I try being positive

Today has been a lovely day.

My mummy’s poorly leg was better enough for her to limp into town with me for our mother’s day celebration.  I picked up my pictures which Jason and the kids paid for as my mother’s day treat. I am thrilled with them, and now I am spending happy hours wondering which inch of space on the wall I should hang them on.  Then we mooched desultorily round lots of second hand book shops, purchasing and gossiping and enjoying the fact that we were unaccompanied by midgets.

We then had a delicious lunch at Almanack, where I had a delicious dinner at the weekend.  It was equally delicious and because we were early, we had plenty of time to chill out, take our time, eat and rest, drink and rest, watch the world go by and eat, and it was all lovely and just how I imagined it.

It’s not often that life is just like you imagine it, particularly the nice bits.

I am also having lots of fun at the moment sticking vintage knitting patterns on Etsy for my mum.  They are making me cry with laughter. I just love them.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting a job where I spend most of my time in fits before.  It suits me down to the ground.  I basically rummage through other people’s belongings, which suits my nosy nature. Then I pick out the things I like the best and write rude things about them and take photos of them.  It’s an added bonus if someone actually wants to buy anything.  That’s the least of my worries.  Which I suspect it shouldn’t be.  But I shall just make hay while the sun shines and let the others worry about the rest.

I’ve finished my backlog of books to review, which is fantastic, and I can now legitimately take what I want to read on holiday with me. 

And I’m still chipping away at the essay.  I reckon I’ll have done all the research by the weekend and will probably be able to get at least a draft done by the time we go away.

It’s all coming together.

The kids are happy.  We went to a friend’s house for tea, and then when we got home, Tallulah’s new DS, which she has saved up all her money to pay for, has arrived.  Currently Tilly is teaching her to use it, which may end in tears, but which is amicable up to now.  I am just impressed that Tallulah has worked so hard for it, and that she has it to take on holiday.  She is going to be a ninja business woman.

And now I am going to finish off my last chores and then watch Julia and Julia on DVD whilst eating biscuits.  A fitting end to the day I think.

I have a theory that my children may be duracell bunnies

I used to know a lady who had a theory that children always had so much energy because they were basically cute parasites, who when they were in some kind of energetic dip, would simply hoover up energy from whoever was nearest them, and repower almost instantly.  As their parents were almost always nearest  them, it explained why parents were almost constantly knackered while children, no matter how early they had gotten up, or how much running around they had done during a day, were alway brimming over with energy.  I always thought it was an argument based on the fact that she wasn’t keen on babysitting her grandchildren and this gave her some kind of pseudo-scientific rationale for it.  After today I am siding more with her on the whole cute parasite thing.

Today I have allowed Oscar to have an almost entirely Oscar-centric day.  We had a few hours off in the morning while he did his usual fruit eating/television watching ritual, and I frantically caught up on some of the huge backlog of books currently waiting for me to review them.  Then we were off.  We met Mole and his mother for another try at the play date that never was.  We went to Whacky Warehouse.  For hours. And hours. And hours of my life.

Mole’s mum was equal parts amazed, outraged and apologetic when I announced that this was the first time Oscar had ever been to a Whacky Warehouse and I had had to explain to him what it would be like. 

I do not like these places. I would rather perambulate up and down the aisles of B&Q for two hours than spend twenty minutes of my life in a Whacky Warehouse.  I have been to them, and play places like them, but they chill me to the soul for the most part.  Oscar has never missed them, and the girls’ father, who is the dispenser of all treats I abhor takes them to enough of these places for them not to ask me about going, which has worked beautifully up to now.

Today’s outing was the most enjoyable I’ve had to this kind of place to be fair.  Firstly it was almost deserted. There were only Mole and Oscar and a lady with two rather lovely, well behaved young girls there for the first hour, and by the time we left there were only ten children in there. It has a capacity for eighty kids.  Eighty kids in a space three times the size of my lounge with soft drinks, sweets and apparatus from which you can dangle upside down  is a hideous thought, and I have vowed that we will never go there when it is full.  Or even half full.

It was also rather quiet.  There was a little background music, but it was low, and the perennial television was on in the corner, but muted.  We could actually chat, and hear each other.  This was a distinct improvement to my last visit, which was to a place called Pirates which was like the devil’s arse with disco lighting and a pumping bass line.

