The wedding of the year, has now happened. The holiday in Canada which preceded it was wonderful and my gorgeous brother-in-law and new sister-in-law put on truly fantastic wedding bash. After all my hard work getting trim and wedding-ready this year, do you think I could behave myself in the 2 weeks of holiday leading up to the big day? No, no I could not.
In America, I ate like I was due to have my teeth removed the next day. In Canada, I packed away more food than your average Mountie and washed it down with enough Diet Coke to actually inflate myself. Yup, properly inflate myself. My stomach became so inflated and bloated that genuinely, I looked 9 months pregnant. I'm not even kidding. The holiday snaps don't lie. My least scary tummy control knickers, packed 'just in case' could not contain the damage I had inflicted upon myself..........complete and total frikkin moron. Who spends 8 months losing over 2 stone only to put (I expect) 50% of it back on in the fortnight before the event that you started slimming for.........Me. I do. Moron.
I managed to further enhance my appearance with a dye-job on my hair that actually turned it orange. I have a wonderful holiday photo on my camera of my husband and 2 kids unexpectedly posing with what appears on first glance to be the character "C.U Jimmy" from the 1980's Russ Abbott TV show at a cute Vermont farm.................look him up. Pump him full of air. Stick him in a purple frock. That was me at the wedding. That was also me at the farm (without the dress). That particular photo is not going in the album.
An incredibly brave friend of the bride straightened by hair prior to the wedding- I have never seen my hair so straight- seriously it was immaculate. I have BIG hair and had always assumed that a combination of this and my hamster cheeks gave the illusion of a big head. Surely, despite my mother's assertions the the contrary on EVERY one of my birthdays that I have the world's largest head, I thought that she was jesting. She is not. The optical illusion created by giant boobs results in my head looking smaller than it is.......poker straight hair made me realise that my head is truly huge......and the real kicker? It turns out that the weight of the giant boobs and the massive noggin makes me hunch my shoulders, again evidenced in every photo of me this holiday. I was a visual asset at the wedding- bloated, giant head, orange hair, hunchbacked, freaky sized boobs and due to the 35 degree heat, bright red................my husband is a lucky, lucky man...........
When I reflect upon my behaviour, not just in these recent weeks but in the broad general principle, I am forced to acknowledge the possibility that I may actually be a disgrace. It is not a state of being that I am unfamiliar with. Previous occasions that I have been labeled a disgrace include the following:
1) At age 14 on a geography field trip in Devon, I met a lad from another school. A late night patrol of the grounds by his large scary teacher discovered us snogging in the bushes at the end of the drive. We were both labelled a disgrace and sent back to the hostel. It was a shared disgrace but a disgrace nonetheless.
2) During some very difficult and complex Care Proceedings in the High Court for which I was the social worker on the case, a family member, who was dressed entirely in transparent lycra as if planning a night on the razzle and who had just admitted to the court that she had abused children in a horrifying manner, marched up to me in front of a large crowd and screamed at me "You are a f**king disgrace, a f**king disgrace". I was unsure which way to take this assertion....................perhaps she was referring to my wardrobe and the fact that she felt I clearly hadn't made the level of effort that she herself had gone to in the clothing department as the stripper heels gave her ensemble the classy touch. Or maybe, she'd had a premonition that in 7 years time, I would be eating my own body weight in maple pancakes prior to a large family event and wanted to warn me.......who knows? Unsurprisingly perhaps, we won the case.........I still ate the friggin pancakes........
3) Aged 2 at my brother's christening. A little peeved at the level of attention he was receiving, I ran up to the altar, turned on congregation and flashed my knickers from the front of the church..........a technique that has served me well in adult life..........my first encounter with the word 'disgrace', this time uttered by my mother. The first time she'd used it in reference to me.
I am certain, with every neuron in my body, that it won't be the last time that accusation is levied my way.
I'm not even sorry.
Monday, 3 September 2012
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Greying, gagging and garlic
I am there, at that point in your life that you never anticipated would happen to you. There. For me it happened at 10.45am on Saturday 30th June. In Debenhams. Auspicious.
I was trying on dresses for the WEDDING OF THE YEAR. A pretty one fitted. A size 16, from Coast (I am choosing to believe that Coast does NOT employ vanity sizing and thus the voice in my head has already decreed it a 14 and so you can see how I've got into this physical mess). I came out of the changing room and got an approving nod from my husband- it might have been an involuntary tick or a spasm but I have to take compliments where I can. The 6 year old sales assistant beamed (she smelt a sale) and then uttered the words, "It makes you look really young"
There. That was it. The transition into new territory.
Old bat-ishness.
In her little teenage world, she clearly believed that this was the validation I had been searching for, the answer to my elderly prayers, the pinnacle of my middle aged aspirations. It is not. I had been hoping for 'slim' or 'bang on trend' or even a cheeky 'classy'.
I had not actually felt the absence of any youth in my appearance and thus had absolutely no idea that my clothing choices now need to combat YET ANOTHER flaw. It would seem that I now need clothes which can now slim, lengthen AND de-old bat me.........jeeeeesus. My eye twitched and my jaw clenched. The toddler sales-assistant scuttled off.
I got the phone out of my bag and rang my friend the hairdresser. Immediate action required. The result? I am now in possession of dyed hair for the first time in my (ginger) life. The grey is gone. The sad news however is that the titian glow I was hoping for is actually more thermonuclear ginge than I had anticipated........my clothing choices are now further inhibited by the need to detract from my hair colour in addition to slimming and de-old batting.......aces. Looking guuuuuuuuuud.
Sooooooo, changing room humiliation aside, I now own some new outfits, including (drum roll please) a pair of SIZE 14 TROUSERS!!!! Yep, size 14. Word.
It has been an interesting week however on a more fundamental, biological level. I have been back to my very lovely nutritionist and some interesting developments have er, developed. Because I take antibiotics every day (for rubbish skin immunity) and have done for years, a lot of good bacteria is being killed off within my poor, elderly carcass. Consequently, I am missing some crucial bacteria and my digestion is a mess. The solution? Kill off the little feckers by starving them of sugar. And yeasts. And vinegars. I am also highly likely to be wheat intolerant. I am also a bit wobbly on dairy, according to the results.........In one swift sweep I am one of THOSE people.....I have dietary requirements.......I can no longer hit 'all you can eat' buffets with the recklessness of the Jackass crew......I am reading food labels........I am boring myself. I know many people who claim to be 'allergic' to things.....I am one of them. Forgive me father for I have sinned.....
1) At Uni I claimed I was allergic to garlic. This is not the case. The truth is that the halls of residence cooks, in their own private crusade for virtue and abstinence, would serve up garlic pasta every Wednesday night......"Roxy" night.....pulling night. In order to avoid smelling like the bride of Dracula, I told them that I was allergic to garlic. The kind old dears duly provided me with a less man-repelling alternative........it made little difference to my pulling ability. The sad truth was that as every lad in halls HAD eaten the garlic pasta, I got a second hand dose........delightful.
2) Alcohol. At the age of 14, I was introduced to 20/20 by my boyfriend and his older mates. Two swigs and I fell off the park bench and the rest of that week is a blur. A few weeks later, I met Hoopers Hooch. Two swigs later and I was thrown out of a pub. "Two Dogs" followed.........my boyfriend had to carry me unconscious through a park in Cirencester after a mouthful. This pattern continued. I also saw no improvement in the taste of alcohol- regardless of what it's mixed with, it tastes like Tip-Ex and vomit and how people can drink it in pints is BEYOND me. I would be drunk for DAYS after only a mouthful or two. This seemed a bit odd. At the tender age of 15, after some unfortunate incidents. I swore off the booze and have been TeeTotal since then. Even as an adult, a decent quality brandy butter at Christmas can result in my having to be put to bed and we won't mention the unfortunate 'liquor chocolates won in the Christmas raffle' debacle of '95 but that wasn't pretty. Lightweight does not even BEGIN to cover it. Tee-total was the only way forward and has been so to date. Years ago, I mentioned this in passing to a doctor during a conversation about the hyperactivity I'd experienced after a packet of Skittles (not so much 'taste the rainbow' as 'high enough to reach the rainbow'). They thought that perhaps I am missing an enzyme that breaks down alcohol and some other sugars- apparently it's common in Asian men which is a commonality I had not anticipated. Never been tested, never had it confirmed but I will merrily tell people that I am allergic to alcohol. Rumbled. Well, it's more exciting that recanting the bloody Two Dogs stories isn't it?!
SO when people tell me that they are 'allergic' to things (other than peanuts- that shit is scary), I raise an eyebrow and mentally say 'Garlic pasta'. The truth is that for 90% of them, the reality is that whatever they are 'allergic' to actually just gives them wind, a slightly sick feeling or the trots.......c'mon folks, fess up......this is not an allergy, this is 'intolerance'. If I ever claim that I am allergic to anything, slap me. Let us allow those poor, poor buggers with PROPER allergies or Coeliac Disease to claim that title as their own (frankly, they are more than entitled to). For the rest of us, it's a quick trip to the loo and a bit of a bloat.
In amongst this digestive gloom and humiliation however have been some distractions. The Costume Ball that I started off wanting to 'slim down' for at the start of this journey in January, took place on Saturday. It was fantastic- a fab night dressed as Cinderella with lovely mates. A size 14/16 costume. Two days without the kids was even better- little horrors were delivered to their grandparents on Friday afternoon and not collected until Sunday lunchtime. I barely stopped the engine to drop them off. I didn't even stop for a wee or a drink before heading back. The kids hadn't got their shoes off before I left. The bonnet was still warm...........there may have been some wheelspin as I shot off. IT. WAS. BRILLIANT .
My son has also well and truly entered the 'Terrible Twos' this week, to compound it all. Every parent should be deprecating about their offspring to avoid unnecessarily high self esteem in future life but generally, kind friends and relatives will undo this parental mental abuse by reassuring you that your kids are a delight, that they're marvelous and gorgeous. You know however that your child is the spawn of Satan when workers at the Sure Start centre (kindly souls who work with behavioural problems and families under strain every day) look on slack-jawed as your delightful offspring rampages around the playgroup in a full-blown paddy resulting in 20 minutes of aural torture and eventual eviction. "Crikey, he's got a face on" is all they could splutter as as I dragged him, his scooter and the 3 other kids shame-faced out of the door..........my face matched my new hair..........
For me, this week has been about learning that you are never the person that you think you are. I started the week believing myself to be an overweight, slightly greying but nonetheless sprightly 33 year old who could (and did) eat whatever they wanted whilst squeezing their arse into size 14 trousers. I have ended the week as a neurotic old bat with food label obsessions and a hair colour that can be seen from space. This whole physical reinvention thing is going marvelously well.
