crikey moses

clive alive

2006-05-02T08:34:00.000Z

what i liked about him (let's call him clive shall we? what with it being his name and all) is that he was exactly the Wrong Type Of Boy. Ferret notwithstanding.

He was a high school dropout. He didn't have a job. He smoked. Everything he could lay his hands on. He had long, lank hair. He wore flannos and jeans. He shoplifted. He was - in Canberra parlance - a Hood.

I was none of the above. Though on reflection I could probably have washed my hair more often. I was in college (I was 16 - it was like 6th form college only of a hippier persuasion - I got to study social psychology, and short literary forms, and eight different drama units and sod all else really). I came from a nice middle class family with high expectations and massive dysfunctions kept firmly swept under the persian rug. I was attractive in the sense that all 16 year old girls are attractive. I rode horses and did long distance running and achieved. Just generally. Achieved.

Clive did not Achieve.

It was perfect. A match made in Cooma.

He was looking for his ferret on the land that my parents had bought near the snowy mountains in NSW. They bought it to make up for the fact that they had uprooted 4 kids from a big rambling house with stables and a field in country northern ireland and dragged us all kicking and screaming to a government issue shoebox in suburban canberra. To be fair I think they hated it as much as my siblings - I was only seven and not much bothered. So 160 acres with a mountain and a river and an old farmhouse with no electricity or running water was the pay-off. And every friday evening we would pile into the car with the dogs and seventeen boxes of food and drive 2 hours for our weekend away.

Did I mention it was the seventies?

It all went perfectly until the eighties, when my dad, realising he was no longer in the decade of family love and digging a hole to shit in , discovered he was in the decade of success, wealth and doing what the fuck he liked as long as it made him happy. He left. Which apparently made him happy. It pretty much screwed up the rest of us. Still, what are families for?

So our farm at Cooma fell into a Coma.

Then my older siblings began staying there. Then their druggie friends. Then their druggie friends' druggie friends. Then their druggie friends' druggie friend's younger brother. Avec ferret. And finally me. Not all together - no one can dig to shit for that long. So by the time I started going down regularly with my mates, my siblings had long vanished along with the first two generations of druggies.

And there we were on a hillside with a ferret to find. And there was my mother at home praying this moment wasn't about to happen.

It lasted 3 months. He didn't DO anything. Every afternoon he would be at the school doors to meet me and take me back to my house. We had to hitch as he had neither a car nor a license. Or any bloody other thing to do. Often he stayed over at my house, crammed into my single bed. My mother thought that was preferable to me being Out somewhere fearful. And I'm sure she was right, but towards the end of the three months I wished she'd say he couldn't stay.

She didn't, so in the end I had to. There were many tears (his) and bored stares (mine - 16 is a cruel age). And finally, many months later, he stopped calling and begging me to take him back. Which was a blow to the ego, but it was due a bit of denting by then.

I've never forgotten our first proper kiss though - on the banks of the murrumbidgee river, on a piece of land that is more home than anywhere else in the world, a cold winter night with a startling moon.

Pretty bloody romantic. No wonder he couldn't live up to it.

a few more than 3

2006-04-19T20:20:00.000Z

Alright, having decided I couldn't possibly inflict cbeebies on any non-toddler-owning parents, i will instead inflict upon you more than you could possibly want to know about the Men I Have Shagged. Only I'm too tired to start tonight (Josephine) so will say only that shag #1 (and I'm doing this chronologically) began on a hillside in rural australiawith us both trying to find his ferret, Lady. i swear on all known gods that that is true.

and while we're on the topic...i read in the guardian, so it must be so, that the average sexual partners for a woman in her Entire Life is between 2-4 (that'd be 3 then but the Guardian is not one to commit itself to definitive facts). Now, I've never thought of myself as a slapper but it'd be a pretty short series if that was the case.

more to follow.

back to work tomorrow after lovely stay at home and do nothing holidays. i think it has drained the will to live from me and i am off to bed without my dinner.

this and that

2006-04-12T23:59:00.000Z

i've been a bit remiss on the blogging front of late . this is because all i can think to blog about is either a. a series on Men I Have Shagged or b. a series on Cbeebies Programmes.

it's a wierd and worrying combination and I must be careful not to get the two mixed up (chris from doodle do not withstanding).

i'm sure i used to think about more things than my erstwhile sex life and the theme tune from balamory.

sigh.

to be

2006-03-22T21:21:00.000Z

Things I have been:

1. oh all the obvious, mother, sister, daughter, partner but i'm not talking about that, i'm talking about fun things like miss orange county 1985 (that might be cameron diaz, not me)

2. a bridesmaid - that was cool though the dress was not. it was the product of a complicated and arduous relationship between bride, her mother and a dressmaker who was somehow (remind me, bride) connected to the mother. anyway, floral with bows on the shoulders. top being bridesmaid though. at bride's second wedding i got to read something too, so it almost counts twice.

3. a favourite aunty. oh yes i am. and my nephew who is now far too old (21) to admit to such things still happily proclaims it. alright, with just a little bit of prompting. so sucks to my sisters and my nephew's enormous irish-side-of-the-family who aren't favourite auntys.

4. lord i'm struggling and i've only come up with two things - how depressing.

5. can i put stuff like winner of a golden quill award when i was 16? that's clutching really isn't it. and about 3 people in the entire world will know what i'm talking about so not really very impressive.

6. alright, i might move onto things i have never been.

7. a bride. though i came perilously close once. we had the date booked and the dress ordered and everything. i thank the entire pantheon of gods, and all the minor deities and even those roadside shrines they have in india that i managed to extricate myself in time. also bride and real husband. i thank them too as they gave me a place to escape to when lunatic ex-fiancee went mad in the car and smashed the windscreen with his fist while i was driving with 2 year old 1stB in the carseat. one day i may tell this story in more detail. it seems i am still traumatised by it.

8. a bride. really this should be number 7 as the bride i might have expected to be was to 1stB's dad, a good 2 years before lunatic fiance. we were never engaged. at least not to each other. he (1stB's dad) was engaged to someone else the whole time we were together. you know those women who go on Trisha and confess to being duped by a conman who was living a double life all the time and you think what fucking idiots they must have been not to have suspected that their erstwhile partner who is away at least 3 nights a week and has a new gold watch days after his birthday when you gave him a cuddly sheepskin coat and then he pretends he never had a watch on and you must have imagined it and you think oh how strange i've taken to imagining gold watches and then never give it a second thought... well, that was me. fucking idiot.

9. a godmother. alright. you have the opportunity to help me out here. or some of you do.

10. a girl guide. i was a brownie for a bit but me and Susie Brown got chucked out for fighting all the time. It was play fighting. We just got so bored standing round in sixes endlessly waiting to have our shoes inspected. or whatever goes on in brownies.

11. i was in the girls brigade for a bit though. it's the heavy duty christian equivalent of the guides and even more uber-conservative. i left because in the summer (in australia) i wasn't allowed to wear sandals without pantyhose (that's what they called it - i can't say the word without sniggering). how dumb is that?? anyway, it was boring and i was too old to have to wear their faggy little cap thing.

12. i'm in woodcraft folk now. well you have to be if your kids are because its all lefty cooperative pacifist socialist hippyish so parents have to be members too. and we have to run sessions. and go on camps. and sing the stupidest song in the history of creation at the end of each session. but we're a bit of a stoke newington breakaway faction so we don't sing the song any longer - and 1stB (who's been going since he was 6) is way too old and cool to be expected to sing "we all sing together in one happy throng". reese's peanut butter cups to anyone who knows another song with the word "throng" in it.

13. miss orange county 1985. also all other years. never have been, never will be. in fact i've never been to orange county but i don't think i can blame geographical distance entirely.

14. there's so many things i've never been it's doing my head in just thinking about it.

15. given my options i think the things to be in the future are

16. a nobel peace prize winner (sounds good doesn't it?)

17. a reader's digest £250,000 prize winner. according to frankenmum, this year's rune stone has foreseen great financial gain for me possibly through chance or accident (i may be paraphrasing for personal advantage). i am happy to keep sticking shiny labels on different envelopes and posting within SEVEN DAYS if it wins me lots of money.

18. retired. and free to potter about as i choose. but not on the current state pension.

19. pals with chris on doodle do. i've got a bit of a thing for him. it's that dry, ironic manner amidst a sea of overexcited patronising wannabe actors who run themselves ragged on cbeebies.

20. miss orange county 1985.

just give me the wings

2006-03-15T16:28:00.000Z

You are Angelic

amusingly, it seems i am an angel. i think it's because i put that i identified with michael palin, and he's as angelic as they come. i only did it though because my oldest friend (i was 7, she was 8) did it on her blog and she came up as pure evil. hee hee hee. that's pay-back for stealing my ruler in year 3 and getting me in trouble with mr osmotherley for eating jelly crystals in the toilets in classtime!

2006-03-09T22:03:00.000Z

thank you dancing morgan mouse for introducing me to the term "sexually insatiable female morons" (oh look i'd do all the link stuff if i could but i'm a bit of a fm myelf - once si, now sd* what with 2ndB and work and all).

it's a good 'un though. those americans eh.