Furthermore, for the princely sum of £3 for Oscar and nothing for me, he could play there all day, and there was free juice for the kids, coffee and tea for the adults and biscuits all round.  I was impressed, even though the coffee was instant.

We bought the children lunch, which was reasonably vile, but standard pub fare and adored by children up and down the land. 

And they played, and played, and played, and played.  What’s more they did it nicely, and together, the entire time.

A hit. A palpable hit.

We left at two in the afternoon, having been there for over three hours.  I was exhausted. All I had done was wade through the odd ball pool, and chat.  And I felt like I’d climbed the Himalayas.

When we got home Oscar was still in running mode, and in the twenty mintues it took me to catch up with a few phone calls, he had destroyed the front room.  Last night we had a call from Mole’s mum to say that he was ill and might not be able to make today’s hot playdate.  I had consoled Oscar with the idea that if Mole was on his deathbed, Oscar and I would go to the park.  As he was climbing the walls in the lounge by two thirty I decided that the park might be a good relaxation aid for us both.  So we went there until it was time to pick the girls up from school.  I got pusher’s elbow, which is not as dramatic as it sounds, and comes from too much sending your child on a mission to the stars in a swing, whilst whooping enthusiastically and behaving like one of the audience on Oprah.

Then we went to the library. Then we walked back and I got somehow suckered into a final fifteen minutes in the park before we went home.  I consoled myself that they would all be exhausted and grateful to be home.

It was a lie.

I was the only one exhausted and grateful to be home.

All the others are still going, and are currently watching Fantastic Mr. Fox in the care of their father, who while pretending to be alert and en garde, is actually falling asleep on the sofa, much like I would like to be.

I gaze into my belly button reflectively

I think that the signs and portents were that I was about to almost kill myself.

Which was nice.

I drove to the hypnotherapist’s last night.

I hate going.

There is a particularly nasty right hand turn which I nearly always overshoot. It scares me. The road it feeds from is a busy cut through for commuters and they all drive very fast.  I end up having to go to the next roundabout, turn round and do a left hand turn instead.

Last night I didn’t want to go because:

• I had had three and a half hours sleep the night before with an award winningly horrible night and I was very, very tired.
• I had had a particularly trying session the week before which led me to have shocking sleep, eat my own face and have hideous panic attacks all week and was not looking forward to a reprise.
• Jason was late home from work meaning that I was feeling pressured for time.

Anyway. I did the right hand turn beautifully, and was just congratulating myself when I came across a huge, yellow diversion sign right across where I needed to go.  I had no choice but to follow the alternative route.  We struck out into deep countryside for miles, and miles.  Eventually I drove through a village with a huge reservoir that I had never even heard of before, even though I have lived round here all my life on and off.  I was incredibly stressed by this time and my internal panic was so loud I wasn’t really paying full attention to my speed.

I came to the end of the road rather too soon and zoomed out into the new road too fast.  I turned wildly and ended up driving on the right.  This, in a country where we traditionally drive on the left, is what is officially known as a ‘very bad thing’. 

I was very, very lucky that there was nothing coming the other way.  I still managed to what is known in these parts as ‘shit myself’.  I had to stop at the side of the road for a small fit of hysterics. 

Then I had no choice but to carry on, because I had no bloody idea where I was.

Ten minutes later I got there, parked about a foot away from the kerb and just abandoned the car.

I had two hours in which we did some more challenging work and I told her that I would not be coming back for a while.

I just cannot cope with it any more.

I have been brave for a very long time now.  What with driving and various forms of therapy since last March, it has been a year of constant testing, and I am full up.

I know I am not fixed.  I may never be fixed.  But the work we are doing is so demanding and so challenging I need a rest.  I talk about and think about things that I would rather keep locked away in the furthest recesses of my soul and just throw a big blanket over.  I dig ‘em out and we look at them, and then we prod ‘em and then we discuss them, and I go home feeling absolutely pummelled beyond belief.  Sometimes it is so much that I physically hurt.

Because it is happening so regularly I don’t think I have time to assimilate all the changes that are happening before the next one hits me like a huge, emotional tsunami. 