Pass me the Hoopers Hooch.
I was trying on dresses for the WEDDING OF THE YEAR. A pretty one fitted. A size 16, from Coast (I am choosing to believe that Coast does NOT employ vanity sizing and thus the voice in my head has already decreed it a 14 and so you can see how I've got into this physical mess). I came out of the changing room and got an approving nod from my husband- it might have been an involuntary tick or a spasm but I have to take compliments where I can. The 6 year old sales assistant beamed (she smelt a sale) and then uttered the words, "It makes you look really young"
There. That was it. The transition into new territory.
Old bat-ishness.
In her little teenage world, she clearly believed that this was the validation I had been searching for, the answer to my elderly prayers, the pinnacle of my middle aged aspirations. It is not. I had been hoping for 'slim' or 'bang on trend' or even a cheeky 'classy'.
I had not actually felt the absence of any youth in my appearance and thus had absolutely no idea that my clothing choices now need to combat YET ANOTHER flaw. It would seem that I now need clothes which can now slim, lengthen AND de-old bat me.........jeeeeesus. My eye twitched and my jaw clenched. The toddler sales-assistant scuttled off.
I got the phone out of my bag and rang my friend the hairdresser. Immediate action required. The result? I am now in possession of dyed hair for the first time in my (ginger) life. The grey is gone. The sad news however is that the titian glow I was hoping for is actually more thermonuclear ginge than I had anticipated........my clothing choices are now further inhibited by the need to detract from my hair colour in addition to slimming and de-old batting.......aces. Looking guuuuuuuuuud.
Sooooooo, changing room humiliation aside, I now own some new outfits, including (drum roll please) a pair of SIZE 14 TROUSERS!!!! Yep, size 14. Word.
It has been an interesting week however on a more fundamental, biological level. I have been back to my very lovely nutritionist and some interesting developments have er, developed. Because I take antibiotics every day (for rubbish skin immunity) and have done for years, a lot of good bacteria is being killed off within my poor, elderly carcass. Consequently, I am missing some crucial bacteria and my digestion is a mess. The solution? Kill off the little feckers by starving them of sugar. And yeasts. And vinegars. I am also highly likely to be wheat intolerant. I am also a bit wobbly on dairy, according to the results.........In one swift sweep I am one of THOSE people.....I have dietary requirements.......I can no longer hit 'all you can eat' buffets with the recklessness of the Jackass crew......I am reading food labels........I am boring myself. I know many people who claim to be 'allergic' to things.....I am one of them. Forgive me father for I have sinned.....
1) At Uni I claimed I was allergic to garlic. This is not the case. The truth is that the halls of residence cooks, in their own private crusade for virtue and abstinence, would serve up garlic pasta every Wednesday night......"Roxy" night.....pulling night. In order to avoid smelling like the bride of Dracula, I told them that I was allergic to garlic. The kind old dears duly provided me with a less man-repelling alternative........it made little difference to my pulling ability. The sad truth was that as every lad in halls HAD eaten the garlic pasta, I got a second hand dose........delightful.
2) Alcohol. At the age of 14, I was introduced to 20/20 by my boyfriend and his older mates. Two swigs and I fell off the park bench and the rest of that week is a blur. A few weeks later, I met Hoopers Hooch. Two swigs later and I was thrown out of a pub. "Two Dogs" followed.........my boyfriend had to carry me unconscious through a park in Cirencester after a mouthful. This pattern continued. I also saw no improvement in the taste of alcohol- regardless of what it's mixed with, it tastes like Tip-Ex and vomit and how people can drink it in pints is BEYOND me. I would be drunk for DAYS after only a mouthful or two. This seemed a bit odd. At the tender age of 15, after some unfortunate incidents. I swore off the booze and have been TeeTotal since then. Even as an adult, a decent quality brandy butter at Christmas can result in my having to be put to bed and we won't mention the unfortunate 'liquor chocolates won in the Christmas raffle' debacle of '95 but that wasn't pretty. Lightweight does not even BEGIN to cover it. Tee-total was the only way forward and has been so to date. Years ago, I mentioned this in passing to a doctor during a conversation about the hyperactivity I'd experienced after a packet of Skittles (not so much 'taste the rainbow' as 'high enough to reach the rainbow'). They thought that perhaps I am missing an enzyme that breaks down alcohol and some other sugars- apparently it's common in Asian men which is a commonality I had not anticipated. Never been tested, never had it confirmed but I will merrily tell people that I am allergic to alcohol. Rumbled. Well, it's more exciting that recanting the bloody Two Dogs stories isn't it?!
SO when people tell me that they are 'allergic' to things (other than peanuts- that shit is scary), I raise an eyebrow and mentally say 'Garlic pasta'. The truth is that for 90% of them, the reality is that whatever they are 'allergic' to actually just gives them wind, a slightly sick feeling or the trots.......c'mon folks, fess up......this is not an allergy, this is 'intolerance'. If I ever claim that I am allergic to anything, slap me. Let us allow those poor, poor buggers with PROPER allergies or Coeliac Disease to claim that title as their own (frankly, they are more than entitled to). For the rest of us, it's a quick trip to the loo and a bit of a bloat.
In amongst this digestive gloom and humiliation however have been some distractions. The Costume Ball that I started off wanting to 'slim down' for at the start of this journey in January, took place on Saturday. It was fantastic- a fab night dressed as Cinderella with lovely mates. A size 14/16 costume. Two days without the kids was even better- little horrors were delivered to their grandparents on Friday afternoon and not collected until Sunday lunchtime. I barely stopped the engine to drop them off. I didn't even stop for a wee or a drink before heading back. The kids hadn't got their shoes off before I left. The bonnet was still warm...........there may have been some wheelspin as I shot off. IT. WAS. BRILLIANT .
My son has also well and truly entered the 'Terrible Twos' this week, to compound it all. Every parent should be deprecating about their offspring to avoid unnecessarily high self esteem in future life but generally, kind friends and relatives will undo this parental mental abuse by reassuring you that your kids are a delight, that they're marvelous and gorgeous. You know however that your child is the spawn of Satan when workers at the Sure Start centre (kindly souls who work with behavioural problems and families under strain every day) look on slack-jawed as your delightful offspring rampages around the playgroup in a full-blown paddy resulting in 20 minutes of aural torture and eventual eviction. "Crikey, he's got a face on" is all they could splutter as as I dragged him, his scooter and the 3 other kids shame-faced out of the door..........my face matched my new hair..........
For me, this week has been about learning that you are never the person that you think you are. I started the week believing myself to be an overweight, slightly greying but nonetheless sprightly 33 year old who could (and did) eat whatever they wanted whilst squeezing their arse into size 14 trousers. I have ended the week as a neurotic old bat with food label obsessions and a hair colour that can be seen from space. This whole physical reinvention thing is going marvelously well.
Pass me the Hoopers Hooch.
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Lazy, lumpy and late
I have not died. I have not lost the ability to type nor the senses with which to produce inane drivel. I am not trapped beneath a heavy wardrobe unable to reach the laptop nor am I being held captive by the fashion police (yet). I am also, contrary to popular rumour, not engaged in a torrid affair with Ryan Reynolds this rendering me too exhausted from lust and the deception to blog-on.
I am just a lazy, lazy moose.
I last bored everyone on the 4th of May. It is now the 12th June. This is poor even by my standards. Much has occurred in this time. Some of interest.....most of mediocrity. I shall burden you with the details- you might want some alcohol to get through the next few paragraphs.
Since the 4th, I have been to see a very lovely nutritional therapist due to the fact that exercise, virtuous living and an absence of cake were just not cutting through the podge. I had to complete a really long questionnaire about my health, conditions, history etc prior to my appointment which was actually quite interesting to do......a bit like the polls you used to get in "Just 17" but with less about snogging techniques and more about bowel movements.
During the appointment, she looked at all aspects of the questionnaire and we identified my main goals (weight loss). She checked my zinc levels (utterly pants) and looked at my diet and all the parts of the questionnaire. It was really nice (and entirely self indulgent) but spending 90 minutes talking about yourself is pretty ace.
She felt that I may be wheat intolerant (not something I'd ever thought about) and also prescribed some tests which you pay for separately and which get sent off to a lab in Germany. With 3 bottles of Omega 3, multi vitamins and something called "Multi-guard control" tablets and a HUGE amount of information and a plan for my diet, I headed off feeling pretty good with a follow up appointment for next month. The test kit duly arrived and I embarked on the (entirely rank) process of collection the er, samples. These then get boxed up and sent to the lab in Germany.......I can't imagine that the steady stream of these er, 'deposits' do a great deal for German/Anglo relations.........
I have also been forced into a healthy, lentil-heavy diet which has left me feeling both smug and virtuous. It also makes me think of a very lovely friend Ben.
Ben was a vegan and living with him was an eye opener. All of Ben's food came in brown paper bags from the local health food/organic grocery shop. Each bag contained something heart-stoppingly foul in appearance or desperately healthy in attitude. When he cooked, the kitchen smelt like boiled hippy and there were permanently vats of some sort of broth steaming away. Like a small bearded wizard, he would nonchalantly add a variety of vegetation to these dishes like some sort of Glasto Harry Potter........for years, I quietly mocked his culinary habits whilst chowing down on a plate of processed, meat based awfulness. Tragically, lovely, lovely Ben was was killed several years ago whilst working abroad but in the last few weeks, I have thought about him a LOT as my kitchen has slowly filled with lentils and has taken on the faint aroma of boiled hippy. I would like to think that somewhere he is quietly smug and throwing a good dose of 'told you so' in my direction.
I had a slightly unusual experience this last fortnight however which threw an odd perspective on this whole shebang. A lump. A big 'un. On the boob. The obligatory panic set in followed by GP appointments, hospital referrals and the slightly disconcerting scenario in which I walked around a hospital bra-less and in a less than opaque hospital gown to a room where a large, camp male doctor rubbed gel over my boobs and then attacked them with a large microphone.
It (thankfully) has all ended well, although the words "at your age" and "one bigger than the other" are never greeted with enthusiasm or boosted self esteem but hey ho, it appears that I am just blessed with harmlessly lumpy boobs. We'll add them to the list with the desperately attractive line-up of greying hair, morbid obesity, roadmap stomach and gravity-ravaged décolletage.
I just cannot understand why Ryan Reynolds is not beating down the door.
The reason I raise this delightful incident in my glamorous life, is twofold. One: CHECK YOUR BOOBS!!!!! If you are in possession of norks, check the bloody things and regularly. Two: For a brief moment between discovery and diagnosis, I did have a flash of hope. What if my boobs are hiding a 2 stone, benign tumour?? What if I am actually at my target weight and am unable to lose any more weight because it's not a persistent 2 stone of lard, it's a TV Documentary-worthy growth.........oooooohhhhhh. Not the case. Am still fat. Arse.