*sleep deprived.

and dancing morgan mouse is a blogger.

and google sexually insatiable etc - lord knows what will come up, but you may find the article - it's in something called salon.

in fact i may google it now, just to see what depths of depravity i get to trawl through.

crikey moses.

guilty secret #81

2006-03-08T20:56:00.000Z

sometimes, when it all gets a bit much, instead of a bath i have a quick once over with a handful of baby wipes.

it's cathartic this guilty secret thing.

innit

2006-03-03T21:56:00.000Z

life does have funny turns sometimes.

tonight g has gone to see a genesis tribute band in east croydon. they are performing a peter-gabriel-era album live. it may have lamb in the title. he did tell me but i wasn't paying attention.

this is the man i have children, a house, several mortgages and possibly - statistics are against us, unmarried couple and all that, but we seem to be doing alright - a future with.

he has been excited for weeks.

i - on the other hand - have spent the afternoon trying to rehearse romeo and juliet in a small classroom in an undisclosedbutveryclosetothefamouspolicestationwheretheyheldalltheIRA suspectsinthe70sand80s FE college. with 15 17 year olds. most of whom should be in borstal.

is there borstal any longer?

when i was 20 a 40 year old millionaire fell madly in love with me. he offered me everything - marriage (think pre-nup) an international jetset lifestlye (he had places in NY , London and Newcastle Australia - alright a bit odd that) and his full support for me to do whatever i wanted provided i just shagged him a bit and wore his ring (no sniggering please - a diamond one).

it's hard to see the downside isn't it? the problem with being 20 is you never know who to say yes to. the problem with being 37 is that 40 year old millionaires are out chasing 20 year olds. oh and the partner/kids/house bit. that could be awkward too.

but i bet he never got excited about genesis tribute bands, and it is kind of endearing..

innit.

f-f-f-failure

2006-02-25T14:21:00.000Z

what is it with women and failure?

i don't know about anyone else, but i spend a large part of my waking hours and probably a good few sleeping ones, feeling like i've failed. i'm a fraud. i'm not what i claim to be. and i'm no good at what i do which is why i don't do it as much as i want to.

i was being disingenuous when i said i don't know about anyone else. i know for a fact that several of my women friends who work in theatre/film/tv feel the same way.

do men feel like this? am i being simplistic to suggest this is more of a struggle for women? are my pre-reformation feminist roots showing?

it's an open question.

in other matters...

money.

hhmmm. sticky one that. g did one of those super-dooper budget thingys. i knew it was a bad idea. we currently spend £1100 a month more than we earn. hoopla! no wonder i feel like a failure.

so i'm going back to work. i mean to working for other people, as an assistant (failure) on other people's great big shows. it makes more sense than g working more as i can earn more and though i am moaning now, i have no cause for complaint - it's good work and it's good money and at least i get to an occasional glamourous red carpet do. as an assistant (failure). you see how that works?

that's provided i can find the work. it may be i'm too much out of the loop and can't even get a job as a resident director (failure). we'll just have to wait and see. and spiral into debt while we do (failure).

in the unravelling of our financial mess, i also managed to make 1stB feel like he was somehow to blame (bad mother) . he sobbed and sobbed at the thought that his riding costs us more than we can afford and if only he didn't do it then we'd be alright. soon we were both there sobbing on the couch. g came in towards the tired snivelly end to ridicule us in a kindly way. and 1stB cheered up with much encouragement. but it was horrible at the time.

and i had the most ghastly 'flu which hung around for ages and made my eyes go wierd. and i felt like a failure then too that my body wasn't better at handling viruses. i did. really. and that's just a stupid thing to feel a failure about.

in brighter news...

it's another mini play night tomorrow night at the southwark and g and i are both directing plays for it. hooray. you see, that's something.

crikey moses what a whinger i am. something cheery next time. promise.

just a general moan - sorry

2006-02-01T22:33:00.000Z

i was going to say, but at least i have my health. and then i got sick. so much for the sodding detox. and g who keeps having sneaky jam filled croissants and cups of coffee is as strong as an ox.

isn't it time for it to be summer again yet? how is it that time goes impossibly fast, but winter drags on forever.

and now 2ndB is not waking us up with hacking, unrelenting cough between about 4 am and 7am, I've started doing it myself.

and i bet we don't win the £250,000 grand prize from the reader's digest even though for the past year i have religiously peeled off all those sticky labels and carefully stuck them onto some other bit of paper, and returned within 7 days to get the bonus £25,000. and even bought a readers digest road map of britain and the noddy abc.

and i've got this monster bit of research to finish for something that my dad's company commissioned me to do. too dull even to elaborate on. suffice to say when an immediate family member offers you paid employment say no. whatever the situation, whatever the fee, whatever the emotional pressure SAY NO. it can only end in tears. like renting a house to your sister. avoid at all costs.

sometimes i'm quite cheerful you know.

position vacant

2006-01-25T21:19:00.000Z

yesterday 2ndB was 20 months old. which is absurd because obviously i've only just had her - what else could explain my LACK OF CAREER. has to be bold as is so hideous the only way to confront it is if it is writ large.

oh god it's too dull. yesterday (2ndB's 20th monthsary) i had a meeting with my agent who told me how cross she got when people kept bagging on about R this and L that (two other lady directors who everyone will have heard of so discretion is required). "you're so much better than them" she complained at me. well patently not, i thought harumphingly to myself, or i'd be getting their blithering jobs. however i just smiled prettily and said ahh bless you. which seems the right kind of response. to most things in fact.

where oh where is my work? my agent assures me it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

presumably that's not taking 1stB to pony club on a tuesday night then ( it's not as tarquin as it sounds), or spending wednesdays at the local salvation army doing row row row your boat with 1stB and persuading her not to desecrate the altar with a pot full of paste. it's unlikely to be on a thursday night at woodcraft folk (1stB) even though it is the stoke newington branch. and i think we safely assume i won't be bumping into nick hytner climbing on a friday night at our local indoor centre (1stB again - i live vicariously through him). saturdays would show more promise if the bulk of them wasn't spend at the riding school with 1st and 2ndB - watching one jump in muddy puddles and the other jump alarming fences. oh and monday, we're back there again - i even get to muck out sometimes.

which leaves me sunday to be in the right place at the right time. shame all the theatres are dark on a sunday, eh.

but 2ndB is 20 months and cuter than a barrel of buttons and 1stB makes me prouder every day.

Aah, bless.

another wee one

2006-01-18T00:25:00.000Z

so, to be brief - i went away last week for my treat in the new forest. it was fab. i read a newspaper cover to cover (if you guess which one i read i'll send you a bag of jellybabies), and a novel (ditto but 2 bags because there's more to choose from). I had a long bath, a posh dinner, an early night, and a wonderful ride through the new forest which was made all the better by a wee in the undergrowth. what more could a girl want?

bed, for one. it's late, i'm going.

solitaire

2006-01-04T21:32:00.000Z

so all that festive stuff is past, 1stB is back at school, 2ndB is back at childminder (two days a week), I am about to be back at work, and it's cold and dark with no festive stuff to look forward to. it's a bit dull this english winter thing isn't it?

but before i get too sorry for myself - here's my christmas present: two days in a fancy lodge in the new forest with horseriding both days and an amazing overnight stay with posh restaurant (it has a dress code) and log fires. BY MYSELF. and i'm going next week.

i will now do a little dance.

there done now.

a wee one

2005-12-30T14:00:00.000Z

It's not seasonal, but do you know what I like?

Weeing outdoors.

There I've said it.

2005-12-18T20:57:00.000Z

many things have and can and will be said about families. suffice to say they are best kept at a distance. about 10 000 miles suits me. except my sister. she lives not 10 miles away in sunny brixton. i say sunny. i don't know why. it isn't.

this sister has always veered a little to the not side of normal, but mostly in endearing and eccentric habits and mannerisms. also in really bloody annoying ones like being incapable of having a job or being anywhere within 2 hours of the designated time (the two may be linked). but in general, she has been jolly.

now she has gone mad. barking. raving loony kind of mad.

it all has a torrid and unpleasant backstory - most things do i expect. australian sister broke her safe distance for a trip over here a couple of years ago. she and english sister had fallings out over various things like the shagging of a best friend and the abandonment of the family purportedly being visited (and her own children) in order to keep on shagging. i expected nothing less. english sister had higher hopes and thus fell a very long way. she never recovered really.

for a while it all manifested in various hypochondrias. she self-diagnosed several terminal illnesses and had her spring funeral planned, so certain was she that she was going to die. I remember thinking optimisitically on the day she was told there was nothing wrong with her , "oh good now she'll get better". she just got premature menopause instead. only she didn't, if you see what i mean.

it got worse not better and her ability to cope with the outside world reduced pretty much to zero. she's never been good at it and reached the point of almost complete agrophobia.

at about this time her husband - whose resilience has been remarkable - managed to get her to a doctor who put her on anti-depressants. he also sent her to a cognitive behaviour therapy clinic. unfortunately they thought her problems were too acute for their method of therapy so sent her away. to another therapy? to a psychiatrist? to her gp? no. none of the above. they just sent her away. thanks for that.

then she started doing chi gung (i think i've spelled that wrong) which is a chinese energy practice. a bit like tai chi only more physical. i think there is lots of shaking. australian sister had done it many years ago when she had a ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit and it disappeared entirely. who'da thunk it.

so off goes C.Sis, shaking her booty, and all other bits of her.

it was okay to begin with. she was out of the house a couple of times a week and seemed to be feeling better. she was also taking anti-depressants and they helped too. in fact it could have been all them and the shaking was an optional extra but i'm trying to be kind to the shaking people.

then she went on a shaking retreat. she went depressed and came back mad.

the "guru" who ran the retreat and normally lives out of harm's way in bali must have taken one look at her and thought bingo.

first he told her she wasn't depressed. "nothing wrong with you love. nothing that a quick exorcism can't fix". then he exorcised her. of her energy vampire. whom, she realised with a flash of ravening madness, was her old alexander technique teacher. far from helping her correct her posture he had in fact been putting strings in her back so he could operate her like a puppet from afar. "ah yes" nodded the guru sagely "that kind of thing happens all the time".

when she came back from this retreat (surely too comforting a word - let's call it a brainwashing cult sicko indoctrination camp) she was a mess. well, not quite. she was on some wierd and scary high. she was glowing with what looked like radioactive fervour. she smiled a bit like a stepford wife and told everyone she was cured. all she needed to do was burn effigies in her front room on a regular basis, shake like a bastard, keep her psychic link with guru sick-fuck open, dance around everyone she cared about - or even knew on a casual basis - waving her hands in their face to "protect" them and all would be well.

except it wasn't. oh really? and it sounded so promising.

instead what she got was a world who didn't - and doesn't - believe in what she believes in. and wanted her to stop looking at them in that creepy "i know everything" way. the other thing she got was a big fat come-down.

mr sick-fuck sickfucked back off to bali. the brixton branch of chi gung - normally a preserve of quietly spoken middle class folk wanting a little something to pep up their friday evenings and film appreciation class was full - didn't know what had hit them.