Someone asked me the other day if I thought it was working.  Here are the plus points:

• I passed my driving test after twenty one years of having three week’s worth of lessons and then quitting.
• I go out driving in my car every day, and apart from the odd, near death experience, it is o.k.  I do not love it, but I do not have to come home every time and change my clothes because I have soaked them through with fear filled sweat anymore.
• I have a job, which pays me money for the first time in nearly four years.  I am also enjoying it.  I cannot say I have ever had a job I actually enjoyed before.
• I am almost at the point where I can apply for university in September and do my M.A. properly this time.
• I have nearly finished my latest OU course and haven’t had to abandon it like I did the last one because it was too stressful.

These are all good things, no?

On the negative side:

• I still get panic attacks.  Panic attacks which are so bad they propel me out of bed and leave me shaking with anxiety.  I have them every day, sometimes several times a day.
• I still don’t sleep well at all.  In fact, I am terrified of going to sleep.
• I still have a crazed phobia about death and dying, which is still so bad that as I am typing these words it is making me feel physically ill.
• I am still having horrible dreams.
• I am still exhausted beyond belief.
• I still find it hard to cope with everyday life and quite often want to give it up and live under a duvet eating scones and scowling.
• I am very run down physically. My mouth is only just beginning to heal from last week where I chewed my cheeks so badly I couldn’t eat properly for three days and cried every time I brushed my teeth.  I have the beginnings of an ulcer on my tonsils, and I think I might be slightly anaemic again.
• My migraines are more frequent at the moment.

So I just don’t know, I think is the best answer I can come up with.

I am not going for a session next week, and then we are away for nearly five weeks, during which time I will think about things and assess things and come back and make a decision.

My hypnotherapist is a lovely lady, and very understanding.  She has been nothing but supportive all the way along, and has never pushed me to do anything.  She is totally accepting of my decision, and we will just have to wait and see.

I am glad I am not going again next week.  Today I have hardly been able to function I am so tired and bruised from yesterday.  It will be slightly better every day as the week progresses, and who knows, not having a session next week may be the answer to getting all my packing done on time without sitting on the cases crying and thinking; ‘Oh well, I have credit cards if we forget everything.’

Eyeballs in the sky

Today has been a day of signs and omens, omens and signs, and wonders.

I am not sure if this means that I should run around shouting: ‘The sky is falling in’ and digging a nuclear bunker out of the frozen earth with my tiny paws, or whether nice things are going to happen.  As I fear exercise I am going for option b, in which I hope for nice things and sit back and wait for them to happen.

The first omen was when I got to mum and dad’s house at lunchtime to find a toad casually perched on the doorstep.  He was facing outwards towards the sunshine. He looked as if he had just popped a note, or possibly a small piece of decorative pond weed through mum and dad’s letter box and was on his way back home, job done.  I crouched down to look at him.  Oscar sailed by without a backward  glance.  When he got into the hall he turned to ask me what I was doing.  I put on my best David Bellamy ‘Isn’t nature a marvellous thing? face,’ and whispered to him about coming to look at this amazing toad.  He took one glance at it over his shoulder in utter disdain, and started to tell Granny what he wanted for lunch.  Clearly a much more interesting proposition.  I took a photograph.  He demanded to look at the photograph.  I demurred, pointing out that the real, live toad was sitting on the doorstep in the sun, and he would be much better rewarded by looking at the genuine article.

He refused, and whisked off into the kitchen to confer further about lunch.

So much for my attempts at an impromptu nature lesson.

Later, while we were eating lunch I kept thinking that there was something odd about my dad.  It took me a long time to twig on.  He is, after all, generally an odd man.  He fathered me for a start.  It was one of those times when you look at someone and you just can’t put your finger on what is wrong.  You know, like when someone has had their eyebrow shaved off?  I checked his eyebrows and they were both intact.  It was bugging the crap out of me.  Anyway, eventually I noticed that his sweater looked a little strange and sort of pulled around the neckline.  When he turned round I was able to solve the conundrum in seconds. He had his jumper on back to front.  I mentioned it to him.  He got quite defensive about it and said quite brusquely: ‘Hrmph! Well. I don’t know how you could possibly know.  Are you sure?’  I pointed out that I was entirely sure, due to the fact that it was a V necked jumper.  He was quite sheepish after that.

So, like I said; signs and portents, portents and signs.