Life is very precious. Embrace, enjoy and remember.
Rest in peace Ben xx
I am just a lazy, lazy moose.
I last bored everyone on the 4th of May. It is now the 12th June. This is poor even by my standards. Much has occurred in this time. Some of interest.....most of mediocrity. I shall burden you with the details- you might want some alcohol to get through the next few paragraphs.
Since the 4th, I have been to see a very lovely nutritional therapist due to the fact that exercise, virtuous living and an absence of cake were just not cutting through the podge. I had to complete a really long questionnaire about my health, conditions, history etc prior to my appointment which was actually quite interesting to do......a bit like the polls you used to get in "Just 17" but with less about snogging techniques and more about bowel movements.
During the appointment, she looked at all aspects of the questionnaire and we identified my main goals (weight loss). She checked my zinc levels (utterly pants) and looked at my diet and all the parts of the questionnaire. It was really nice (and entirely self indulgent) but spending 90 minutes talking about yourself is pretty ace.
She felt that I may be wheat intolerant (not something I'd ever thought about) and also prescribed some tests which you pay for separately and which get sent off to a lab in Germany. With 3 bottles of Omega 3, multi vitamins and something called "Multi-guard control" tablets and a HUGE amount of information and a plan for my diet, I headed off feeling pretty good with a follow up appointment for next month. The test kit duly arrived and I embarked on the (entirely rank) process of collection the er, samples. These then get boxed up and sent to the lab in Germany.......I can't imagine that the steady stream of these er, 'deposits' do a great deal for German/Anglo relations.........
I have also been forced into a healthy, lentil-heavy diet which has left me feeling both smug and virtuous. It also makes me think of a very lovely friend Ben.
Ben was a vegan and living with him was an eye opener. All of Ben's food came in brown paper bags from the local health food/organic grocery shop. Each bag contained something heart-stoppingly foul in appearance or desperately healthy in attitude. When he cooked, the kitchen smelt like boiled hippy and there were permanently vats of some sort of broth steaming away. Like a small bearded wizard, he would nonchalantly add a variety of vegetation to these dishes like some sort of Glasto Harry Potter........for years, I quietly mocked his culinary habits whilst chowing down on a plate of processed, meat based awfulness. Tragically, lovely, lovely Ben was was killed several years ago whilst working abroad but in the last few weeks, I have thought about him a LOT as my kitchen has slowly filled with lentils and has taken on the faint aroma of boiled hippy. I would like to think that somewhere he is quietly smug and throwing a good dose of 'told you so' in my direction.
I had a slightly unusual experience this last fortnight however which threw an odd perspective on this whole shebang. A lump. A big 'un. On the boob. The obligatory panic set in followed by GP appointments, hospital referrals and the slightly disconcerting scenario in which I walked around a hospital bra-less and in a less than opaque hospital gown to a room where a large, camp male doctor rubbed gel over my boobs and then attacked them with a large microphone.
It (thankfully) has all ended well, although the words "at your age" and "one bigger than the other" are never greeted with enthusiasm or boosted self esteem but hey ho, it appears that I am just blessed with harmlessly lumpy boobs. We'll add them to the list with the desperately attractive line-up of greying hair, morbid obesity, roadmap stomach and gravity-ravaged décolletage.
I just cannot understand why Ryan Reynolds is not beating down the door.
The reason I raise this delightful incident in my glamorous life, is twofold. One: CHECK YOUR BOOBS!!!!! If you are in possession of norks, check the bloody things and regularly. Two: For a brief moment between discovery and diagnosis, I did have a flash of hope. What if my boobs are hiding a 2 stone, benign tumour?? What if I am actually at my target weight and am unable to lose any more weight because it's not a persistent 2 stone of lard, it's a TV Documentary-worthy growth.........oooooohhhhhh. Not the case. Am still fat. Arse.
Life is very precious. Embrace, enjoy and remember.
Rest in peace Ben xx
Friday, 4 May 2012
Mystified.com
On reflection, this blog is a pretty accurate reflection of my own personality.....rambling, self indulgent, haphazard, inconsistent and a bit flabby.
People claim that dog owners often resemble their pets. If I had a dog, it would probably be short, round and ginger with bark like 'Nanny' from Count Duckula. It would also collapse in a pathetic heap if asked to chase a ball.
People claim that dog owners often resemble their pets. If I had a dog, it would probably be short, round and ginger with bark like 'Nanny' from Count Duckula. It would also collapse in a pathetic heap if asked to chase a ball.
It also occurred to me this week that I do seem to spend my life a bit mystified. Not quite advance Alzheimers levels of confusion but certainly a few double shots on a revolving dance floor kind of baffled. I spend my days with two 2 year olds and two four year olds. Conversations, behaviours, eating habits, continence patterns and entertainment choices frequently leave me baffled. Take today's little gem:
Four year old #1: “Mummy, I don't want to eat breakfast today because it will spoil my lunch”
Four year old #2, distressed: “But I don't like spoiled lunch. I like it normal. It's not fair. Gods sake”.
Four year old #1: “It's OK. You'll like spoiled lunch. It tastes like old socks covered in jam but it's OK. Peppa (pig) eats it all the time”
Four year old #2: * Tears *
Two year old #1: “I want pudding. Had 'nuff choccie toast now. Where pudding?”
(I point out that breakfast seldom is accompanied by pudding)
Two year old #2: “Where my pudding. I been good boy. Where is it?”
(I reiterate that there will be an absence of pudding at 8am)
Two year old #1: “Waaaaaaaaaant pudding. * Tears *”
Two year old #2: “(Looks smug) You been naughty boy. I good. I have my pudding now peeeez”
(I impress upon them that pudding will not be forthcoming. It is 8am)
Two year old #2: * Tears *
Four year old # 1: * Look of complete innocence * “Mummy, why are all the boys crying. I'm eating my breakfast like a good girl, look”.
(I lose the will to live. It is 8am)
Before entering the world of full-time professional childcare, I was a Social Worker. With teenagers. Nuff said. I cannot describe how much I loved this job. I did Child Protection work, Family support work, I was the allocated worker for young people in the Looked After (Care) system and for the last 6 years, I was the assistant manager of a team which supported 15-24 year olds who were Care Leavers. There was never, every a dull moment. There was also never a day when I hadn't been told to 'F**k off'. It became a term of endearment. There are many therapy- worthy moments in this 10 years of chaos but let me offer you the top 10:
1) My Waterloo. I am fairly newly qualified and naiive. I have been given one of the MOST 'challenging' young women on our books as one of my (numerous) cases. We are at Waterloo in rush hour and I have to get her on a train to a destination that she is not keen to go to. We have been there an hour. We have already missed 2 trains due to her need to 'debate' her destination. She is pulling out every tool in her (considerable) arsenal to delay getting on that train. I am at my wits end and, foolishly, tell her that I must go and that she needs to get on the train or make her own way back to our place of origin. We are beneath the big clock in the centre of the station. Approximately 50% of London is within a 10 metre vicinity. I start to walk away. My ears and those of every one of the 4 million commuters are assaulted by a 90,000 decibel screech........ "F**k off you useless ginger c**t"............ The only thing I have in common with Robbie Williams in that I know what it's like to be stared at by thousands of people.......although I doubt that his audience were tutting........
2) Planes, trains and heels. I am transporting a very unhappy and damaged young woman in my car, on my own. She thinks we are going to a certain location. We are not. Due to all sorts of factors, I have been advised not to tell her where we are going because she is a massive flight risk. She is in the back of the car in my 2 door car. Everything is very urgent and very stressful. I am also in heels as I have just been to court to get everything sorted regarding her care. We are travelling at 70 miles an hour on a motorway. We pass the exit which would take us where she thinks we're going. She cottons on to the fact that she's not going where she thinks she is. In one move, she breaks the passenger seat, grabs the door and tries to get out. I skid to a halt on the hard shoulder. She legs it. I leg it after her in heels and a suit................I feel like I should have some sort of radio........I try to channel my inner Buffy but all I find is my inner voice which is shouting "YOU SHOULD GO TO THE GYM MORE YOU LOLLOPING MOOSE". Helicopters are scrambled. She gets away. It takes 4 days to find her. For years, you could see my tyre marks in the hard shoulder...........
3) Anglo-Afghan relations. I was sometimes required to help undertake age determination interviews for young people who arrived in our area as Asylum Seekers. If these poor little buggers weren't traumatised enough from their experiences, imagine their confusion at being greeted by a disorganised, portly ginger woman in ill fitting clothes. Add to this a few lapses in my cultural awareness........I spent 4 hours with 4 Afghan lads and their interpreter. Our direct communication was all through pictures, drawings and hand gestures. Most of those gestures were the 'thumbs up' OK gesture. After 4 hours of this, we all left the office. The kindly interpreter took me to one side and explained that 'thunbs up' here in the UK is the equivalent of flipping the bird in Afganistan. He told me that he hadn't wanted to offend me during the interviews by telling me this. I had been pretty much non-stop swearing at these poor, traumatised lads for over 4 hours. To add to their confusion, I smiled broadly at them the whole time.
4) The student will do it. I was 21 and doing my training at a HUGE Local Authority children's home in South Yorkshire. Kids there were aged 2 years (I know, I still cry when I think of the smallest ones there) to 18 years. It was a weekend. The staff were knackered and the kids were bored. Before I got my coat off, I was told that I was taking a group of 8 (!!) kids aged 6-9 years, on my own, shoe shopping at the local Asda followed by a swimming trip. I have managed to block most of that afternoon out. I am sure that when I am in the nursing home, I'll be rocking back and forth muttering "Do you have it in a size 4? Have you got your towel" on repeat........I still get flashbacks involving verruca socks......
5) Send her in first. Police raid on a suspected paedophile's flat. I am the social worker accompanying the police. It is 6am. I am given a stab vest which does not do up over my boobs. I am essentially wearing a large, unattractive but impenetrable necklace. Ace. The police use a battering ram on the door. It caves in. 6 large policemen (whose vests fit) stand to one side and push me in first. I am unsure how to proceed so I try to look intimidating but what comes out of my mouth is "Hellooooooo. Anyone home?".........................I am never asked to go on a raid again........