with the passion of a devotee C-Sis went through multiple past lives, foretold dangers for everyone in her family, realised that evil alexander teacher is out to get us all through her, discovered a past life in which her father raped and murdered her, and in which australian sister (R-Sis) and the shagged best friend were brother and sister (which is of course a far more rational explanation as to why she couldn't cope with it - it wasn't common or garden variety jealousy after all), decided that her 21 year old son was into gay sado-masochism (he isn't and like it's any of her business and so what if he was) and tried to "love" him out of it, cut herself in various ways as a form of what? i don't know - penance perhaps? the list goes on and on and on.
highs of almost ecstatic proportions. lows of confusion and an inability to leave her house. and loads of house rituals.

her husband is to be commended for sticking it out. i don't know i would.

anyway, she gradually began to level out a bit. she stopped sharing the most extreme of her beliefs as she was coming to accept that other people really weren't going to buy into them no matter what spin she put on. she even started doing a bit of work again (she's an artist who has absolutely no business sense at all and so lives in poverty most of the time, fighting off the bailiffs and having her phone cut off on a regular basis. they're not so badly off now as her husband - who's american - got residency so can work legally but he's a chef and doesn't earn very much. certainly not enough for two people). her moods improved and stabilised and it began to feel like it was her again. a bit.

then she went on another "retreat". with mr sick-fuck.

she came back a few days early.

it had been "challenging".

my hopes were raised. I thought she had seen through it. that he'd come back and she'd realised he wasn't jesus (her serious description of him to me). that his state of pure love (another one of her's) was corrupt and fallible. that all the crap she had been sucked into believing at that time of extreme vulnerability had revealed itself in its true crapness.

i saw her a few days ago. she's a mess again. 3 hours late to see me and our severely alzheimered mother for a pre-christmas mincepie. in a state. heavy cold and brink of hysteria much of the time.

she still believes it all. what she discovered was she was getting the practice wrong. she just needs to do it right and she'll be hunky dory. in fact she thinks she was getting it wrong because one of the spirits from one of her past lives has been inhabiting her of late and preventing her deal with the real current world. oh yes i said. that happens a lot. it's not a good idea to be cynical and sarcastic with mad people "really? do you think so?" C-sis replied almost desperately. No I said. I don't.

I spoke to her on the phone yesterday. she couldn't stop talking about it. I spent most of my time talking to 2ndB trying to persuade her not to gag herself with a pen, leave the room, draw on the floor. one of c-sis's symptoms is an inability to notice that other people have lives that carry on and need attention. to be fair, this has always been a bit of a characteristic of hers but it is much much worse now. i kept saying i need to go but she didn't hear it. anyway. she said someone at the brainwashing camp told her she was like someone who had gone to french camp but tried to learn spanish.

i think she is like someone who has gone to french camp and been decimated.

she and her husband are off to australia tomorrow. him for one month. her for two. staying with our completly rational, pragmatic, atheist, humanist father.

i hope some of it rubs off.

another conundrum

2005-12-16T23:19:00.000Z

seeing you're all so good at sorting my problems - thank you very much indeed - i have another one for you.

even though i tend not to bag on about it (well maybe a bit) in real life i am a director. of various things theatrical. i haven' t done much directing of late what with 2ndB and all and instead find myself trying to cram performing arts down the unwelcoming throats of 16-19 year olds who can't say "th" let alone please and fank you. it is not always a great joy but it is only 3 days a week and hourly paid.

last night i got a phone call asking me to direct a musical called She Loves Me - who knew, it's by the Fiddler people. of course i'd never heard of it as even though musical theatre has paid my bills for the last 8 years i am in general woefully ignorant.

sounds alright so far doesn't it. but here's the rub. it's the first production for a producer who has never produced professionally before. his partner - who i have heard is good - will be the leading lady and he will be musical director as well as producer. it's at a teeny theatre in south london (yes, it means crossing the bridge, people). there is money - but not much. still, about the same as i would earn at the college for the same time frame. it is almost christmas. all agents go on holiday from wednesday till the new year and we are meant to start rehearsals on jan 9th. there are 9 roles uncast. i don't think their budget is big enough. it could be unrelenting chaos and woe for three weeks.

but then i think, at least it's a show. it's not as if i am being exactly inundated with offers. and maybe this will be that once in a lifetime, surprising smash hit which catapults me into another small fringe theatre and not enough money. and i might have fun. and it is what i am supposed to be doing.

you see? it's a dilemma. i've tried my agent but she's away.

what do you think?

you'd think we'd have better things to do

2005-12-12T21:40:00.000Z

for the sake of restoring harmony, peace and my god-given right to be right, in the spindly shanked household, PLEASE HELP.

the argument is this:

1stB says there is more pollution from cattle now than in the past.

g muses a minute and says he doesn't think that is true. what about all the cows in the past and their farting.

1stB reminds g there were more trees to absorb and convert methane. he's quite bright this boy.

i say, barely able to keep my voice level, YES AND THERE ARE MORE COWS NOW WHAT WITH EXCESSIVE OVER FARMING AND AGRICULTURE AND THAT.

spot the vegetarian.

g - always the annoying advocate of get your facts right - says he doesn't think that is necessarily true. what about all those bison in america. you couldn't move without bumping into one of the blasted things. you know before the white people came and killed them.

1stB - who knows nothing about it - agrees with g. just on principle. just because he always agrees with g unless g is asking him to do the washing up.

i say (going slightly red in the face and getting sweaty palmed) - i just know. it's one of those known things. everybody knows there are more now than ever before. don't they. it's just something everyone knows.

g and 1stB wither at me.

google has let me down.

i can't be wrong on this. i must be right or for years to come whenever i make a grand pronouncement - as is my wont - it'll be all "and how many cows are there NOW".

prove me right - PLEASE

guilty secrets #2

2005-12-09T20:58:00.000Z

I quite like the Beckhams. Yes, the David and Victoria Beckhams. I think of them as dim-witted but well-intentioned. And I think David Beckham is a good role model for boys (well, less so post Rebecca Loos but hopefully little boys won't know about that, nor about her later exploits in porcine desemination).

I think they would like to be good people. Even if they are opulently and extravagantly wealthy. And their kids have stupid names. All this I am willing to forgive.

I don't like them enough to buy celebrity magazines. I'm not a loser. But I did watch them on Parky. And while we're being confessional and all, I also watched that party they held that Angus Deayton (amongst others) was at. And I watched a David Beckham hanging out with east end kids documentary (the kids loved him). And I watched last year's children in need thing where Victoria Beckham was sent to a rubbish dump in some deprived third world south american country and kept crying about the little girl she helped pick up rubbish with. It may have been two years ago. I have a keen memory for detail.

There, I've said it.

racked with guilt

2005-12-04T21:57:00.001Z

this evening i did the thing that is cardinal sin number one in our family: i asked my dad for some money. now, when i say cardinal sin, i mean all my other siblings have taken money from him and never returned it. happy little sinners they be. i, on the other hand, feel racked with guilt and dishonour and taint (is that a noun? it is now) at the very thought and have done for most of my life.

also, in my defence, i didn't think that was what i was doing. i thought i proposing a trade: an airfare to australia for g in exchange for him doing a couple of weeks labour on dad's property. i also prefaced my query with every kind of get out clause imaginable (say no, really don't feel obliged, if you think this is inappropriate just say so).

he went silent on the end of the phone.

oh la.

now he says he is thinking about it.

oh la.

i have also just spoken to my england sister (as opposed to australian sister and sanfrancisco brother) and found out that not two weeks ago she borrowed £2000 from my dad on the understanding that she would work off her debt by working on his property when she is there with him over christmas (she got his frequent flyer points as a belated wedding present).

so i expect he sniffs conspiring.

how is it that parents can make us feel so terrible even at 10,000 miles?

in happier news, it is a source of constant delight to me and 1stB that every time 2ndB sees a picture of a frog or a monkey in a story book she points at it and says "Daddy".

who me?

2005-12-02T22:05:00.000Z

last night i was filling in a form 2ndb's childminder had sent home. it was an ordinary kind of form. a sort of contact and emergency contact form that you put your name and numbers on and your childminder sticks on the wall so when little tarquin jams himself in the eye with a knitting needle she can ring you and then you won't have to go to a dull team meeting but you may have to spend several hours in paediatric a and e convincing a junior doctor not to put you on the child protection registry. one of those forms.

also there was another form which is less ordinary. just to say she and her husband who does childminding too in bits and bobs are off to mecca for a six week pilgrimage and can their daughter-in-law do the biz instead.

all that is fine. of course d-in-l can do that. of course mr and mrs k must go to mecca. of course i've never repeated the ham faux pas.

so there i am happily signing away, feeling grown up and mature and signatured.
filling in forms has done this for me since i was about 7 and would stand in the bank with my mother filling in all the forms i could lay my hands on.

when i think about it, maybe that's the thing. it's the 7 year old thing. because all of a sudden i started giggling. not just a little bit. not just a wry smile and a mild snicker. no, great uncontrollable shrieking breathless side-stitching giggling. with tears and snot and dribble and the threat of wee (luckily i did my pelvic floors through the pregnancies).

because suddenly it hit me. there i was. me. being a grown up and acting like i had kids and could sign my name. acting like i was the kind of person entitled to sign forms and agree to childminding arrangements. acting like someone who has a job and a mortgage and a tax bill. someone with a signature and an NI number. and the more i thought about it, the funnier it got, because if it wasn't one big pretending game, it must be real. and if that isn't the funniest most ridiculous thing i can't think what is.

does anybody else get that ever? or is it just me...

riders in the storm

2005-11-28T21:26:00.000Z

when i am rich famous and very powerful my riders will be:

1. mixed fruit and nuts in a nice wooden bowl. no peanuts. also no scabby sugar coated bits of papaya. sun dried organic dried strawberries and mango and pineapple. the macadamias can be in a separate bowl with a bit of salt. no salt on the other nuts but maybe another separate bowl of oak smoked almonds and cashews.

2. a big comfy couch. not leather as it is cold when you first sit on it. not overstuffed as i'm not heavy enough to sink in. not wool as it is prickly. maybe an old velvet one (but recently upholstered) with big cushions. long enough and wide enough to lie down on and curl up.