Not much, I know, but I don’t know if I want to live in an age where portents are volcanic eruptions and people finding the face of Cheezus in a Garibaldi biscuit. I’m all for the low key revelation.

Plus, not much has happened today. I worked hard.  Oscar went to nursery, and I’ve only just gotten the girls back from school.  I’m writing now because it is another marathon session with the hypnotherapist at six, and by the time I’ve sorted out homework, cooked tea and gotten over there and back, the day will be gone, and will probably be much more stressful and upsetting.  It’s kind of nice that there isn’t much to say.  It won’t last.

We adopt a refugee

You may remember that the children are obsessed by gnomes, and that my darling mother has decided to foster this obsession by filling her garden with gnomes which she claims have come to seek sanctuary in a place free from the usual gnome predators (irritable mothers with sledge hammers I think).  The children now make gnome houses and gnome food and organise gnome fun days.  They also hibernate the gnomes over winter in various inappropriate habitats.  Soon it will be the grand opening of the gnome hibernation boxes and they will be ready for a summer of gnomely delights.

Over the fallow months Tilly has been reading up on gnomes and doing some gnome based crafts in preparation for the real gnome unveiling.

Things were quiet over the last few weeks though, for which I was profoundly grateful.

Then yesterday this waif turned up on the doorstep:

All the way from Germany would you believe?

Apparently Bev over at Confuzzledom just happened to find him, sobbing in a bierkeller, forlornly lamenting the lost gnome Valhalla of his youth.  She knew about the gnome sanctuary from these pages, and packed him off in an envelope to see if the children would be willing to take him in and integrate him back into granny’s gnome community.

Surprisingly, they were as keen as mustard.

Who could have predicted that?

It was a bit of a shocker I can tell you.

Thankyou Bev and remember that when you have children, I will know where you live…

Happy Mother’s Day to me…

More things to make me smile.  Firstly Tallulah’s gift:

If you look carefully you will see in the centre of the yellow flower the legend; ‘I love my mummy because’.  The petals were supposed to have been illustrated and written with reasons for this love.  I note that one of Tallulah’s seems to have been drawn all over with what look like £ signs.  That’s my girl.

Here is Tilly’s card:

Which is a beautifully made collage of a large cup of coffee and a piece of cake.  Another one of my children who knows me very well.  Apparently the teacher suggested that she go for the more traditional floral motif.  Tilly demurred.  Good girl.

And here is my surprise gift, which really was a  surprise because my lovely family have already paid my picture framer’s bill and I thought I wasn’t getting anything else at all:

Sorry about my appalling photography skills, but you may just be able to make out the pattern if you squint into binoculars.  It is a gorgeous, gorgeous weekend bag made with Moomin Fabric.  I LOVE THIS BAG.  I am going to take it on holiday with me and amaze the population of Canada.  It is so awesome.

On top of this largesse I also got taken out for breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday.  And this morning, apart from having to drive the hideous new car, I got to spend an hour alone in T.K. Maxx while the girls were with their father and Jason and Oscar went off to do manly things.

It has been a damn, fine weekend all things considered.  And I didn’t have a hangover this morning.

And may I say, while I am here, Happy Mother’s Day to my own lovely mother who is currently selling antiques (hopefully), in a draughty hall in Staffordshire.  We shall be going out for our own celebration later in the week when she has thawed out sufficiently.  Can Can dancing is out this year due to the ligaments thing, but I am sure we can come up with some other fun distraction to amuse us.

RIP – The Other Woman

It is a sad weekend chez Boo.  Well it is for the hairy chested members of the family unit anyway.

The Floosy has gone away, far away, to be loved and cared for by someone else.  Someone with a great deal more money than us.

The writing was on the wall several weeks ago when the Floosy had to have new tyres.  New tyres that cost a thousand pounds.  That’s about a pair and a half of designer shoes to me and you.

While she was in there being titivated, they had a closer look at her.  The prognosis was not good.  The prognosis was a soon to be needing new brakes at two thousand pounds, and the odd tweak here and there that came in at another thousand pounds.  This would ensure that she might, just might, run for another six months with no hiccups.

Now Jason has always had an eye for fast women with curves, but he has never been overly thrilled over the idea of constant maintenance.  Once a woman has entered his harem she needs to know her way around the kitchen, not be afraid of building the odd shed, and not be too fussy about what she eats.  So the Floosy had to go.