6) Send her in first #2: I am social worker for a lad who is classed by the local courts as Britain's most dangerous young person (genuinely). I have known him for years and we get on pretty well. The only thorn in our working relationship is his complete and total inability to stop breaking the law or indeed breaking other people. He is over 6ft 4 inches tall and weighs in excess of 19 stone. He has been arrested and I have been called to the police station to be his appropriate adult. I arrive and immediately sense that all is not well. There are lights flashing. People are running. There is a noise. It sounds like somebody has caught a rhino, drugged it, stuck it in a giant metal can and have just woken it up by poking it with a sharp stick. I sense that the rhino might belong to me. It does. My rhino has become so agitated in his cell due to the refusal to serve him KFC for lunch that the officers cannot go in to get him out for his interview. They have been in this situation for 2 hours. My rhino is not tiring. I end up at the cell door talking to him. He calms a bit (I promise KFC at the earliest opportunity- he has simple needs). I am able to get into his cell at which point, the trainee guard locks me in the cell with him. We spend a while chatting and eventually leave the cell calmly and complete the interview. He never got his KFC though. He was in custody from that day until the day I left my job, some 4 years later. In 30 years time, a large hungry rhino will be knocking on my door looking for a KFC.
7) Pimps and Posts. I am working at the large children's home. One of the older girls is sadly in the snare of a deeply unpleasant gentleman who makes a living from her. Police are involved, she is safe, he is out on bail. We are at Defcon 5 in terms of security. It is however handover time and all the other staff are in the staffroom. I am alone with the kids in the TV room. There is a knock at the door and I answer it.
I am greeted by a slightly narked looking gentleman of dubious appearance who appears to be brandishing a fence post. I am stumped. What to say? He appears unsure about how to proceed- I look very young. Perhaps I am a resident? I am similarly mystified. We look at each other.
"Has the wind brought it down?" I ask.
"No". He says.
"Can I help you with anything?" I ask.
"No. I've come to f**king kick off and kill that little *****", he explains.
Adopting my haughtiest and most no-nonsense tone, I bark, "Right. Well, everyone's in handover at the minute so can I ask you to come back later when there'll be more people around?"
He nods and walks off, gently placing the fence post by the wall. I sense that perhaps he might have missed a few classes in pimp school as I've had more intimidating double glazing salesmen.
Sadly later that day, as nobody thought to move the sodding post, one of the teenage boys living at the home went nuts and used it to smash all of the windows and one member of staff........never dull.......
I am greeted by a slightly narked looking gentleman of dubious appearance who appears to be brandishing a fence post. I am stumped. What to say? He appears unsure about how to proceed- I look very young. Perhaps I am a resident? I am similarly mystified. We look at each other.
"Has the wind brought it down?" I ask.
"No". He says.
"Can I help you with anything?" I ask.
"No. I've come to f**king kick off and kill that little *****", he explains.
Adopting my haughtiest and most no-nonsense tone, I bark, "Right. Well, everyone's in handover at the minute so can I ask you to come back later when there'll be more people around?"
He nods and walks off, gently placing the fence post by the wall. I sense that perhaps he might have missed a few classes in pimp school as I've had more intimidating double glazing salesmen.
Sadly later that day, as nobody thought to move the sodding post, one of the teenage boys living at the home went nuts and used it to smash all of the windows and one member of staff........never dull.......
8) I'm going to kick off. Teenagers in a rage generally give you a warning. They always, very considerately, tell you that they are going to 'kick off'. I am 9 months pregnant and the size of a house. One of my boys is in a very bad way and sadly, my declining one of his requests for cash is the straw that broke the camel's back. He flips. He is going to stab/kill/kick off/burn down he claims. Frankly, if he is going to do all that he says then he'll be kept busy for weeks.
I am hungry however and as he is 10th 'kick off' of the day, I've had enough. I draw myself up to my full 5ft 3 inches (he is 6ft +) and point out that I have got at least 4 stone on him and that if he wants the humiliation of being sat on and suffocated by an overweight, pregnant social worker then he can carry on. If he wishes to hold onto his dignity, he should bugger off for the day. He stops raging. He notes the pulsing vein on my forehead and surveys my rotund enormousness. He retreats. I head to Marks and Sparks for a sandwich. I might need an extra stone or two if he comes back so I double up on the carrot cake.
I am hungry however and as he is 10th 'kick off' of the day, I've had enough. I draw myself up to my full 5ft 3 inches (he is 6ft +) and point out that I have got at least 4 stone on him and that if he wants the humiliation of being sat on and suffocated by an overweight, pregnant social worker then he can carry on. If he wishes to hold onto his dignity, he should bugger off for the day. He stops raging. He notes the pulsing vein on my forehead and surveys my rotund enormousness. He retreats. I head to Marks and Sparks for a sandwich. I might need an extra stone or two if he comes back so I double up on the carrot cake.
9) Things I've ducked. Over the years I have had numerous things thrown at me by clients: Bin bags of possessions, toasters, broom, cutlery, tins of food, child's bike, various bits of paperwork, handbags (including my own), christmas pudding (in the pot), fence post, bricks.....I might be big but I'm agile.......
10) I've got a problem. An older client with a heroin habit arrives at the office door, looking uncomfortable and clearly under the influence of his most recent hit. We have a bit of a chat and it's clear that he is in some significant pain. I ask him if he's OK. He says that he thinks he's got a scratch that's gone a bit funny on his leg. I invite him in and say that he's in luck as the nurse is visiting the project and I'll go and see if she can see him. I go upstairs but the nurse has sadly already gone. I go back to the kitchen to tell him but to my surprise, I am greeted by the sight of him stark naked from the waist down, high as kite with seemingly gangrenous genitals.
It later transpires that no fewer than 7 injection sites in his groin and penis (!!) had become infected and gangrene had started to take hold. He needed blood transfusions and skin grafts. The reports I had to write about the incident caused such hilarity that I believe that somewhere in an outreach office in South Yorkshire, they are framed. I still can't look at Toulouse Sausages in the supermarket without shuddering.
It later transpires that no fewer than 7 injection sites in his groin and penis (!!) had become infected and gangrene had started to take hold. He needed blood transfusions and skin grafts. The reports I had to write about the incident caused such hilarity that I believe that somewhere in an outreach office in South Yorkshire, they are framed. I still can't look at Toulouse Sausages in the supermarket without shuddering.
I visited a Nutritional Therapist this week to help with getting more healthy and her questionnaire asked me if there are any traumatic life events which might have led to issues for me with my diet. I sloped up to her receptionists desk,
"Excuse me, do you have an extra sheet of paper?"
"Excuse me, do you have an extra sheet of paper?"
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Toffifee tangles and blood-splattered sprouts
I am TOTALLY over Easter.
Unlike Christmas which has the vague possibility of offsetting endless chocolate ingestion through the consumption of traditional healthy greenery such as sprouts, Easter is just pure greed. Chocolate coated, mini egg rattling, Lindt bunny smashing (seriously, the frikkin ears on those things are reinforced), Cadbury loaded GREED.
This whole episode has got me thinking about the stupid things we do that we know are bad for us but which we do anyway.
1) Diet coke. It can clean coins in minutes, dissolve teeth in days and has an ingredient list generally unchanged since 1883 aside from the removal (they tell us) of cocaine. Yet we drink it. Some of us drink so much of it that we are lucky to still have bones.
2) Alcohol. I should confess at the this point that I am teetotal and pretty much always have been. I used to say that I was allergic to alcohol but actually I have never been tested for this. At the age of 14, I drank a glass of 20/20 and was drunk for 2 days. A few weeks later I repeated the sorry saga with Hoopers Hooch. Ditto. I get drunk on posh brandy butter at Christmas and I stay drunk for days. Years ago, a GP suggested that I might not have the enzyme that breaks down alcohol and similar sugars and therefore it stays in my system for a LONG time (I get hyper on skittles. Less 'embrace the rainbow'. more embrace strangers and run naked through the park.......). Regardless of the cause, a week long hangover at age 15 left me teetotal. Sobriety has allowed me to observe, for many years, the truly mindblowing impact of alcohol on my fellow man........ it leaves me with one question every time I am out on a weekend night......WHY?????
3) Reading the Daily Mail website. It is addictive trash. You know you shouldn't do it but you do. Result: Complete and total despair for the future of the human race.
4) Pregnancy. It seems a good idea at the time. It generally ends with childbirth and then follows up with unending childcare.
5) Being persuaded to have a consultation at the beauty counter. Seems a good idea at the time. Results in spectacularly transvestite-esque appearance for the duration of your shopping trip and the purchase of expensive cosmetics in truly heart-stopping shades which never see the light of day again.
6) Christmas with family. Fantastic for the first 20 minutes after they/you arrive. By the time the turkey carcass is cold, you remember why we only have it once a year. If it it was any more than that, the sprouts would be blood splattered.
7) Waxing. Anything. Totally not worth it.
8) 'Popping' into Poundland. You emerge with £30 of Haribo, loo cleaner, kids craft materials that will stain the kids and the furniture, weird baking accessories that will warp in the dishwasher and a box of Toffifee. You went in for a solitary bottle of Johnsons Baby Wash.
9) Opening a store card.
10) Answering your landline between 10am and 4pm. There is never, ever anybody at the other end that you wanted to speak to.
11) Making lists. Only lethargy and despair can result. See above.
Unlike Christmas which has the vague possibility of offsetting endless chocolate ingestion through the consumption of traditional healthy greenery such as sprouts, Easter is just pure greed. Chocolate coated, mini egg rattling, Lindt bunny smashing (seriously, the frikkin ears on those things are reinforced), Cadbury loaded GREED.
This whole episode has got me thinking about the stupid things we do that we know are bad for us but which we do anyway.
1) Diet coke. It can clean coins in minutes, dissolve teeth in days and has an ingredient list generally unchanged since 1883 aside from the removal (they tell us) of cocaine. Yet we drink it. Some of us drink so much of it that we are lucky to still have bones.
2) Alcohol. I should confess at the this point that I am teetotal and pretty much always have been. I used to say that I was allergic to alcohol but actually I have never been tested for this. At the age of 14, I drank a glass of 20/20 and was drunk for 2 days. A few weeks later I repeated the sorry saga with Hoopers Hooch. Ditto. I get drunk on posh brandy butter at Christmas and I stay drunk for days. Years ago, a GP suggested that I might not have the enzyme that breaks down alcohol and similar sugars and therefore it stays in my system for a LONG time (I get hyper on skittles. Less 'embrace the rainbow'. more embrace strangers and run naked through the park.......). Regardless of the cause, a week long hangover at age 15 left me teetotal. Sobriety has allowed me to observe, for many years, the truly mindblowing impact of alcohol on my fellow man........ it leaves me with one question every time I am out on a weekend night......WHY?????
3) Reading the Daily Mail website. It is addictive trash. You know you shouldn't do it but you do. Result: Complete and total despair for the future of the human race.
4) Pregnancy. It seems a good idea at the time. It generally ends with childbirth and then follows up with unending childcare.