3. hot water. gallons of it. in a nice cup. with no lime scale. this is especially important as by the 3rd cup in you can see the yellowy residue on the bottom of the cup. the china of the cup should be fine but not so fine you might break it if you accidentally knock your teeth against it.

4. maybe some licorice tea (the yogi one) if i'm feeling extra indulgent.

5. a tv and dvd that is easy to work (only one remote please, i haven't got all day) and the complete curb your enthusiasm dvd boxset.

6. a spa bath with a cosy set of new but washed (so they're softer) flannelette pyjamas and a big egyptian cotton bathrobe. and a nice warm bathmat for when i get out. and heated towel rails. and someone to come and dry my hair for me. and why not give me a massage while they're at it.

7. a book of cryptic crosswords but not too difficult so i can mostly do them. otherwise i will feel stupid, and rich famous powerful people didn't get to be rich famous and powerful by feeling stupid dontcha know. did i mention this book needs to be handmade like my friend vanessa did for me once as a present. i don't want a scuzzy cheap paperback one out of a newsagent where all the print comes off on your fingers and the pages pop out when you bend the spine back. no siree. cryptic crosswords to be cut out of a variety of daily newpapers and carefully stuck into a nice ring bound book. some amusing anecdotes and witticisms from other rf and p people wouldn't be too much to ask for surely.

8. a collection of good pens for aforesaid crosswords. not ones you have to scribble for 10 minutes before they deign to pass their ink through the nib. and certainly not ones that blob ink all over the page. also not too fine pointed as they are a bit scratchy. but not too thick as they are too thick obviously. and if they could have a slighty cushiony feel as you grip them that would be to the good also.

9. for later on, i might want a bit more to eat. and if i did i would like that to be freshly stir fried vegetables with lots of colour and all organic. i would like them to be lightly marinaded in sweet chile sauce and something else to make them just a tiny bit zingy. i may also like some grilled fish - probably salmon but go on surprise me. but not cod as it is rapidly nearing extinction. also no other fish that is RNE. also no fish with unacceptably high mercury levels. and if it is salmon make sure it's one that doesn't have that slightly metallic taste (someone tell me that isn't the mercury please). once i've finished that i'll probably be alright to go back to the dried fruit and nuts but just supposing i was extra hungry because i'd been too powerful to eat all day then i might like a selection of baclava and halva. just to nibble at if i fancy it.

10. i don't have a 10. see - easy to please aren't i? oh, and i may never leave.

upwardly mobile

2005-11-26T21:58:00.000Z

Here's 1stB's christmas list:

1.mobile phone
2. there is no 2

he's 12. all his friends have mobiles. it's a status symbol. he feels left out. do i care? no.

okay so i care. will i get him a mobile? no chance 1stB - get adding to that list or it'll be a quiet christmas in the big green house.

it's a tough one this. there are obviously reasons for him to have one. they are all his reasons (i can think of no good reason) but i can't discount them out of hand just because they are his reasons and not mine. that said, i have so many compellingly good reasons for him not to have one that i know there will be no budging.

here's his list:
1. all his friends have one
2. he really really really wants one.
3. i will be able to call him if i want to know where he is
4. he will be able to call me if he is locked out

here's my list:
1. all government agencies concerned with such things recommend no mobile use for kids under 16 as there are significant health risks for developing brains.
2. they are expensive to buy and to use.
3. he is at more risk of being mugged if he has a mobile.
4. i know where he is pretty much all the time. he is only 12 after all.
5. i don't want to be called if he is locked out. i want him to take his keys with him in the mornings. which he would do if he got up in time and didn't leave in such a godawful rush.
6. he has only been locked out twice - a mere statistical blip
7. He's 12 - why does he need a %$^*@ mobile phone???

So, he's outlisted. and he's not getting a mobile.

i do feel sorry for him though. when i was his age i wanted a pair of trainers that had a cable attached to them and when you pressed a button on the end of this cable, wheels popped out of the bottom of the trainers and Hey Presto! rollerskates. i wanted them so much i still remember wanting them now, 25 years later. i also remember the advert. and i remember that no one really had them and they weren't around for the next lot of christmas advertising. so not quite the marketing success of the mobile phone, but i had my reasons too - and they were as good as 1stB's:

1. none of my friends had them - i'd be special
2. i'd never lose my rollerskates
3. who wouldn't want a pair of trainers that turned into rollerskates at the mere press of a button? (everyone apart from me, as it turns out).

in hindsight, i think my parents could have pandered to this whim. there was no associated brain tumour risk, the canberra suburbs of the late seventies/early eighties were a peaceable place and i was unlikely to be mugged for my trainer-skates. a one-off payment and no top up cards required.

i can't remember what i got for christmas in 1980 (though i can remember watching prince charles and lady diana getting married). christmases from 1978 on were a misery in my family as it disintegrated after my dad left (october 78 - another date for the diary). mostly christmas was me putting up decorations and trying to stop my mother crying for long enough to eat her dinner. when i try and remember them now, i realise i must have blocked out most of the ghastliness as i have only a couple of vague - and awful - recollections until i got to 15 and started avoiding it like the plague. as soon as i was old enough to work, christmas just meant double time at the supermarket/restaurant/dog shelter.

But there is no skipping christmas once you've got yourself some kids and probably due to my own dire feelings regarding the whole wretched thing, i strive to make christmas as enjoyable and happily memorable as possible for the offspring. 2ndB is easy. she is getting a fisher price garage with some extra cars. and as much wrapping paper as she likes. also - for the first time - chocolate christmas tree decorations.

But what do i do for 1stB?

Status Present for Twelve Year Old answers on a postcard please.

10%ers

2005-11-22T20:55:00.000Z

Apparently, I've just read on Mrs Aginoth's blog (no i still can't do the bally link thing) that only 10% of blogs are active after 3 months.

I was going to go to bed early and think about writing tomorrow, but some nasty competitive spark has jolted into life and i'm bollocksed if i'm going to be part of the failed 90%.

Funny thing, motivation. Mostly what motivates me is guilt and a slightly delapidated ambition. But get my competitive streak struck and there's no stopping me. I will simmer over losing paper scissors stone and challenge 1stB to spelling competitions just because I know I'll win. I'll mentally (in every sense) "race" a complete stranger down the street determined to get to the end before they do. I'll work harder, longer, sillier hours than anyone else just so I know no one has worked harder than me.

Which is largely what has got me through the last couple of weeks. To be honest, they've not been easy and really not very pleasant. I seem to remember falling into bed at 1am on Wednesday night telling G how much I HATED what I was doing. But the thought of not doing it? Not on your nelly, missus. Because then someone else might have won. Not even a tangible someone, just the essence of "not me" floating in an ambivalent universe.

I'm kind of fond of this irrational impulse to keep the "not me"s at bay. To hold them off at the final bend, and keep my lead in the straight. oh god, enough of the racing analogies already. Because ultimately, however hard and sometimes unpleasant a task - a la last week - it's almost always worth it. I won last week. I'm not sure who I beat - probably only my own fears and insecurities, and certainly I lauded it over my erstwhile desire to weep in a corner - there was none of that.

Now I feel a bit like I've been hit by a bus, but it was a winner's bus. With flags and balloons and loud music playing on the top deck. Also bunting.

And I'm holding onto my place in the 10%. I think that means I'm allowed to go to bed now..

too busy for words

2005-11-16T00:43:00.000Z

feel like i'm dropping in on an old friend, but don't have time to stay for hot chocolate and biscuits.
you know i'd love to but i'm so busy...
hope to see you soon though - save me a digestive.

listing

2005-11-05T13:12:00.000Z

the thing about blogging is you start to feel really guilty and inadequate if you don't do it for a couple of days. this feeling is made worse when you get a chance to catch up on other people's blogs and they have written four witty, amusing, insightful and entertaining blogs in the time it has taken you to do absolutely fuck all.
so i come to this feeling pressured, and like i have to perform (which makes me think of pigs being de-seminated for some reason. i could do without that thought thank you brain).
and find i have a million things to say but nothing to write.
if i could think of things to write here's what they might be:
1. i got a tax bill of about £5000 and have no way of paying it without remortgaging.
2. last night i went to a friend's 50th birthday party. she seems v young. i feel v old.
3. i have lots of work just come in lecturing in performing arts at a further education college. this is a good thing.
4. in the next two weeks i am going to be directing two separate plays - one a 15 minute gem, the other a great lumbering new work that will be interesting and exciting but needs a lot of time and attention.
5. i am very busy right now.
6. i am taking a cast of 8 plus 3 assorted others and 2ndB to Leeds in a minibus.
7. i don't have a minibus.
8. 2ndB has a dreadful cough.
9. and is not sleeping at night.
10. so neither am i - can you tell?
11. at the party last night 1stB danced with me.
12. how cool is that?
13. am liking the list - it makes life easier.
14. have to go and have lunch now.
15. see you sooner than last time.

short but short

2005-10-31T22:01:00.000Z

Does no one have anything to say re 2ndB's fist down the throat routine (see Nice Quiet Time)? Where is the reassurance? The wry smile and "she'll grow out of it". The sage and knowing nod. Surely someone somewhere has come across this before...
In better news, I got some work today. Hurray for me, hurray hurrah, tra la la, and zippety day. No more fecking high school kids and their vile insolence.
All a bit mad but I think I am lecturing/teaching BTEC students in performing arts. Lord knows what i'll actually do with them. Play Botticelli springs to mind.
But it's got to be a step up from Wanstead High.

I have no more. In fact I'm off for a glass of wine and an episode of curb your enthusiasm. and some left over trick or treat sweets. life doesn't get better than that.

jig a dee jig

2005-10-30T21:16:00.000Z

as in home again, not the sex kind.
1stB back from camp today. he came home filthy (and i haven't looked inside his backpack yet) and with half his most glorious hair cut off. by maya. whom - he assures me - is a fully qualified hair dresser. i point out that she is 13. "yes, but she worked for two weeks in a salon". oh. that kind of fully qualified.