It was rather heart rending to watch, although I can’t say I was sorry to see the back of her.  It was like being driven about in an over priced roller skate that mostly made me feel sick, and glad that I had a bit of meat on my bones to cushion the blow as we drove over another sleeping policeman as if it were the ascent of K2.

The new car arrived on Friday night.  It is some sort of souped up, blingin’, super-charged Golf with two exhausts (because one is just for girls apparently).  I have it on good authority that it goes like shit off a shovel.  It sounds like a cement mixer and is as heavy as a stone.

The only positive things I have to say about it, is that it is more comfortable than the Floosy.  Otherwise I can’t like it.  I am just not impressed by performance cars I’m afraid.  I am not a petrol head. I am a cake head.  If it looked and tasted like the divine ginger and rhubarb trifle I had for pudding last night, I’d be much more appreciative.

Jason seems mollifed by it, although he still whines and scratches at the door every time a Porsche drives past the window.

This morning he made me drive it, in case he had a stroke and I needed to get him to the hospital.  Ha!

It’s got one of those dual gearboxes that’s both automatic and manual.  For some reason he decided to make me try it as an automatic.  I’ve never driven an automatic before in my life.  It was bloody terrifying.  My changing gear arm kept flapping like a paraplegic seagull and my clutch foot didn’t know what to do with itself.  I was in bits.  Absolute bits.  By the time we got where we were going I was trembling and sweating and had to be revived with espresso and chocolate caramel shortbread in a cafe for twenty minutes.

Happy Mother’s Day to me…

I’m telling you now, if he does have a stroke and needs to go to the hospital, we’re either calling an ambulance or going in my car.

Drink, Feck, Girls…

I am quite drunk.

It is tragic really.

In the olden days when I used to cohabit with an alcoholic, my ability to be drunk was huge.  We would drink a lot. I would drink to be companionable. I would drink to compete. I was a bloody idiot.  I once drank so much I actually retched up blood, because I had totally dissolved my stomach lining.  I was not messing about.  I Drank with a capital D.

I had no idea what an alcoholic really was I guess. I thought an alcoholic was an old tramp with sick in his beard, living on a park bench, drinking meths out of a paper bag. So there really was nothing to worry about.

My alcoholic was a  very high functioning, very well paid alcoholic.  Which, let’s face facts pop fans, is the sort of alcoholic you want if you’re really going to fall in love with one and have babies etc.  You want a reliable, non-wife beating alcoholic, not a raging idiot who sets the house on fire, sells you on e-bay and smells of wee.

Anyway. Since those days I’ve been off the grog a bit with one thing and another.  It all got a bit wearing to tell the truth, and going out every single night of the week until the wee small hours just became dull, dull, dull. 

Plus it is a well known fact that lady alcoholics go downhill much faster than men alcoholics.  There is a theory that there are two types of alky; 1) the type who are born to it (i.e. my ex) and 2) the type who work bloody hard at it but get there in the end.  I was going to be type b.  Except, luckily for me, I got bored, and tired, and annoyed, and crochety.  I soon came to the executive decision that I preferred buns thanks.  Plus I am hag like enough without the added twenty years plus a life of hard drinking lends to your general aura of ageing just before it kills you.

So, I stopped drinking altogether, for a very, very long time.  Years worth of long time.  I had had my fill of sitting in pubs and bars.  I had then definitely had my fill of sitting in public rooms in mental hospitals with people who were trying  very hard to give up and failing.  I had also had more than my fill of sitting in public rooms in mental hospitals with people whose mostly entirely blameless lives had been wrecked by people who were trying very hard to give up, and who spent all their free hours weeping into their elbows and worrying themselves sick.

In the last few years I have rediscovered drinking.  It turns out it is quite nice on occasion.

I think that when I started drinking when I was a teenager it was because everyone else was doing it, and it helped me cope with the misery of watching Eastenders and reading Sylvia Plath.  Then I realised that as a woefully un self confident kind of girl it gave me Dutch Courage and I could do/think/feel/say anything I bloody well wanted after fourteen pints of snakebite, and apart from the puking and hangovers, all would be well.  Then I started competitively drinking with UE because I didn’t want to be left behind.