5) Being persuaded to have a consultation at the beauty counter. Seems a good idea at the time. Results in spectacularly transvestite-esque appearance for the duration of your shopping trip and the purchase of expensive cosmetics in truly heart-stopping shades which never see the light of day again.
6) Christmas with family. Fantastic for the first 20 minutes after they/you arrive. By the time the turkey carcass is cold, you remember why we only have it once a year. If it it was any more than that, the sprouts would be blood splattered.
7) Waxing. Anything. Totally not worth it.
8) 'Popping' into Poundland. You emerge with £30 of Haribo, loo cleaner, kids craft materials that will stain the kids and the furniture, weird baking accessories that will warp in the dishwasher and a box of Toffifee. You went in for a solitary bottle of Johnsons Baby Wash.
9) Opening a store card.
10) Answering your landline between 10am and 4pm. There is never, ever anybody at the other end that you wanted to speak to.
11) Making lists. Only lethargy and despair can result. See above.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Regrets, I've had a few........mainly egg shaped........
It is a shame-faced blogger tapping at these keys........and a slightly sticky one at that. Easter Bunny be buggered- it was an Easter T-rex and it came laden with more Lindt bunnies than is entirely wholesome. I am ashamed and I am scared.
If I had a waggon, I'd have fallen off it into molton chocolate as opposed to mud. I had friends staying over Easter and we spent time the night before Easter Sunday, making bunny paw prints and sticking them to floor leading up to the dining room table which was laden with Cadbury's finest. It would have been more honest to put 2 eggs on the table with a post-it note saying "Kids, you had a tonne more eggs but Mummy will be eating those chocolaty lovelies so content yourself with these two. Life sucks".
I have however tried to redeem myself today but failed horribly. There is a chocolate biscuit cake which is significantly less snug in its container and there is a headless Lindt bunny screaming silently from behind the spaghetti jar............it's not been pretty.
It is however astonishing at just how much sugar fuels the 'voice' My inner voice, the liar within, is SCREAMING at me that I actually am not in trouble. You see I have just purchased a size 14 dress....and it fits. I have just purchased size 14 pants and they fit. The fact however that my size 22 (!) pajama top is a bit more snug than it was 2 weeks ago and that my jeans are leaving a bit of a red equator line round my middle, I am ignoring because the voice tells me I am trim and lean.
The recycle bin however tells me that I am the sole reason for Kraft/Cadbury's massively increased budget for their staff Christmas party this year so who do I believe??
It has got me thinking about regret. All of the self help guides tell you that you should only regret things that you haven't done......I am yet to be convinced. I have yet to lie awake at night worrying because I haven't bungee jumped or sneaked across the Tibetan border. There have been MANY sleepless nights however when I fretted about entirely demented things that I HAVE done. It stared young.......and there is a theme
1) "I have a pet monkey and he lives in my house". Aged 5 this was completely false information I gave to Daniel Bowbyes, my then best friend. Daniel informed his mother of this incredible development in a sleepy Wiltshire town, his discovery of a veritable zoo only yards from his house. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #1: Will Daniel's mum ask my mum about our (non existent) pet monkey?? She did. I have never been allowed to forget this.
2) Cheating at the reading cards. Aged 7. Our VERY scary teacher had devised a complex reading scheme which required you to work gradually through some word cards, recording and evidencing our progress in our books (jeeeeez). I became bored with this nonsense (seriously, the youth of today do not know how easy they've got it.......phonics.....dancing letters......no bloody cards for them....) and decided to essentially cheat my way through the cards thus ending my torment. I forget the details but I fear that aged 7, my talents at duplicity were poor. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #2-4: The build up to CARDGATE. I was caught, I was punished. I had to start at the beginning of the poxy, sodding card scheme again.
3) Too many occasions to mention: Not doing homework. Furiously scribbling it down during registration/before school/ during the lesson itself.......I was not a naughty student by any means (bit of a sucker really) but had a dreadful memory and frankly, couldn't be arsed the night before. SLEEPLESS NIGHT # 4-999.
4) Aged 16. Somehow get romantically entangled with a lad aged (ahem) 26. It was brief, he was not attractive and frankly, I still get a bit nervous watching Crimewatch (he's totally been on there by now). He turned up at my house one night with a motorbike helmet and no motorbike- this remains unexplained. My Dad gave him a lift home later that night during which he mentioned that his GCSE's had been some 10 years previously. My dad was under the impression that he was 19 years old. Dad was entirely silent for the entire journey home and went straight to bed when we got back. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #1000. I fully expected my (very) Catholic mother to bundle me off to a convent in remote Ireland the next morning (I'd already been dragged to confession on several occasions since the age of 15). I broke up with him the next day. My dad saw fit to mention this little gem during his speech at my wedding. Excellent.
5) Aged 17. The party. Mum and Dad go away with my friend Claire's mum and Dad to France for a few days. Younger brothers are dispatched to the care of Claire's granny. Claire and I have the house to ourselves. Inevitable occurs. Party organised. Large number of people turn up. Lots of alcohol. Power cut. Drunk people light candles. Wax frikkin everywhere. Friend falls out of back door taking door frame with them. Other friend gets in washing machine. Expensive parental booze consumed. Lots of noise. Inexplicable and unmovable marks on wall occur. Vomit in unexpected places. Fit lad that I REALLY fancy snogs another friend. Other mate thinks that bedroom floor is the toilet in the middle of the night..........it was clear by 9pm that there was no way on God's green earth that my parents would NOT find out about this party. Sleepless night # 1001-1003. House is cleaned up (have you every ironed newspaper over an an ENTIRE house worth of carpet to remove candle wax?? I have) and only real evidence is the door frame and my guilty face. They find out. They are still wary about leaving me alone in their house and I am 33 with 2 young children.
This only takes us up to 1996. There are 16 years of additional regret which I have neither the time nor energy and you neither the time nor interest to peruse. Until we get to Easter 2012......egg-gate. Regrets, I've had a few.........without fail, they have been regrets about things I have DONE.......bloody self-help hippies know sod all.
If I had a waggon, I'd have fallen off it into molton chocolate as opposed to mud. I had friends staying over Easter and we spent time the night before Easter Sunday, making bunny paw prints and sticking them to floor leading up to the dining room table which was laden with Cadbury's finest. It would have been more honest to put 2 eggs on the table with a post-it note saying "Kids, you had a tonne more eggs but Mummy will be eating those chocolaty lovelies so content yourself with these two. Life sucks".
I have however tried to redeem myself today but failed horribly. There is a chocolate biscuit cake which is significantly less snug in its container and there is a headless Lindt bunny screaming silently from behind the spaghetti jar............it's not been pretty.
It is however astonishing at just how much sugar fuels the 'voice' My inner voice, the liar within, is SCREAMING at me that I actually am not in trouble. You see I have just purchased a size 14 dress....and it fits. I have just purchased size 14 pants and they fit. The fact however that my size 22 (!) pajama top is a bit more snug than it was 2 weeks ago and that my jeans are leaving a bit of a red equator line round my middle, I am ignoring because the voice tells me I am trim and lean.
The recycle bin however tells me that I am the sole reason for Kraft/Cadbury's massively increased budget for their staff Christmas party this year so who do I believe??
It has got me thinking about regret. All of the self help guides tell you that you should only regret things that you haven't done......I am yet to be convinced. I have yet to lie awake at night worrying because I haven't bungee jumped or sneaked across the Tibetan border. There have been MANY sleepless nights however when I fretted about entirely demented things that I HAVE done. It stared young.......and there is a theme
1) "I have a pet monkey and he lives in my house". Aged 5 this was completely false information I gave to Daniel Bowbyes, my then best friend. Daniel informed his mother of this incredible development in a sleepy Wiltshire town, his discovery of a veritable zoo only yards from his house. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #1: Will Daniel's mum ask my mum about our (non existent) pet monkey?? She did. I have never been allowed to forget this.
2) Cheating at the reading cards. Aged 7. Our VERY scary teacher had devised a complex reading scheme which required you to work gradually through some word cards, recording and evidencing our progress in our books (jeeeeez). I became bored with this nonsense (seriously, the youth of today do not know how easy they've got it.......phonics.....dancing letters......no bloody cards for them....) and decided to essentially cheat my way through the cards thus ending my torment. I forget the details but I fear that aged 7, my talents at duplicity were poor. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #2-4: The build up to CARDGATE. I was caught, I was punished. I had to start at the beginning of the poxy, sodding card scheme again.
3) Too many occasions to mention: Not doing homework. Furiously scribbling it down during registration/before school/ during the lesson itself.......I was not a naughty student by any means (bit of a sucker really) but had a dreadful memory and frankly, couldn't be arsed the night before. SLEEPLESS NIGHT # 4-999.
4) Aged 16. Somehow get romantically entangled with a lad aged (ahem) 26. It was brief, he was not attractive and frankly, I still get a bit nervous watching Crimewatch (he's totally been on there by now). He turned up at my house one night with a motorbike helmet and no motorbike- this remains unexplained. My Dad gave him a lift home later that night during which he mentioned that his GCSE's had been some 10 years previously. My dad was under the impression that he was 19 years old. Dad was entirely silent for the entire journey home and went straight to bed when we got back. SLEEPLESS NIGHT #1000. I fully expected my (very) Catholic mother to bundle me off to a convent in remote Ireland the next morning (I'd already been dragged to confession on several occasions since the age of 15). I broke up with him the next day. My dad saw fit to mention this little gem during his speech at my wedding. Excellent.
5) Aged 17. The party. Mum and Dad go away with my friend Claire's mum and Dad to France for a few days. Younger brothers are dispatched to the care of Claire's granny. Claire and I have the house to ourselves. Inevitable occurs. Party organised. Large number of people turn up. Lots of alcohol. Power cut. Drunk people light candles. Wax frikkin everywhere. Friend falls out of back door taking door frame with them. Other friend gets in washing machine. Expensive parental booze consumed. Lots of noise. Inexplicable and unmovable marks on wall occur. Vomit in unexpected places. Fit lad that I REALLY fancy snogs another friend. Other mate thinks that bedroom floor is the toilet in the middle of the night..........it was clear by 9pm that there was no way on God's green earth that my parents would NOT find out about this party. Sleepless night # 1001-1003. House is cleaned up (have you every ironed newspaper over an an ENTIRE house worth of carpet to remove candle wax?? I have) and only real evidence is the door frame and my guilty face. They find out. They are still wary about leaving me alone in their house and I am 33 with 2 young children.
This only takes us up to 1996. There are 16 years of additional regret which I have neither the time nor energy and you neither the time nor interest to peruse. Until we get to Easter 2012......egg-gate. Regrets, I've had a few.........without fail, they have been regrets about things I have DONE.......bloody self-help hippies know sod all.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Gait and GOOD GOD.