1stB's hair is nothing short of magnificent. it is the most extraordinary goldy-blonde colours. yes, colours. cleverly, he grows his own highlights and lowlights. it is also deliciously thick and sits happily on his shoulders. there is no point cutting it short - he has 2 crowns and looks like a mutant with short hair - so it must be allowed to be hippy-ish and long and surely a teenage girl magnet if ever i saw one. maya.

maya has in fact been 1stB's first official girlfriend. I was so excited (this was about 6 months ago) that i kept trying to get them out on dates. "ring her up" i'd implore "and ask her if she wants to go to a movie. and out for pizza". he would look at me blankly and turn back to the television. i was only trying to instill good boyfriend habits in him for later, but to no avail. in the end it just fizzled out. or so i believe. the truth is i know very little about my son's burgeoning romantic life and am gagging to find out.

a few weeks ago he had his woodcraft friends round here and they came downstairs triumphantly bearing a ring in a box with a note "1stB i love you". "tell me all 1stB" i begged. he would have none of it. and told me off soundly when i brought it up next day. "it's called a private life because it's private" he shouted "i don't ask about your boyfriends". "I don't have any - I have g", i mutter in self-defence. "well i didn't when you had loads". oh dear. well there's a conversation stopper. he was never meant to know about the "loads" what with only being 4 at the time. they know everything. i say this only in friendly warning to those whose offspring are too young to tell them all they see, hear and, most scarily, understand.

so i will have to sit on the outer margins of his "private life" resisting temptations to go through his pockets for notes and to listen in on his phone calls.

on the other hand, i would quite like to be kept on the outer margins of my father-in-law's private life. no such luck. he is here staying with us as he does once a month or so, from the northern climes. well, middlesbrough. a year ago he had bowel cancer detected and treated. it was horrible and scary as these things invariably are. and, so far and thank you, successfully treated. he does however, now have a colostomy bag. and a great and generous propensity to share around all the intimate details of said accoutrement. "it's leaking a lot at the moment". i nod politely. "the bit of bowel that sticks out (quick demonstration with thumb sticking through fist) has developed a hernia". aah i say sagely. "it's not so bad if i keep the belt on tight but then it leaks all over the belt and that's more washing". yes. so it is. "the problem is you don't get any warning like when you need to do a poo. it just all comes out. you can hear the noise it makes. oh wait - listen - there it goes". and indeed the noise is plentiful.

is this better or worse than being told about his poor sexual performance with his new-ish partner very loudly in the playground yesterday?

I needed 1stB to remind him what the private part of private life means. Instead I had 2ndB no doubt taking it all in. Just wait till she can talk.

Nice Quiet Time

2005-10-28T21:05:00.000Z

1stB is off on camp. (am liking that off on combination - must try and come up with other apparent opposites that make sense when used in a sentence - like i threw up down the stairs. i digress. also i didn't. throw up down the stairs that is). So, wrenching myself back from the precipice of complete pointlessness, 1stB is off on camp.
He's gone with the Woodcraft Folk. Hands up who knows about the Woodcraft Folk. It's like hippy scouts - boys and girls mixed and instead of singing god save the queen and lining up, we have talking stick in a circle and sing link your hands together, a circle we make (further down the verse is the word throng - not many songs manage that).
1stB and I have been involved since he was 6 and, as we are in the Stoke Newington branch, it's about as guardian reading birkenstock wearing tofu eating as you can get. also it's run by parents' cooperative (in itself an oxymoron) which means there is no dropping them of at 5pm on a monday and coming back two hours later to neatly toggled kiddies. we have to stay and do all the work, and get abused by the kids who find everything we do BORING. It's meant to be about instilling eco-friendliness, cooperation, international understanding, goodwill to all peoples (not just men, thank you) and other well-intentioned nonsense. fortunately our kids have no interest in being proper little liberals and insist rather on fighting a lot, shouting rudely to passers by whenever we take them on outings, and dropping their litter.
still, there it is and he's off on it.
and what everyone keeps saying is - oh 1stB's away..what a Nice Quiet Time you must be having.

Hello?

Has everyone I know forgotten I have a 2ndB. Is there just a general lapse of interest in her? No vital milestones within the immediate past to remind them that there is a 17 month old in my life which in itself totally negates the notion of a Nice Quiet Time.

A 2ndB - what's more - whose favourite activities include sticking her fingers down her throat to make herself sick. It's a particular fave on car journeys where - due to the apparent need to keep the car moving in a forward direction without bumping into any of the other nice cars - I can't turn around and physically stop her so instead have to regularly wash her car seat cover. Which means taking the fecker off. It takes about 25 minutes and is a sight the neighbours seem to enjoy as they all come out as i grapple with it on the pavement. Then I wash the wretched thing and spend another 25 minutes putting back on. Avec neighbours.
She made me so mad doing it this evening, as we pulled up outside the house - so near and yet so far - that I shouted at her. First time of real shouting. Stop It I yelled. She laughed gaily at mad mummy, happy to have wrought such a loud reaction (did i mention another favourite thing is shrieking as loud as she can - noise is a Good Thing in 2ndB's crazy world). I think I'm pleased it made her laugh. I would have felt dreadful if I had made her cry. Though not quite as dreadful as I feel knowing that the car seat cover needs washing AGAIN. And at least I would have had a moment of feeling effective, before the guilt set in.

So no shouting at 2ndB to stop the bulimic thing.

I like to think it is a stage that she will get over. When I say " like to think", I mean am depending on for the future health and well-being of my daughter. It seems like the kind of thing that can't be good for you. Shouldn't she be using her calories to grow on, not retching them all over the car? I know that of course it is an attention seeker. And a good one at that. Here are my choices. Ignore her as I know she is just seeking attention. Result - vomit all over car seat. Intervene by physically restraining the hand she is shoving down her throat. Result - car spinning wildly out of control, hitting lamppost and bursting into flames. It's a lose-lose situation.

I know of no other baby with this particular charming trait. We all like to think our children are unique. Frankly I would be delighted to get 100 comments saying, oh my daughter did that all the time. Now she is a well-adjusted, un-hung-up about food, comfortable size 12, doctor/lawyer/architect.

Anyone?

cash for diddly squat

2005-10-22T12:52:00.000Z

taking advantage of this cyber world community for a minute, if that's alright, I have a question...
Does anyone know about an organisation called Cash4surveys? you pay them £60 for a year's subscription and it buys you access to about 500 market research companies who pay you to fill in forms (i love a good form, me). their Cast Iron Guarantee is that if you are not making £250 a week within 3 months you get your money back.
So far, so skeptical.
But a little part of me. The please don't make me go back in a classroom part thinks, thank you very much i'll have some of that.
G - needless to say - is less skeptical and more witheringly cutting that i could possibly be such a naive twat (my words not his) as to believe any such thing. he sees it as a cunning plan for 500 companies to get our phone number and address (more junk mail then).
It's tempting though isn't it?
Think i need someone to say oh i tried that it was all a dreadful con.
otherwise, cash for surveys anyone?

it's all about me - and really dull, sorry

2005-10-21T19:49:00.000Z

so, theatre stuff.

nine years ago 1stB and I came on holiday to europe. we both carried backpacks and nothing else. his had a teddy, some crayons and colouring in books and his favourite car. it had bananas in pyjamas on it. mine was the more customary black and had two changes of clothes for each of us, our passports and not much else.
We had tickets for 4 months. I thought we would be home in 6 weeks. we're not back there yet.

I was running away from a lot of things.
a relationship that had gone rapidly sour and borderline abusive after its infatuated beginnings, but from which i could not escape.
a family in some kind of meltdown. what i know now is my mother was in the early stages of alzheimers. at the time she had a level of dependency on me that was suffocating and relentless. a sister with whom i had had a colossal falling out and whose enmity dripped out of the phone on an almost daily basis.
life as a single mother, in small town, semi-rural semi-deliverance, nsw with nothing but trips to the gym and an occasional outing to the cinema to look forward to.
it wasn't my life.
my life was vibrant, creative, passionate and driven. it was exciting and memorable. terrifying and exhilirating.
and it seemed to be over.

1stB's godfather is an actor. he went on a trip to st petersburg to observe the mali theatre company. we'd been having a bit of a fling. he invited us over. it didn't take much thinking about.

like all flings it was pretty much flung by the time 1stB and i touched down, but it didn't matter. well not much. what mattered was that i was out. and once i got out i wasn't going back in again in a hurry. and besides, i could do it. travelling with a 3 year old is easy - trust me. find a creche or daycare wherever you go, and a babysitting service. book in a couple of half days at creche and one night with a babysitter. then spend the rest of the time in parks and looking at the ducks. everywhere has ducks, you can't go wrong.

we spent a fortnight in st petersburg, a fortnight in amsterdam, another one in copenhagen, then france and england. it was wonderful.

once i got to london i made the decision to stay for a bit. i thought a year. i thought i would spend the time focusing my work. in australia i had done a bit of everything - acting, writing, directing. i wanted to concentrate and being in a new environment helped me remake myself. it certainly helped me re-brand myself. everyone assumed i was a director because they didn't know any different - it does great things for your confidence.

i did my year. i was miserable. sad, lonely, i missed my friends, i couldn't go out because of 1stB, it was some kind of hell. but at the end of it i wasn't ready go home. i was starting to feel at home. everyone in london is miserable, sad and lonely - it just took me a year to discover i was part of a huge gang of saddos. which cheered me, perversely.

i was working at the king's head theatre in islington. my other sister who lives here was helping with 1stB. things were looking up. i was shagging everything in arms reach as you do. then i met g. i thought i was just adding him to my list, and i know he thought the same, but somehow our lists stalled there and we kind of stuck together (try not to imagine that).

geez all this and i haven't really got to theatre yet. sorry it's a bit dull.

