any cheerfulness at all and have battled the entire week with the urge to shout ‘Fuck You Buddy!’ to the universe and run back to bed.

It’s not even that the week has been particularly ghastly.  Admittedly there have been ghastly bits, but there have been times in every day where I have hooted with laughter or shared some wonderful times with friends or family or even, shock horror, my husband.  Yet it seems that I have managed to code many of these things as negative, or just delete them from my brain entirely and have been wallowing, positively wallowing in grief, stress, inertia and misery.  Which is a bit wank.

Today after waking up feeling that the weight of the world was on my shoulders and spending an hour hunched over the coffee pot contemplating armageddon and other such cheery matters I made a decision.  I decided to try being a bit more upbeat and see what happened.  A revolutionary idea, I’m sure you will agree.  But sometimes, us derring doer’s who just live on the edge need to embrace the possibility that there is something over the edge, and it might be o.k.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that Tallulah and I spent the day rapt in Zen like meditation, hitting cow bells and reaching a higher state of consciousness, because it wouldn’t be true. No. We adopted the much more fundamental and entirely girly approach to the woes of life.  We went shopping.  We went shopping with a bit of a vengeance.  I have done more damage to my credit card.  Frankly, I don’t care.  We arrived home twenty minutes ago, laden with bags, and although I can’t say that I’m jumping for joy and being grateful for every breath of air, I am considerably more relaxed and normal than I was eight hours ago.  This has got to be a good thing.

Tallulah had twenty pounds from her birthday stash.  I was a bit nervous about this.  Tallulah’s approach to money can be frightening.  She likes to hoard it, steal it or spend it faster than me, and I can spend.  When she’s on a spend it kick it is terrifying.  She wants everything.  Park benches, clouds, old ladies wearing tartan slippers.  She is utterly indiscriminate in her approach as long as she can spend faster than anyone else.  It can be exhausting.

I have to say however that today she was a dream.  She was relaxed, happy and totally chilled out.  We browsed, we pottered, we poked about.  She spent her money, every single last red cent, but didn’t complain when she couldn’t buy a Sylvanian Families retirement home (rrp £89.99) for £2.50, or moan when her money was gone.  She only bought things she wanted and she actually made some proper choices instead of falling instantly in love with the first thing her eye landed on, regardless.

I am almost afraid to say it, but I think she is growing up.  She has changed hugely in the last three or four weeks.  It seems to be linked to the last time she got into heinous amounts of trouble and I had a long, dark, tea time of the soul thinking that I had somehow ruined her entire life.  I made a decision to change my way of parenting her.  I realised that because she is quite grown up in lots of ways, that I was over estimating her emotional maturity and that if I started thinking that she was more on a par with Oscar emotionally than Tilly, that it might help.  It seems to have worked.  Although how much is down to me and how much is down to her just getting stuff out of her system and moving on up is debatable. 

Anyway, for a girl who was renowned for spectacular temper tantrums, no outward signs of affection other than the odd knee hug, and a morbid obsession with the afterlife, she has actually blossomed into a kind, thoughtful hug friendly child who came back downstairs the night before last because she had forgotten to kiss us goodnight.  She never does kisses.  We were stunned, and rather tearful.  Long may it last.

Today was a real pleasure.  She was a delight.

We pottered round the shops, bought sandwiches and sat outside amongst the pigeons and ate them (sandwiches, not pigeons), pottered round some more shops and then went to Carluccio’s for cake before staggering home on the bus.  I never had to raise my voice once. 

Tallulah bought:

• Pottery fridge magnet with a bird painted on it
• Marbles (assorted)
• A lamb hand puppet
• A soft fluffy dog toy complete with chi chi carry bag in lurid purple
• A bottle of pillar box red sparkling nail varnish
• A small clay dove with a scroll in its mouth which allegedly contains a message of peace and goodwill to all

Her choices. I did not interfere.  Her current obsessions with ornamental kitsch of the lowest quality and forests of stuffed toys is somewhat troubling but I am hoping she grows out of it before I am forced to go and live with her when I am elderly and infirm.

I bought:

Four new bras.  Due to expanding bosom issues thanks to comfort eating I cannot wait for a return trip to Rigby and Peller and my expansive new cake bosom keeps falling out of the balconette Rigby and Peller, leaving me one ‘good’ bra and one ‘emergency’ bra which is so bad I actually threw it away today when I got home.

A box of Bobby Brown eyeshadows which were ludicrously expensive and which I bought entirely on impulse.  Most days I hardly run a brush through my hair, so quite what I was doing when I bought this I don’t know.  Surfing on adrenaline brought on by overspending on bras probably.

A pair of Miss Sixty jeans.  These were only a fiver from the charity shop.  They barely fit thanks to the comfort eating again.  On the other hand, they make my legs look super skinny and as long as I suck in my muffin top and hold my breath they are fabulous.

The book; ‘The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics’ by Nury Vittachi.  This has been on my Amazon wish list as an experiment for twelve months. Because it might be crap I keep putting off buying it.  Then, as I was sailing past the book section to pay for my jeans I saw it in the charity shop for £2.50 and splashed out.

A copy of Heat magazine.  I am trying to give it up, honestly.

I also had to buy presents for various children’s parties we are being forced to attend in the next few weeks.  Gah!

I was not completely excessive however.  I did not buy a polka dot dress in Hobbs that caught my eye.  Nor did I buy the most gorgeous, green leather bag in T.K. Maxx which was reduced from £350 to £130, even though I picked it up twice.  I did not go into Schuh and buy Red or Dead fifties glamour shoes with four inch heels.  I avoided Waterstones like the plague, which was positively heroic of me.  And instead of eating all our lunch at Carluccios, we had sandwiches from the bakers and only had pudding at Carluccios.  You see. I am aware of the credit crunch.  Sort of.

I also, ahem, spent money at home as well. Oh yes! I am so skilled at it, I do not even need to set foot outside the front door.  I am a shopping ninja.

I have been theatricalising again.  Next week in Northampton, The Royal and Derngate theatre, which I have never heard of, are staging the Alan Ayckbourn play, ‘Man of the Moment,’ to celebrate his fiftieth anniversary of being a theatrical lovie, darling.  It is rarely staged because it requires the set dresser to build a swimming pool on stage.  I am quite excited about this as I have been hooked on Ayckbourn ever since we saw the fantastic ‘Round and Round The Garden’ trilogy last Christmas.  I managed to get tickets for ‘Man’, even though it’s all been a bit last minute.  We are going on Wednesday.  I’ve also got tickets to see As You Like It at the National on 22nd August, and tickets to see The Pitmen Painters when it goes on tour in October at Milton Keynes.  Yay me!  Now if only I can wangle a trip to see Troilus and Cressida at The Globe before the season finishes I’ll have done everything on my wish list so far this year.  Not bad eh?  Standing tickets for Troilus are only a fiver, but it’s a question of time rather than expense.  I’m too damn busy.

It is official. Spending money on things you don’t need is as good as heroin and involves less criminal activity and no needles. What’s not to love.