Life is genuinely full of pleasant surprises. It's the unpleasant ones that stick with us because we are all programmed to get a buzz from outrage/indignation but the pleasant ones are easy to find.
Summer weather in March- pleasant surprise. Re-remembering that the Jubilee means an extra Bank Holiday- pleasant surprise. Fitting into size 14 trousers- pleasant surprise. Realisation that Westfield Stratford is a mere 70 minutes from my front door- PLEASANT SURPRISE!! My husband would argue that this is a dangerous hazard as opposed to pleasant surprise but I would beg to differ. Shops.......EVERYWHERE!!!!! My best mate and I embarked on a Saturday spree and, aside from the fact that for the first 20 minutes she thought she was in the other London Westfield and couldn't work out why everything looked different (after 30 years of friendship with this woman who STILL gets confused by the film 'Sliding Doors', I was unsurprised by this latest revelation), it was a wicked trip.
Summer weather in March- pleasant surprise. Re-remembering that the Jubilee means an extra Bank Holiday- pleasant surprise. Fitting into size 14 trousers- pleasant surprise. Realisation that Westfield Stratford is a mere 70 minutes from my front door- PLEASANT SURPRISE!! My husband would argue that this is a dangerous hazard as opposed to pleasant surprise but I would beg to differ. Shops.......EVERYWHERE!!!!! My best mate and I embarked on a Saturday spree and, aside from the fact that for the first 20 minutes she thought she was in the other London Westfield and couldn't work out why everything looked different (after 30 years of friendship with this woman who STILL gets confused by the film 'Sliding Doors', I was unsurprised by this latest revelation), it was a wicked trip.
The reason for bringing this up, in addition to bolstering the UK retail economy, is that I visited 'The Sweatshop' (www.sweatshop.co.uk). Since starting to move at speed on a regular basis, I have been conscious that the cheap trainers which I carelessly purchased 2 years ago are probably not enhancing my (limited) ability. I'd heard about 'gait analysis' where in certain sports stores you can get expert advice on matching your running technique with the right shoes and I'd always fancied a go. This has become even more of an interest since I discovered that my ankle bones are actually just dropping off the the side of my foot. Seriously. If I stand still, the lumpy bit on the inside of each of my ankle joints are REALLY collapsing. It looks like my leg bones are going to hit the floor. I am Mrs. Potato leg and somebody has just stick a foot on the outside edge of each tree trunk.........My husband, with his usual concern for my welfare and well-being, raised this issue as I stood by the cooker one night. With a subtle “What the f**k is wrong with your legs”, he alerted me to a potential problem.
So, when my best mate told me that 'The Sweatshop' was where she had gone for a gait analysis a few years ago, I thought I'd give it a whirl as we passed the store in Westfield. A genuinely knowledgeable lad took pity on me and sorted out my analysis. He spent AGES moulding things to my feet (note to self, shave your legs before embarking on this activity as you have to roll your trousers up. He tried not to look shocked but I think my legs have alerted him to a level of female cosmetic slumminess that, due to youth and good looks, he has not yet encountered. There was a fleeting moment where he looked like he'd just been told that there was no Santa).
Then he got me to stand on a heat pad, run on a treadmill and filmed my ankles as I ran in various shoes. Even he couldn't hide his shock at the state of my ankles. With a polite, 'Yeah, it's pretty extreme', what he was really saying was “Holy hell woman, how can you walk in this decrepit state”. Ace. The technical term is 'pronated ankles'. Laymans term is 'knackered'. Anyway, 50 minutes later, I have a pair of shoes that I hope will turn back the tide of my ankle decay and some tips on my technique, having experienced an astonishing standard of retail service- another pleasant surprise.
Then he got me to stand on a heat pad, run on a treadmill and filmed my ankles as I ran in various shoes. Even he couldn't hide his shock at the state of my ankles. With a polite, 'Yeah, it's pretty extreme', what he was really saying was “Holy hell woman, how can you walk in this decrepit state”. Ace. The technical term is 'pronated ankles'. Laymans term is 'knackered'. Anyway, 50 minutes later, I have a pair of shoes that I hope will turn back the tide of my ankle decay and some tips on my technique, having experienced an astonishing standard of retail service- another pleasant surprise.
So I now have a new pair of shoes. After my runs and aerobics classes this week, my legs hurt in very different places from usual which I am taking as a good sign that some sort of remedial healing is taking place. Either than or my hairy legs have led a salesman to purposefully mislead me as some sort of punishment for crimes against Gillette.
I ran 5k in 39 minutes and plan to try 6 k this week. I am finding the treadmill more enjoyable than street running at the moment but I think this is because of the leg pain and because 5k routes in the dark are a bit tricky. Once the pain settles and now the nights are lighter, I hope to outdoor it more.
In terms of pleasant surprises, I have also been informed today by my 4 year old daughter that she has a 'tiny baby Jesus in her tummy and he's going to come out at Christmas in the hospital'.
Now, I wasn't present for the annunciation the first time round so I can't compare but as an entirely lapsed Catholic-flavoured Agnostic with an incredibly Catholic mother. I am a little anxious. My daughter becoming a pre-Primary School parent is one thing but additionally concerning it that I am assuming that as the Grandmother of Christ, I will be required to take part in a lot of press events.
This current de-podging has suddenly become more crucial- I can't do the front page of the Catholic Herald in size 14 Kelly Holmes jogging trousers. I am also concerned that perhaps my daughter wasn't the wisest choice for a holy vessel as last week she told her (very) Catholic grandmother that her (long deceased) great grandparents are not now angels but are instead mermaids who live in the sea.
A victory for Disney, zero points for religion.
Now, I wasn't present for the annunciation the first time round so I can't compare but as an entirely lapsed Catholic-flavoured Agnostic with an incredibly Catholic mother. I am a little anxious. My daughter becoming a pre-Primary School parent is one thing but additionally concerning it that I am assuming that as the Grandmother of Christ, I will be required to take part in a lot of press events.
This current de-podging has suddenly become more crucial- I can't do the front page of the Catholic Herald in size 14 Kelly Holmes jogging trousers. I am also concerned that perhaps my daughter wasn't the wisest choice for a holy vessel as last week she told her (very) Catholic grandmother that her (long deceased) great grandparents are not now angels but are instead mermaids who live in the sea.
A victory for Disney, zero points for religion.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Dames don't lie..........do they??
It's a bit weird writing a blog. During my teenage years, I was always somebody who wrote a fantastic diary for the first eight days of January..... pages of absolute bollocks, dilemmas about fashion choices and appearances smattered with angst and full of massive grammatical bombs. Then I lost motivation. Ah, much has changed as you can see.
This weeks blog is motivated by spousal indignation, always a stellar motivator.
ME: "Look at this mate. Size 14- LOOK! They fit. Size 14. SIZE 14"
HIM: *smirks* "Are you really getting excited about a pair of size 14 Lycra leggings that are designed to stretch??! Really?!"
ME: "Oh" *makes mental calculations about digging up patio and dragging a bloody corpse down the stairs to deposit it, without disturbing neighbours*
So, nothing like a dose of reality to motivate you.............It did however get me thinking about disappointments in life and led me to compile my top 10. It was surprisingly easy to compile. I fear this is not a good sign.
1) Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Total bollocks. Johnny's only ever un-enjoyable film. A perfect record ruined.
2) Rome. Amazing history but full of people trying to rob you blind and graffiti covering every surface that Ceasar didn't touch. Husband and brother got into fisticuffs with both a Centurion in full costume and a small gypsy pickpocket within a few minutes of arrival.........it set the tone.
3) Pregnancy. Natural process? My arse. Glowing?? Yup, just like radioactive slime- bright green. Ditto gas and air- load of rubbish.
4) Fake tan. No explanation needed.
5) Trips to Ikea. So much promise, so much choice, so much arguing that divorce is on the cards before you even get near the 49p tumblers and candles in the market place. We can no longer go together.
6) Any beauty product with 'firming' in the title. If you have an unattractive body part and want it both greasy and sticky but ultimately to remain unattractive, you will be satisfied with your purchase. Should you require some sort of cosmetic miracle, you will be most disappointed.
7) Big boobs. This whole process began with my best mate sitting in awestruck amazement as she got her entire head into one cup of my bra. I have always had big boobs- even when I was a slim jim. At the start of this process, my norks were a whopping 38J. I therefore feel more than qualified to offer this advice. Big boobs SUCK. As a gauche teenager, you get the uncomfortable stares and whistles. As an older teenager in nightclubs, you only pull wrong 'uns who haveone two track minds. As a new entrant into the world of work, there are genuinely no buttoned shirts that fit properly over big boobs. As a bride, you invariably look as if you have got 'Right Said Fred" trapped beneath your corset which aee not very wholesome or virginal. As a breastfeeding new mum, you are in very real danger of smothering your offspring. As a post natal blob, you are left with delightful feet warmers which require the type of scaffolding last seen constructing the London Eye. There are no benefits.
8) Hot summer weather. Burnt, sweaty, itchy, red eyed and dripping. I have also spent the last 10 summers overweight so add 'sartorially constricted' to that list. I am a DELIGHT in August.
9) Birthdays after the age of 30.
10) Expensive haircuts. Look AMAZING in the salon. You can never, ever EVER replicate the look again. After the first wash, it's game over. Return to 'cat dragged through hedge' style just with fewer split ends........and a much lighter wallet.
Yup, off to find that shovel and loosen a few patio slabs.......
This weeks blog is motivated by spousal indignation, always a stellar motivator.
ME: "Look at this mate. Size 14- LOOK! They fit. Size 14. SIZE 14"
HIM: *smirks* "Are you really getting excited about a pair of size 14 Lycra leggings that are designed to stretch??! Really?!"
ME: "Oh" *makes mental calculations about digging up patio and dragging a bloody corpse down the stairs to deposit it, without disturbing neighbours*
So, nothing like a dose of reality to motivate you.............It did however get me thinking about disappointments in life and led me to compile my top 10. It was surprisingly easy to compile. I fear this is not a good sign.
1) Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Total bollocks. Johnny's only ever un-enjoyable film. A perfect record ruined.
2) Rome. Amazing history but full of people trying to rob you blind and graffiti covering every surface that Ceasar didn't touch. Husband and brother got into fisticuffs with both a Centurion in full costume and a small gypsy pickpocket within a few minutes of arrival.........it set the tone.
3) Pregnancy. Natural process? My arse. Glowing?? Yup, just like radioactive slime- bright green. Ditto gas and air- load of rubbish.
4) Fake tan. No explanation needed.
5) Trips to Ikea. So much promise, so much choice, so much arguing that divorce is on the cards before you even get near the 49p tumblers and candles in the market place. We can no longer go together.