8 years in brief - loads of assistant directing at the king's head, then some directing of my own on the fringe, then a job offer as children's director on whistle down the wind (yes, in the west end, yes, lloyd webber, yes i couldn't believe it and still cannot believe the incredible good fortune that put that my way), then more west end stuff, more directing on the fringe, more west end, then pregnant then broadway then baby then not diddly squat. not one little weeny thing. not a skerrick. only supply teaching on the somewhat lowered horizon.

and then the arts council grant to do a workshop of a new australian/british play, and a fabulously funny fifteen minute play to do as part of a night of the same, all in a week and a half of each other.

that's why i'm starting to feel like me again. thank you arts council. thank you vb and sbs. thank you whichever heavenly force has my best interests at heart. now if it could just do something about the washing machine hose...

warning

2005-10-21T17:11:00.000Z

the blog before this one is very long, dull and rambling - kind of cathartic and helpful for me but don't read it if you have anything more interesting to do, like the washing up. just thought i should warn you..

wishes granted

2005-10-20T21:19:00.000Z

in better news, WE GOT THE ARTS COUNCIL GRANT!!!!!!!

when i'm less tired and less in need of the toilet i will write properly about what that's all about. suffice to say, it has put a smile on my face that even another day of supply teaching tomorrow will not wipe off.

also had a meeting with my agent today which in itself made me think maybe one day i will get my career back on track. frankly just the act of getting into town and leaving g to pick up 2ndB was humanising. and then had another work meeting immediately after in the british library of all places (if you want to feel like a competent grown-up who Gets Things Done my top tip is meet in the british library - the place exudes achievement) so feel doubly like someone with prospects.

haven't yet written about any of my work stuff - apart from in my last blog which the computer ate ggrr - but there hasn't been much call to lately. How exciting if all that changes and I have oodles of theatrical anecdotes to bore you with.

Must wee - sorry

and more swear words beginning with b

2005-10-17T20:38:00.000Z

balls and bollocks. i have just spent ages writing blog about - amongst other things - the simpsons, musical theatre and supply teaching (first day today). and the fecking computer has eaten it. and i was thinking of trying to get office temp work instead. i guess that's out of the question.
now i'm too tired and too disheartened to write again.
let me just say that supply teaching makes having your wisdom teeth out seem a pleasure.
my favourite simpsons episodes are the one where marge is in streetcar the musical and the one where bart is in the school pageant about all the presidents.
that i used to work in big bright brassy musical theatre and now i am reduced to watching children throw paper airplanes around the room.
it was all cunningly connected.
now i'm going to watch one quick episode of curb your enthusiasm ( the thought of which has kept me going all day) and go to bed.
am hoping 2ndB won't think it's a good idea to get up at 4am like she did this morning and 1stB will drag his carcus out of bed before ten to eight.
gggrrrrr.

Guilty Secret #1

2005-10-12T19:07:00.000Z

I like the Archers. I do. I try not to and how I laugh along as G sings his "don't we hate the archers" song to amuse 2ndB, who -worryingly - loves the theme tune. but then i find sneaky ways of listening in whilst pretending to do something - anything - else. I even keep 2ndB out of her bath and hanging around pointlessly in the kitchen so I can listen - or I send her up with G. Told you I was a bad mother.
I have standards of course. Any story line featuring Peggy and the interminable Jack - can he not just get sent to a nursing home and off our airwaves - is not worth staying downstairs for. In fact on the days "Jack has problems remembering where he put his hat" is trailed before the 7pm news I even go and give the baby a bath. But you've got to love the Emma/Will/Ed threeway thing. Where will it end? I reckon Will will insist on a paternity test, it will turn out the baby is his, Ed will move to australia and Emma will be stuck in a caravan with her carping parents and whinging baby. Then she'll top herself and everyone will say poor Emma. She may have been a stupid slapper who ruined the lives of everyone in a 50 mile radius but she was a good girl at heart. And then there will be an Alan the vicar story re him and Usha and their cross cultural christian/hindu romance tucked in on the back of the sordid grundy tale to renew our faith in true love even though it doesn't always run smooth. remember Usha's aunt plotted in about 6 months ago? she'll have something to say on the subject, just you wait.
So there you are. It's a secret kept from my nearest and dearest.I am happy to lie to protect my dignity. and have done on several occasions. "i'm NOT listening. it just happens to be on, is all". i'm not proud. i'm not even out. but i am hooked.

animal shmanimal

2005-10-11T20:13:00.000Z

just to amuse myself as the frozen pizza cooks (i think i'm getting worse at this being a grown up thing), i did one of those animal personality tests. i found it on mrs aginoth's blog - as i'm a cretin i can't do a link even though i have been patiently shown. it said my power animal is deer and in my last life i was a panda. i only mention this because deers don't strike me as being power kind of animals. a lion maybe or even a python. or a bird of prey. or a cat for its independence and willfulness. but a deer? panda in last life rings no bells for me but maybe that's how last lifes are. however it also said i was adventurous and risk-taking (i think it had me mixed up with 2ndB) but not rational.
I always thought I was rational.
I thought it was one of the things I was.
My list of attributes has just shrunk by one and it wasn't great to begin with.
If I can't have rational I think I will go for washboard stomach - I even ordered a dvd off amazon. Now if only I could work the dvd player...

bad mother

2005-10-10T20:40:00.000Z

I am, in every sense, a bad mother. amusingly, or ironically, or freudianly, it took me three goes at typing "bad" for it to come out right. but it must be said, and admitted and contrition must follow. and hopefully some resolution to do better.
We have a frog pond in our garden. You know where this is going already don't you? This evening G and I were in the kitchen chatting happily about how women managed in the 1950s (and many other decades but that was the one we chose) to keep houses clean, meals cooked, children clothed, fed, bathed and husbands' every need met. Yes, we were chuckling to ourselves, how can that be when between the two of us we can barely manage to get the washing up done and otherwise resign ourselves to living in squalor. I had just uttered the immortal words "playpen" when there came a dreadful scream from the garden. G moved faster than i have ever seen him move to grab our daughter, our angel, our beautiful adored girl, out of the frog pond into which she had fallen. Thank every god available, she managed to stand herself up and scream and hadn't frozen in shock with her head underwater. At this point i need to pause and recover myself for a moment. Okay, can continue.
The outcome, obviously, is a happy one. or at least not an awful one. but it doesn't make up for the fact that i (and g for that matter) had not noticed that secondborn had wandered out of the dining room where we had been "watching" her play, and into the garden to do frogwatch.
This is her second nasty accident. A month or so back she fell down a flight of stairs in our house - she dashed out of the bathroom while i was on the toilet and by the time i got to her i was literally a second too late to grab her before she tumbled. Again, it all worked out alright, but how careless am I? And how fortunate that to date my carelessness has resulted in nothing worse than a fright.
Oh and did i mention the cup of hot water left too close to the edge of the bench? Thankfully it was only lukewarm by the time she pulled it over herself but again that is great good fortune - the point is I left her in danger.
I don't know where I am going with this other than a note to self to take more care. Close the door, move the cup, keep eagle eyes on this intrepid girl. She's not like firstborn who could be told to take care and would. This girl wants to be in everything, even the frogpond. and she will find a way. i just have to make sure i am there with her. or preferably a step ahead.

pleasing

2005-10-07T23:03:00.000Z

It is a small thing, but it pleases me that on the same day we got the painters in to paint our house, i got the (ahem) painters in. it's a small thing, but pleasing.

less pleasing is this. washing up gloves. in themselves innocuous enough. in fact, i like 'em. i like them so much that in my last house i had a little marigold clip that stuck to the wall over the sink and clipped onto my WUGs so they were always handy but never in the way. i was quite capable of doing the washing up and "plip" clipping them back into place afterwards.
i don't have a useful clip in my new house - i can't seem to find one at asda and can't afford that upmarket step to tesco or sainsburys. and g doesn't like washing up gloves. so i try and keep them out of the way, usually hanging them on the tea-towel rack which no one but me ever seems to use. and then mostly just for hanging WUGs. only they fall off. and get in the way. and grumpily are flung towards the sink - not by me. i calmly rehang on tt rack. no, by g who doesn't like them and likes his crinkle cut soggy washing up hands. even when i was 8 i didn't believe the "you're soaking in it" ads and i certainly don't now. but every time i go to put the fuckers on they are full of cold water because someone has been flinging them crossly into the sink with no regard of whether it is full of water or not, and certainly no regard for my dainty* hands.

*dainty here means they are mine and if i want to keep them bloody well dry i should be allowed to keep them bloody well dry.

now i've got that off my chest, one last thing. does anyone ever eat that little plastic bag of grated onion that comes with an indian takeaway? i'm just asking. only if no one does maybe someone should tell the indian takeaway shops. they could save a fortune on onions and little plastic bags.

come again

2005-10-05T21:19:00.000Z

First born was born 12 years and 3 months ago. 12 years and 2 months ago I went out to dinner with my dearest friends.

The four of us had been friends since we all started university together 7 years before that. We had been ghastly drama students who laughed too loudly, and campaigned vigorously for worthy causes especially if we then got to stand up in front of crowds of people and feel self-important. We dashed madly and self-importantly about campus being theatrical, racing to rehearsals, auditions, first-nights, tour buses about to leave without us. We fought to get on to the student's representative council under the slogan "Because we're the best ever" - and loads of people voted for us but thankfully not enough. And we did more shagging on each other's floors, drunken excess, smoking of illicit substances, hairdyeing accidents, shagging on each other's couches, drunken vomiting into each other's toilets and shagging against the back fence at each other's parties than seems entirely sensible when i look back from this great distance.

So we were mates.

On this particular night, friend "H" looked down at my gorgeous boy, my lifesblood, my angel, and said "and just think, in 16 years we can all fuck him".

Thank you "H".

I notice that you are due to give birth to your first born in a week. A boy.

I can wait 16 years.

c words

2005-10-05T12:33:00.000Z

My friend's four year old has just started school at a sweet wee church of england school. last night at dinner he announced "I love cock".

Did I mention the school was in Hackney?

biting the bullet

2005-10-04T20:50:00.000Z

hello. my name is spindleshanks and on thursday morning at 10am i am signing up to a supply teacher agency. there. i've said it. maybe it won't be as dire as i expect.

i'm not even a fecking teacher. god in heaven what am i thinking??? more to the point, what are they thinking? even before i've signed up they have offered me a term's worth of maternity cover as head of drama in some godawful school. i said no. can you imagine a term of it?

in brighter news, i got my copy of the 12 point programme to writing romantic fiction and making a shed load of money without leaving the comfort of my cellar (it's where my computer is - not kinky chains and things normally associated with cellars). maybe i can read it on my playlunch.