Now I have a drink if and when I feel like it, and only drink things that I actually like the taste of.  This is a bit of a revelation.  The most amazing thing is my ability to stop when I have had enough. This crucial piece of the puzzle eluded me for years and led me into some pretty horrible situations where I a) nearly died b) vomited an inordinate amount and c) nearly got arrested more times than I  care to mention (and I kid you not). And let’s not even go into the time they called out the German fire brigade entirely on my behalf.  The fact that I can go out, have a drink that tastes nice and come home without an armed guard and a sick bucket is definitely a sign that I am growing up.  Who knew?

We went out for dinner this evening with some friends we haven’t seen since before Christmas.  We went to a great restaurant in Leicester called The Almanack, where the food was lovely, and I shared a very delicious bottle of Pinot Noir with my friend.  The nice thing was, that because we weren’t interested in volume, and were concentrating on enjoying the taste, we were able to afford a very good bottle of wine, and enjoy the fact that we only had two glasses each and it was just enough.

And now I am drunk.  Because these days I am an utter novice, and a really cheap date.

So it’s an all round thumbs up there then.

An Appeal – Please Help to Find/Spread the Word about Jonny Dorey

Last night one of my blog readers contacted me with a message:

It read:

i love your blog and know you are unbelievably busy/sleepy/stressed/etc (as a fellow chronic insomniac i appreciate your neurotic ramblings with a delight akin to discovering gravity)

I’m writing because I am from a wee island called guernsey in the channel islands and a boy from the island has gone missing in virginia, usa.

we are trying everything to spread the word and get people aware to help try and find him, if you could post these links in a blog i would be eternally grateful and will repay you in pretty things if i ever have millions of pounds to buy such things

 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=350577843749&ref=ts 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzMy4Q4T9N4

I don’t want any rewards from Dominique for this, and I have no idea if this appeal will help in any way, but I am sticking it up there for this boy and his parents and his friends and family who must be absolutely frantic with worry, because I know that is what I would want if one of my children went missing.  If you know anything, can think of anything, are willing to advertise these links on your blogs I would be grateful for your help.

The boy’s name is Jonny Dorey and he is only twenty two years old.  He is studying in Richmond and went missing at the beginning of the week and has not been seen or heard from since.

I think about my children, safe and warm and within easy reach and my heart goes out to him and his family.

I do not get any I..A..K and this is not T..U..D

I may have mentioned before, my inordinate fondness for Russell Hoban’s delightful series of story books about a very grumpy badger called Frances. 

These were first published in the 1960′s and have been quite hard to get hold of in the U.K. although not impossible.  I started reading them when I was a  child, and still have a couple of books in the series from when I was reading them in the Seventies.  It gives me great pleasure to read them to my children.

A few days ago we were reading A Birthday for Frances in which Frances is not entirely thrilled that it is her younger sister Gloria’s birthday.  While Gloria and mother sit at the table making place cards for the party, Frances sits in the broom cupboard singing Happy Thursday to her imaginary friend Alice.  When mother asks her about Alice, this is what she says:

“Alice will not have h-r-n-d,

and she will not have g-k-l-s.

But we are singing together.”

“What are h-r-n-d and g-k-l-s?” asked Mother.

“Cake and candy. I thought you could spell, “

said Frances.

“I am sure that Alice will have

cake and candy on her birthday,” said Mother.

“But Alice does not have a birthday,”

said Frances.

“Yes, she does,” said Mother.

“Even if nobody can see her,

Alice has one birthday every year, and so do you.

Your birthday is two months from now.

Then you will be the birthday girl.

But tomorrow is Gloria’s birthday,

and she will be the birthday girl.”

“That is how it is, Alice,” said Frances.

“Your birthday is always the one that is not now.”

I love it.

Oscar had never listened to Frances before, and he was also delighted. 

This morning we went out early. Jason was taking us out for breakfast.  I had not had coffee yet and was grumpy and monosyllabic.

Oscar said:

“Mummy has not had any I-A-K.”

I said:

“What’s that Oscar?”

He said:

“Coffee.”

I said:

“Ah yes! How true. And beautifully spelled.”

And he said:

“And if you have not had any I-A-K, that is not T-U-D.’

And I said:

“What’s that, Oscar?’

And he said:

“Good.”