6) Any beauty product with 'firming' in the title. If you have an unattractive body part and want it both greasy and sticky but ultimately to remain unattractive, you will be satisfied with your purchase. Should you require some sort of cosmetic miracle, you will be most disappointed.
7) Big boobs. This whole process began with my best mate sitting in awestruck amazement as she got her entire head into one cup of my bra. I have always had big boobs- even when I was a slim jim. At the start of this process, my norks were a whopping 38J. I therefore feel more than qualified to offer this advice. Big boobs SUCK. As a gauche teenager, you get the uncomfortable stares and whistles. As an older teenager in nightclubs, you only pull wrong 'uns who have
8) Hot summer weather. Burnt, sweaty, itchy, red eyed and dripping. I have also spent the last 10 summers overweight so add 'sartorially constricted' to that list. I am a DELIGHT in August.
9) Birthdays after the age of 30.
10) Expensive haircuts. Look AMAZING in the salon. You can never, ever EVER replicate the look again. After the first wash, it's game over. Return to 'cat dragged through hedge' style just with fewer split ends........and a much lighter wallet.
Yup, off to find that shovel and loosen a few patio slabs.......
Friday, 2 March 2012
Horses for (3) courses (and pudding) .......
This week has been a trip down (repressed) memory lane. As I experiment with healthy cooking and eating and try to maintain order in the chaos of my life, I have had a few moments of reflection.
You see, I decided that if my weight loss is going to be a bloody slow process then I need to stay mentally motivated. My genius plan? To mentally rehash all of the weight related embarrassments that I have had in my life to shame myself into continued motivation,what a frikkin road trip of delights that proved to be. The upshot? It drove me to cake. Aces. Well done me. However, it may provide amusement/support/hilarity if I share these with you.........I see more cake in my immediate future.
1) The wedding Dress
It was the week before my wedding and after a year with frankly scant regard for the natural laws of weight loss, I was cruising through my wedding preparations with absolute certainty that my inability to lay off the pies would have absolutely no impact on my nuptial radiance or indeed girth.........eejit. Having been measured as a size 16 at the appointment a year ago, I had indeed embarked on Slimming World for a few months prior to the wedding. I felt smug. I had lost a whopping 4 lbs. I was to be a mere sylph on the big day. In my head the poor seamstress was weeping and stripping fabric from the dress with howls of,
"Never in my life have I met such a slim bride- how will I reduce it in time??" (clasps hands to head in theatrical manner).
What I had FAILED to account for was that in the period between the original appointment and the start of Slimming World, I had troughed like a Trojan and had increased my weight by at least three quarters of a stone. I may have lost 4lbs but I was still a good 6lbs heavier than when I was measured. You can see the problem. It did not end well. With just 7 days until the wedding, the dress did not do up. I wept and defended my weight loss (truly, I completely believed that I was a sylph) and my poor, lovely friend and bridesmaid had to endure me making catty remarks about the seamstresses accuracy and agreeing whilst secretly, she knew the truth.
She is a wonderful friend and to this day, she blames the shop when we talk about the dress- I will always love her for that. The shop INCREDIBLY obtained and provided the dress in the right size with no extra costs.I'm still confused about that. I never wrote to them to thank them........ungrateful cow.
2) Rolls and tarantulas
On our road trip honeymoon in the USA, we spent a night at the Grand Canyon on a ranch. Part of this involved a horseback ride across the dessert. Ace. It has subsequently transpired that I am allergic to horses (see point 3) but at the time, my face swelling up and my eyes streaming and itching like the devil himself were just put down to hayfever.......As delightful as these symptoms made me look, I had also chosen to wear an entirely inappropriate t-shirt which was at least a size too small and paired with equally unflattering pedal pusher jeans. I was also sunburnt. I was looking guuuuuuuuuuuuud. We were riding our horses with another couple from Liverpool who were really sweet. As a red faced, blind, itching, sausage in an overly tight skin, you can imagine I was having a LUSH time. Then the bloke from Liverpool spotted a real, live tarantula scurrying across the path........it was at this point of pure, itchy, burnt, blind terror that the Native American guide felt that a romantic photograph would be appropriate, taken from underneath my horse to really capture all the rolls of flesh around my chin and waistband. I have tried to bring myself to scan in the photo into this blog post but despite the level of honesty and self exposure I am aiming for, I actually can't bring myself to to do it. It is too awful. I look like somebody has maced Jabba the Hut, stuck him on a horse, overdone the blusher and then given him the fright of his life. Fantastic.
3) The heavy hen
My lovely friend was having her hen do in Edinburgh and a horse ride in the nearby countryside was planned. Unbeknownst to me I was nearly 2 months pregnant with my daughter but was at least 4 stone overweight. The hen do comprised a lovely group of girls, none of whom were larger than a size 12. I was a size 18. One by one we were fitted for hats- none fitted me. I should point out that whilst my cheeks and chin are sizable, the circumference of my head is not 'fat' it is naturally MASSIVE. My mother never fails to tell me this on my birthday......it's a yearly high point.
Having got a hat from what I suspect was a 'special' cupboard, we were taken out into the yard to meet our steeds. One by one, the little ponies trotted out and one by one, svelte ladies got on board (I don't speak equestrian- do you 'board' a horse??). I waited. And waited. Everyone had a horse but me. Then, very subtly, the ground began to shake. The vibrations and indeed the accompanying noise increased until I became extremely worried- Edinburgh was once a volcano, perhaps we were having a Dante's Peak moment?? At the point at which I thought it might be time to start running, a horse the size of 2 double decker buses was brought through the yard with at least 4 stable hands holding onto it. I forget its name- it was something like 'Goliath'. This was to be my 3rd time ever on a horse- I was still recovering from the Grand Canyon trip.
The stable hand laughed and said, "He's a bit lively today, we'll take it steady if we can but whatever you do, don't panic". Frikkin ace. And so with a heavy heart and by now streaming eyes and nose, the giant hen, in her giant hat got on her giant horse. Wonderful.
4) Oooooh, due soon then!
I was 3 months pregnant with my son. A stage of pregnancy where a bump is imperceptible to anyone except the pregnant woman who is DESPERATE to show so that people can fuss over her (come on, we all know it's true). I did not have this problem. I genuinely looked 7 months pregnant. I had piled on so much weight that frankly, I looked pregnant between pregnancies but at 3 months pregnant, I actually looked like I was almost done. In this hormonally charged, emotionally fragile period in my life, I had not one, not two, not three but FOUR women give me knowing looks and say 'not long to go now love- this end bit is the worst isn't it". Ace.
5) Tummy control pant FAIL
My lovely mates were getting married in a fairly compact registry office where seats were limited and so a few of us were lingering around by the door. It was the first time my and the boy had been to a 'do' since our son was born 4 months before. I had hauled myself into the sort of tummy control pants which smooth your tummy in a way but also manage to make every part of you a little fatter to compensate- spreading the fat around as opposed to hiding it.
One of our mates was heavily pregnant and the best man had been told to find a seat for the heavily pregnant friend (who the best man didn't know) and take her to it.........you can see where this is going.
I was duly approached and told that a seat was reserved for me as it wasn't fair for a woman in my condition to have to stand. My husband and my other mate who was with us fell on the floor in paroxysms of laughter not often seen in a registry office on a Saturday morning......snot and dribble was involved. The (very lovely) best man was MORTIFIED. I was strangely zen about it and genuinely wasn't offended (I was too busy wondering where I'd put the receipt for the bloody pants) but have made a mental note that when old age and incapacity strike both my husband and indeed RD (you know who you are.....!!), bloody revenge will be dealt out.
It is these little nuggets of happiness that will keep me going through this (more than likely) long journey to slenderhood. I didn't have a moment this January of any sort of epiphany- there was no similarly embarrassing or shaming incident to prompt this journey. It was just the realization that I have actually spent the last eight years overweight and if I don't address it, these embarrassing incidents will very likely become an occupational hazard.
I should point out that I am MORE than able to embarrass myself without being overweight. Aged 16, I tried to break up a nightclub fight between two of my male friends. I was confident that with the dazzling allure of my metallic Miss. Selfridge lycra dress and spice girl heels, I could wow them into peace. I could not. The bouncers ran in from both sides, knocking the boys to the floor and me with them. It was a foam party and we all went under the foam. They were dragged out and I was nowhere to be seen. I was fished out of the foam by my confused best mate with my dress over my head and covered in one of the boys' blood and lager.
Embarrassment is an old friend of mine.......when I got home, my dad thought I'd been shot. That would have been a less humiliating explanation.
I write this to raise a smile and to point out that I am all of the parts of me, in this current incarnation. I am the sixteen year old foam-party scrapper, I am the eighteen year old podium poppet in her Lycra, I am the twenty-four year old snuggled up on the sofa snaffling ice-cream and changing her physiology through sloth, I am the bride in denial and I am the mum-of-two who loves to write and thumps through the days causing chaos. I'm all of her.
And she's trouble.
You see, I decided that if my weight loss is going to be a bloody slow process then I need to stay mentally motivated. My genius plan? To mentally rehash all of the weight related embarrassments that I have had in my life to shame myself into continued motivation,what a frikkin road trip of delights that proved to be. The upshot? It drove me to cake. Aces. Well done me. However, it may provide amusement/support/hilarity if I share these with you.........I see more cake in my immediate future.
1) The wedding Dress
It was the week before my wedding and after a year with frankly scant regard for the natural laws of weight loss, I was cruising through my wedding preparations with absolute certainty that my inability to lay off the pies would have absolutely no impact on my nuptial radiance or indeed girth.........eejit. Having been measured as a size 16 at the appointment a year ago, I had indeed embarked on Slimming World for a few months prior to the wedding. I felt smug. I had lost a whopping 4 lbs. I was to be a mere sylph on the big day. In my head the poor seamstress was weeping and stripping fabric from the dress with howls of,
"Never in my life have I met such a slim bride- how will I reduce it in time??" (clasps hands to head in theatrical manner).
What I had FAILED to account for was that in the period between the original appointment and the start of Slimming World, I had troughed like a Trojan and had increased my weight by at least three quarters of a stone. I may have lost 4lbs but I was still a good 6lbs heavier than when I was measured. You can see the problem. It did not end well. With just 7 days until the wedding, the dress did not do up. I wept and defended my weight loss (truly, I completely believed that I was a sylph) and my poor, lovely friend and bridesmaid had to endure me making catty remarks about the seamstresses accuracy and agreeing whilst secretly, she knew the truth.
She is a wonderful friend and to this day, she blames the shop when we talk about the dress- I will always love her for that. The shop INCREDIBLY obtained and provided the dress in the right size with no extra costs.I'm still confused about that. I never wrote to them to thank them........ungrateful cow.