2005-10-01T12:17:00.000Z

I'm going away today. By myself. And I'm staying overnight. In a hotel. By myself. Not quite as glamourous as an illicit rendezvous with a swarthy "i'll stand by the potted palm with an open new-look guardian" stranger. But still a bit of a thing. It's the first time I have left second-born overnight. G helpfully is completely blase about the whole thing. The upside is that I then have to be calm about it too. The bad side is I don't get to grip his arm at regular intervals and say oh god i'll miss her - do you think she'll be alright - if she wakes in the night just stick your arm through the bars of the cot but don't get it stuck like i did on tuesday - will you miss me. All things considered, calm and blase probably best. You'd think after first born i'd be good at this kind of thing. god knows i've been going off and leaving him at every opportunity for years. and i don't even remember the first time so it can't have been a searing trauma. my guess is it went something like this will: fret in anticipation, sheer delight in actuality - just think a whole bed for me and noone to wake me up at 6.23am - and over so quickly i barely notice once i'm back.

Unless something goes wrong. Oh god, just say she falls down the stairs and has to be rushed to a and e. or chokes on her lunch. or refuses to eat and is starving. or chips a tooth. or gets pushed off the slide in the playground. or falls headfirst into the frog pond. or panics in the night. or doesn't wake up and is cold and blue in the morning.

or doesn't even notice i'm not here.

then what will i do?

£10,000

2005-09-28T20:40:00.000Z

Our debt is creeping (well rushing like a maddened bull) towards the £10,000 mark. for any australians who may be glancing at this that is close to $30,000. AAARRRGGGHHH.
SO here are my plans to make some money.
1. write a best selling romance novel. i have even bought a how-to guide.
2. join an extras agency.
3. open a cunning maternity wear/pregnancy resource shop in stoke newington which has more pregnant women than a pregnant woman convention.
4. phone sex (eek).
5. direct a fuck-off monster hit show. please please please please.
6. kill myself slowly working as a supply drama teacher in hackney and redbridge schools. actually this may be killing myself quickly. i hope not as it is the most likely and i have to do SOMETHING before my children are repossessed.
7. there is no 7 but i can't believe that supply teaching is the only reasonably likely option.
8. oh god.
9. first born was picked up by a model agency and i said no. maybe i could ring up and say yes.
10. oh god.

2005-09-26T20:32:00.000Z

First born, c, 12 years old, told his class today (they were doing PSE - don't ask me I have no idea) that G does more work than I do. In some extraordinary act of disloyalty and misrepresentation he told them - I have written before about his tendency to make pronouncements that have NO BASIS IN FACT - that it is sexist to assume that women work at least as hard as men and get paid less. There are so many things wrong here I hardly know where to begin.
For starters, it is nothing short of a miracle that my conversation with first born didn't go like this "how was school" (me) "fine" (him) "what did you do?" (me again) "i can't remember" (you get the pattern) "what you can't remember a single thing" "leave me alone" stomp stomp stomp (that's him too, stomping out of whatever room we happen to be in so he can feel hard done by in a room that doesn't contain me). So maybe I should be pleased that he chose today - the day of my schoolroom crucifixion - to develop a conversational readiness. I have horrid suspicion though that he was RUBBING IT IN. Not only has he told his teacher and 29 other spotty kids that I'm a lazy cow - he wants the addtional pleasure of me knowing about it.
Then in the second place is the clear and certain knowledge that IT'S NOT TRUE. Let me be plain about this - I have a remarkably decent fella. Having been through quite a few awful ones (that sounds dreadful but I'll leave it because it really is as bad as it sounds) I know a decent one when I see one. He does loads of baby stuff, works a .8 contract so he can be at home more and thinks of housework much as I do - something that regrettably must take up some time occasionally but hey let's not get too obsessive about it. In other words, he does his bit. But so he should. I am gobsmackingly surprised when i hear from friends that their misters don't do their bit.
What he doesn't do is any more than me. Also, being a smoker, he gets sneaky fag breaks. I've always thought there should be a non-smokers alternative to the sneaky fag break. a sneaky let me sit still with my eyes closed and nobody talking to me for five minutes break. or an afternoon nap for being good and not smoking. that's for an employment tribunal, but my point is, no sneaky fag breaks for me.
wanting to clarify things with first born, i asked just how he came to this remarkable "fact". "well g goes out to work - in fact you could say he works 2 jobs". I reel a little in my seat (can you reel while you're sitting down?). "2 jobs?" "Well he used to". It's not quite the same though is it. I used to work 80 hour weeks on massive commercial theatre productions but he didn't say that in PSE so the 2 jobs bit has got to go. "He does all the house renovations". Now that is true, and he is a star for doing it. But someone has to look after the baby, don't they C? "Well yes". And that counts as work doesn't it? If you take work to mean time that is not leisure time? "Well yes". And do I have loads of leisure time on my hands, do you often find me moonily watching the raindrops down a windowpane or reading a paper or going for a leisurely walk by myself? "well no". Thank you very much. Point to me. Then point taken off again for wanting to pointscore against own child. Bad mother.
It's a tricky thing being a mostly at home mother when you're used to working all the hours there are and more, and earning at least a reasonable amount of money. And having a bit of a glamourous lifestyle to boot - when I was 5 months pregnant I went by myself to NY for 2 months to help put on a big Broadway show. Now we have no money and I got excited going for a meeting in the West End a couple of days ago because I haven't been in since July. And here's the nub of the matter. I am trying to be a working mother and the work just ain't falling on my lap. It's a slog and I get one day a week (thursday is childminder day - yippee) to slog away which isn't quite enough. As for networking, well I've never been good at it and the thought of going out now and talking to people I don't know about shows I didn't like seems like the 4th circle of hell. So I'm in a bind. And I don't want to leave second born full time anyway - I am enjoying the at home stuff too. So what I want is everything, right here, right now, just as i ordered it - to be an at home, working, successful, family oriented career woman. Would I feel any better if first born had told his class that?

Last night

2005-09-24T19:15:00.000Z

Last night as I lay awake on my side of the world, on my side of the bed, trying to convince my daughter that being awake at 2am is not the action of a socially responsible 16 month old, my best friend faced a foot long needle on her side of the world, on some ghastly gyno stirrup bed. In fact, if it all happened on time, as my cheerful second born finally decided that she would lie down and go back to sleep for a little while, my best friend would have been gingerly lifting herself off the bed, without the foot long needle and without a crop of eggs she has been patiently and painfully, agonisingly and hopefully, angrily and longingly growing. Seven eggs. Seven wonders of the world and seven chances at the baby that I through great luck and good fortune was able to have through chance and carelessness. The care, time and energy that has gone into making what I must believe will be my best friend's baby, match in ferocity and passion the love I have for my easy accidental unplanned children. If I could do one thing in this world, one wish, one magical act, I would wish my best friend pregnant. I would wish on her sleepless nights and dirty nappies. Temper tantrums and cut knees. Puke and vomit and shit and dribble. Early mornings and no sex life. No sunday papers or easy dinners. No social life, no outings, no holidays. But the love love love love love love love that took my breath away when i first set eyes on my newborn babies. The heat of holding them, touching them, feeling them, sensing them. The thrill of the mewling whimpers, the reaching hands, the instinctual mouth, the racing heartbeat. The devout sensual overwhelming desire they triggered in me.
And next time I lie awake wishing my baby asleep. Next time I quarrel with my 12 year old about his messy room. Next time I long for me time, I will remember my passion, my joy, my ecstasy. And wish it on my best friend.

note to self

2005-09-22T22:06:00.000Z

don't send ham for baby's lunch to devout muslim childminder.

second born

2005-09-21T20:26:00.000Z

this is what i've done today. rescued second born off the top of a ladder that was up in the garden (she's 16 months so the top of the ladder is not necessarily the best place for her to be). walked like a lunatic to get to baby group in the park as there is no free parking within a mile of the park - thanks council, top foresight. been to baby group in the park for many hours. more ladders also with sheer drops - what are they thinking these playground designers? spent fruitless half hour following sb round playground with tupperware container of leftover roast dinner and a brightly coloured plastic spoon. watched as sb devoured a minimilk icecream instead of said roast dinner. walked miles home again. picked up bottle off ground about 50 times as sb threw it out the side of the buggy instead of drinking it. swept the floor with the help of second born (thank you darling for scattering all the sweepings i've just swept into a neat pile). done frog watch at the garden pond about 73 times with second born. said bye bye frog about a bzillion times in an attempt to get second born to give up watching the frogs. helped second born feed the cat. helped the cat get his food away from second born. made second born spit out cat biscuit. given up on making second born spit out cat biscuit and watched her eat it - it must have some nutritional value right? strapped sb tightly into her highchair in an attempt to get her to eat her dinner without climbing out to do frog watch again. let sb out of highchair to do frogwatch again. put sb back in the highchair and strapped her in to try to get her to eat her dinner. given sb an array of toys and useful household implements (peppper pot, corkscrew and clothespeg bag) to distract her long enough i could shove food in her mouth. encouraged first born to make his own dinner. it was tomato soup out of a can - haven't yet decided how guilty i should feel but only because i haven't had time to think about it yet. taken sb up for a bath. gone the sink option because it's quicker and easier. this guilt factor also still to be worked out. read sb 4 stories. got fb to make her bottle. taken her to bed. given her bottle and sung her her lullaby. felt sorry for sb that she has to listen to my singing every night before she goes to bed. wonder if she will have dreadful singing voice and it will be all my fault. said my bedtime ritual chant. goodnight. sweet dreams. mummy loves you. i love you. i love you. i love you.
meant it.

2005-09-17T20:34:00.000Z

I'm a bit of a flannelette girl. flannelette shirts by day, flannelette pyjamas by night. when the weather is right of course or i get all sweaty and uncomfortable. now, it just so happens the weather is right where it should be for flannos tonight and i'm a little bit excited knowing that in an hour or so i'll be snug as an etc. also, i don't wear them when g is around because they aren't designed for two, but he's out tonight, so conditions are prime. i think it started with st elmo's fire. remember that scene where ally sheedy and judd nelson are about to go to bed and she's wearing his pyjamas. it had a - disturbingly - profound effect on me. i can remember thinking (I was 16, alright?) that my ideal man would be the kind who leaves his pyjamas around for me to wear (though i never liked judd nelson's nose so i hoped he wouldn't look like him). g never wears pjs even in bitterest cold so i have to get my own. also i seem to recall that the st e's f scene led to much lingerie and the like and i have no interest in doing lingerie stuff in flannelette weather (or in general really, with my i've had two babies tummy). also wasn't the necessary conflict in the scene to do with the fact that judd nelson had shagged the shop girl when he was buying ally sheedy said lingerie and who wants that on your ideal man list? so altogether on reflection the image is a bit compromised.
BUT nothing can put me off my pjs. last christmas they were my christmas present. also a big oversized towelling dressing gown and a pair of slippers. oh dear lord. what has become of me? i'm sure at some point in my reckless youth i was well, reckless. it is hard to be reckless in slippers and a bath robe. being full of reck is much comfier though, and comfy - on cold autumnal evenings - is just what a flannelette kind of girl wants.

am not liking it

2005-09-15T19:29:00.000Z

am not liking a strange coy knowingness that has crept into these bits and bobs i'm writing. doesn't feel like me. so cut the crap.
also have discovered very pleasing acronym for family.
C for oldest boy - he's twelve. L for me - i'm old enough to be your mother. A for infant girl - she's 15 months. G for him - he's a month older than me so i guess he's old enough to be your mother too.
And what does it spell? CLAG. Oh yes, those little pots of glue with the rubber nub with a split in from primary school. and you pushed down hard on the rubber nub and CLAG came out the split and then you smeared it all round the page with the rubbery bit. all CLAGGY. you've got to like that your family spells CLAG.
Of course, I always preferred Perkins Paste, little pink pot with white stick-in applicator. that smell.
But what kind of enrmous family would you have to have to spell PERKINS PASTE?

Junked

2005-09-15T04:07:00.000Z

I had an altercation with a junk mail distributor today. It left me feeling rattled, self-righteous, fearful, self-loathing and a little amused in that order (not simultaneously as then i would be locked up with my mother and fed watery porridge for breakfast). Here's the thing. I hate junk mail. Yes, everyone hates junk mail which is why it its called junk mail and not shiny-colourful mail though it is that too. But I really hate it. with a bulldog determination. in fact it can just about ruin my day when i see it lying there in my hallway, which is already cluttered with baby buggies, baby backpack and multitude of Home Renovation Tools (we have one baby and do very little renovating but we're good at accessorising). I invariably swear, even when i'm carrying second born who is thankfully still small enough not to take my dreadful language to her childminder, a devout muslim. Then I stomp. man, I could stomp for england AND australia. I do good stomping. Then i pick up offending junk and responsibly recycle it. I could do with a better climax but despite my fantasies, i'm a good citizen at heart.
So why not get a no junk mail sticker. WE'VE GOT ONE - IT's STUCK ON THE FRONT DOOR. To get junk mail into my house it has to be pushed through a letterbox bearing the words NO JUNK MAIL. I mean how hard can it be NOT to post the fecking thing? In fact, we have a lovely new sticker. We used to have a hand made typed one, on a piece of folded A4 stuffed in a weather-proof plastic envelope and gaffed to the front door. I made it myself, and very proud i was of it too. NO JUNK MAIL OR TAKE AWAY MENUS PLEASE. Big enough so the handers out of same could be spared the trip up to the front door (about 3 steps but every little etc). The Northerner hated it with about the same passion I reserve for the mail itslef. He thought it was an affront to the neighbourhood. I think that was a little excessive personally but I said till he went to a shop and got me a proper one it could stay there. And it did for a good long time. The weather got to it in the end. So imagine my joy when Hackney council, don't knock them till you've tried them, delivered a little package of goodies - a food waste bucket (big for outside collection), a food waste bucket (small to go on your bench top), a white cotton bag that says Recycle Hackney (I don't think they mean it quite like it sounds) and a NO JUNK MAIL sticker. And proudly I stuck it fair and square in the middle of my letterbox. Smaller and more discreet, professional and council-endorsed. I thought my junk mail days were behind me.
Today I just happened to be in the hallway when i heard the telltale click, swish, thunk that means mail and the post had already been. man, I ran at that thing like a woman possessed, clutched it in one sweaty fist (other other gently cradled SB) and dashed out of the house.
"Excuse me" it doesn't hurt to be polite "I don't want this. i have a no junk mail sticker"
It was two women. One about 40, the other in her 60s. I guess I thought i'd get a rueful smile and a sorry we didn't notice love.
Well I can't read. That's why I'm doing this job.
Ok, it was a good retort. One to her, but I wasn't finished.
"I don't want it. Can you take it back"
Now I'm chasing them up the street, waving the godawful thing at them. They are two doors up and moving fast.
Haven't you got anything better to do?
"yes, that's why I don't want to have to deal with the junk mail that gets shoved through my door. That's why I have the sticker".
My voice is beginning to shake in that pathetic tremulous way it does when something emotional and a little bit confrontational is happening. I want it to be over now, but I'm not going back inside with my Pizza menu if it kills me.
I flap it wildly at the older woman. She has grey hair that is obvously set by a hairdresser once a week. It makes her seem safer somehow. Maybe she is shouty woman's mother. She takes it, looking bemused and I like to think after I've gone inside she'll say to shouty woman, there was no need to shout dear. The nice lady didn't want the menu and she did have a no junk mail sticker on her door. I know that's not what happened though. And for a few hours I lived in fear that they would come back and shove dog shit through my door for being such an uptight cow.
Maybe I shouldn't move to amused just yet. They still might.

the boy's a genius

2005-09-13T19:29:00.000Z

First born has a great career waiting for him in punditry. name your subject and he will speak on it with wisdom, authority, keenness and complete fuck all knowlegde of what he is talking about. my favourite of his recent such statements is this: If all the ants in the world came to the surface at the same time, the world would be completly covered in ants. the northerner and i looked at him admiringly, and with genuine interest. It's a great fact, right? Really? we asked. I don't know, but it might be true. And I suppose he's right. It might. But it probably isn't and if he had begun this great statement of fact with hey this might be true but probably isn't then he wouldn't have a great and glorious and - we're depending on it, no pensions here - well-paid career ahead of him. Likewise, ask him a question about sport. "How did Australia do in the ashes series (i think it's right to call it that - don't ask me a question about sport) today first born?" And off he went with great aplomb talking runs, wickets and third men with the best of them. NO! shouted the northerner, a little too triumphantly but he's not a bad man really, NO! RAIN STOPPED PLAY. THEY DIDN'T PLAY!!! First born was unfazed. Indeed indifferent. Ohpausei knew that.
So you'd think that a boy with such all round and unperturbable knowledge would be able to dress himself adequately. Well, I would. But what do I know, I'm only his mother. First born, being a well brought up, middleclass, intelligent and (swelling in the less than impressive maternal bosom - he was model spotted) good looking young lad, chooses to go round looking like he has shat his pants. It's called busting - or "bustin' - low batty. YOu know the look - boys with their trousers clinging precariously to the bottom of their bottoms, legs akimbo to stop them falling all the way down, great expanses of boxer short showing above. It's not attractive, and I'm obliged to think it requires some absence of the working intellect as besides being ugly as all sin, it physically impairs the wearer from moving. That's why they have to waddle along with a hand clutching at the ball region - to make a grab if gravity gets its way and the trouser makes a dash for freedom. WHY???
This morning he was busting low bottom (as i've been advised to call it, in a diminish the street cred kind of way) in his school trousers and i heard myself say in someone else's voice "You can't go to school looking like that. Pull up your trousers, you look ridiculous". so, more bad mothering. Not even my mother was nuts enough to say things like that, and she's in a home. I think I'll do what those hoodie wearing pensioners in Kent did - I'll start busting low batty myself and see how quickly he grows out of it.

a container full of favourites

2005-09-11T20:16:00.000Z

the thing with accidentally moving to the other side of the world is you don't bring your stuff with you. nine years ago yesterday i upped and left australia with first born (he had just turned three) and two backpacks. one was a proper grown up size sensible black one with all the pockets crammed. the other was a bananas in pajamas one with a teddy sticking out the top. guess which one i carried. we were meant to be away four months. in fact i didn't think i'd last six weeks.
nine years and counting.
it's good and all. and i get lots of amiring looks when i tell my tale of world domination- well, travel - with a three year old in tow. oh yes, i smile, of course we went to russia first. just in time for st petersburg's first mcdonalds. ironic laugh.
then a year or so in i meant the northener and after a very slow burn, what do you know he turned out to be the man of my dreams. and father of second born who is of course and in every sense an absolute delight and ridiculously gorgeous (maternal pride not withstanding). and now here i am and here i plan to stay and here my first born has developed a true north london accent (via jamaica) and here we have a house in a never ending state of repair and here i have the little career that wouldn't.
but what i don't have - i realised when i tried to write this profile business - is my books and music. and what is worse, i don't remember them all. i can't really remember my favourite books, music and movies because they no longer exist. at least not on my shelves. i have done some replacing, but mostly i have just done moving on. and bought new stuff. and new clothes. and new favourites. i know they are stand ins though. and somewhere in a storage shed in raymond terrace, nsw, is a container full of favourites.

where to begin

2005-09-10T11:11:00.000Z

? with the ramblings of a mostly disorganised mind. today is day before horse show day for first born. which means cleaning tack, horse, boots and jodphurs till late into the night. once it was me doing the horse show biz, and i suppose i am now doing that vicarious living thing i swore i would never do. he's v good though my boy and i swell with pride when i see him do well and - this is me being bad mother - irritation when he gets something basic wrong. it's why your children should do things that you can't do. then however rubbish they are at something, you will still think they're amazing and all kids need their parents to think they are amazing. second born who is still too little to think about climbing on a horse (too little even to climb on a chair without help) is told she is amazing when she brings us odd boots, carries a small tub of cat food out to the cat and doesn't eat it herself, goes down a slide without being held and manages - just barely - to jump both feet off the ground together. Geez - remember when it was easy to be amazing. FB has to jump a 2 foot 6 fence on a horse and i have to jump through 17 hoops simultaneously. Next time I feed the cat and don't eat it on the way out, I'm giving myself a gold star.