2) Rolls and tarantulas
On our road trip honeymoon in the USA, we spent a night at the Grand Canyon on a ranch. Part of this involved a horseback ride across the dessert. Ace. It has subsequently transpired that I am allergic to horses (see point 3) but at the time, my face swelling up and my eyes streaming and itching like the devil himself were just put down to hayfever.......As delightful as these symptoms made me look, I had also chosen to wear an entirely inappropriate t-shirt which was at least a size too small and paired with equally unflattering pedal pusher jeans. I was also sunburnt. I was looking guuuuuuuuuuuuud. We were riding our horses with another couple from Liverpool who were really sweet. As a red faced, blind, itching, sausage in an overly tight skin, you can imagine I was having a LUSH time. Then the bloke from Liverpool spotted a real, live tarantula scurrying across the path........it was at this point of pure, itchy, burnt, blind terror that the Native American guide felt that a romantic photograph would be appropriate, taken from underneath my horse to really capture all the rolls of flesh around my chin and waistband. I have tried to bring myself to scan in the photo into this blog post but despite the level of honesty and self exposure I am aiming for, I actually can't bring myself to to do it. It is too awful. I look like somebody has maced Jabba the Hut, stuck him on a horse, overdone the blusher and then given him the fright of his life. Fantastic.
3) The heavy hen
My lovely friend was having her hen do in Edinburgh and a horse ride in the nearby countryside was planned. Unbeknownst to me I was nearly 2 months pregnant with my daughter but was at least 4 stone overweight. The hen do comprised a lovely group of girls, none of whom were larger than a size 12. I was a size 18. One by one we were fitted for hats- none fitted me. I should point out that whilst my cheeks and chin are sizable, the circumference of my head is not 'fat' it is naturally MASSIVE. My mother never fails to tell me this on my birthday......it's a yearly high point.
Having got a hat from what I suspect was a 'special' cupboard, we were taken out into the yard to meet our steeds. One by one, the little ponies trotted out and one by one, svelte ladies got on board (I don't speak equestrian- do you 'board' a horse??). I waited. And waited. Everyone had a horse but me. Then, very subtly, the ground began to shake. The vibrations and indeed the accompanying noise increased until I became extremely worried- Edinburgh was once a volcano, perhaps we were having a Dante's Peak moment?? At the point at which I thought it might be time to start running, a horse the size of 2 double decker buses was brought through the yard with at least 4 stable hands holding onto it. I forget its name- it was something like 'Goliath'. This was to be my 3rd time ever on a horse- I was still recovering from the Grand Canyon trip.
The stable hand laughed and said, "He's a bit lively today, we'll take it steady if we can but whatever you do, don't panic". Frikkin ace. And so with a heavy heart and by now streaming eyes and nose, the giant hen, in her giant hat got on her giant horse. Wonderful.
4) Oooooh, due soon then!
I was 3 months pregnant with my son. A stage of pregnancy where a bump is imperceptible to anyone except the pregnant woman who is DESPERATE to show so that people can fuss over her (come on, we all know it's true). I did not have this problem. I genuinely looked 7 months pregnant. I had piled on so much weight that frankly, I looked pregnant between pregnancies but at 3 months pregnant, I actually looked like I was almost done. In this hormonally charged, emotionally fragile period in my life, I had not one, not two, not three but FOUR women give me knowing looks and say 'not long to go now love- this end bit is the worst isn't it". Ace.
5) Tummy control pant FAIL
My lovely mates were getting married in a fairly compact registry office where seats were limited and so a few of us were lingering around by the door. It was the first time my and the boy had been to a 'do' since our son was born 4 months before. I had hauled myself into the sort of tummy control pants which smooth your tummy in a way but also manage to make every part of you a little fatter to compensate- spreading the fat around as opposed to hiding it.
One of our mates was heavily pregnant and the best man had been told to find a seat for the heavily pregnant friend (who the best man didn't know) and take her to it.........you can see where this is going.
I was duly approached and told that a seat was reserved for me as it wasn't fair for a woman in my condition to have to stand. My husband and my other mate who was with us fell on the floor in paroxysms of laughter not often seen in a registry office on a Saturday morning......snot and dribble was involved. The (very lovely) best man was MORTIFIED. I was strangely zen about it and genuinely wasn't offended (I was too busy wondering where I'd put the receipt for the bloody pants) but have made a mental note that when old age and incapacity strike both my husband and indeed RD (you know who you are.....!!), bloody revenge will be dealt out.
It is these little nuggets of happiness that will keep me going through this (more than likely) long journey to slenderhood. I didn't have a moment this January of any sort of epiphany- there was no similarly embarrassing or shaming incident to prompt this journey. It was just the realization that I have actually spent the last eight years overweight and if I don't address it, these embarrassing incidents will very likely become an occupational hazard.
I should point out that I am MORE than able to embarrass myself without being overweight. Aged 16, I tried to break up a nightclub fight between two of my male friends. I was confident that with the dazzling allure of my metallic Miss. Selfridge lycra dress and spice girl heels, I could wow them into peace. I could not. The bouncers ran in from both sides, knocking the boys to the floor and me with them. It was a foam party and we all went under the foam. They were dragged out and I was nowhere to be seen. I was fished out of the foam by my confused best mate with my dress over my head and covered in one of the boys' blood and lager.
Embarrassment is an old friend of mine.......when I got home, my dad thought I'd been shot. That would have been a less humiliating explanation.
I write this to raise a smile and to point out that I am all of the parts of me, in this current incarnation. I am the sixteen year old foam-party scrapper, I am the eighteen year old podium poppet in her Lycra, I am the twenty-four year old snuggled up on the sofa snaffling ice-cream and changing her physiology through sloth, I am the bride in denial and I am the mum-of-two who loves to write and thumps through the days causing chaos. I'm all of her.
And she's trouble.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
In the beginning..........
When your best friend's head fits entirely into one cup of your bra, with space for her ears, you can come to one of two conclusions.......1) your friend has an abnormally small head or 2) your boobs, and indeed the rest of you, has reached such gargantuan proportions that frankly, Greenpeace should be involved in some capacity.
My best friend is a loon but, God love her, is in possession of a fairly average sized head. That leaves only one conclusion to draw..
12 years ago, I looked like this...........
Today, I er, don't. I mean, don't get me wrong, this physical evolution is something I knew would happen. You can't remain slim and pneumatic when your physical exertions deplete from nightly (oh yes) clubbing marathons to getting a little 'huffy and puffy' when you haul your carcass to the freezer on the hunt for Ben and indeed Jerry.
The reason for this transformation from a size 10 to a size 20 are numerous and frankly, mundane. I ate too much and I moved too little. I also did this.......
twice............
So today I am here. I have tried slimming clubs (three times), a personal trainer (briefly), I have joined numerous gyms and for a short while managed 3 classes a week, I have dieted (unsuccessfully) and have got a truly astonishing collection of tummy reducing knickers...........not much success thus far.
To be BRUTALLY honest, I think I might be happy to just reinforce the sofa and buy a rag on a stick if were not for the following:
- I cannnot get bras to fit. I am a 40HH but no bras fit me. I am the cause of many a Debenhams/Marks and Spencer/Bravissimo employees nervous breakdown......
- I do not like looking like Miss. Trunchbull from 'Matilda' in EVERY photo that is taken of me
- I can no longer see parts of my body.
- I worry about having a stroke
- I want to NOT be the largest girl on nights out/in exercise classes/ at parties/ in the shopping centre
- I would like to be able to go out without underwear which starts at my ankle and ends at my neck and which gradually rolls down/up as the evening progresses.
- My lovely brother in law and his gorgeous missus are getting married in August. My husband is the best man, my 4 year old daughter is the flower girl and my son is the ringeater bearer. I would like to not be the marquee.
- My friend is having a mega party in June. I went to the last one that they had in a size 20 taffeta tent with a hairdo that made Hilary Clinton look girly. I would like to look better this time.
I have had two children, I have always had massive knockers, I am fundamentally lazy, I have a deep rooted fear that dramatic weight loss will leave me looking like a shar pei as I have REALLY rubbish skin elasticity and consequently, I do not wish/hope to return to size 10. It's just that reducing to a bra size that doesn't require a forklift would be a big Brucey Bonus.
So I'm going to work at it. And I'm going to write. I love writing, I've always loved it. I love the way that the words ripple out of my head and I can get them to sculpt and flow into formations which paint a delicate picture or which convey and subtle tone.
I want to sculpt myself in the same way but honestly, that's a serious task that takes effort. However, if my physical picture is to become as sculpted as my written one, I need to crack the chuff on.
My name is not actually Nia but it fits the voice that helps me to shape the words in my head.
I am Nia and I write stuff. I hope you like it x
My best friend is a loon but, God love her, is in possession of a fairly average sized head. That leaves only one conclusion to draw..
12 years ago, I looked like this...........
Today, I er, don't. I mean, don't get me wrong, this physical evolution is something I knew would happen. You can't remain slim and pneumatic when your physical exertions deplete from nightly (oh yes) clubbing marathons to getting a little 'huffy and puffy' when you haul your carcass to the freezer on the hunt for Ben and indeed Jerry.
So today I am here. I have tried slimming clubs (three times), a personal trainer (briefly), I have joined numerous gyms and for a short while managed 3 classes a week, I have dieted (unsuccessfully) and have got a truly astonishing collection of tummy reducing knickers...........not much success thus far.
To be BRUTALLY honest, I think I might be happy to just reinforce the sofa and buy a rag on a stick if were not for the following:
- I cannnot get bras to fit. I am a 40HH but no bras fit me. I am the cause of many a Debenhams/Marks and Spencer/Bravissimo employees nervous breakdown......
- I do not like looking like Miss. Trunchbull from 'Matilda' in EVERY photo that is taken of me
- I can no longer see parts of my body.
- I worry about having a stroke
- I want to NOT be the largest girl on nights out/in exercise classes/ at parties/ in the shopping centre
- I would like to be able to go out without underwear which starts at my ankle and ends at my neck and which gradually rolls down/up as the evening progresses.
- My lovely brother in law and his gorgeous missus are getting married in August. My husband is the best man, my 4 year old daughter is the flower girl and my son is the ring
- My friend is having a mega party in June. I went to the last one that they had in a size 20 taffeta tent with a hairdo that made Hilary Clinton look girly. I would like to look better this time.
I have had two children, I have always had massive knockers, I am fundamentally lazy, I have a deep rooted fear that dramatic weight loss will leave me looking like a shar pei as I have REALLY rubbish skin elasticity and consequently, I do not wish/hope to return to size 10. It's just that reducing to a bra size that doesn't require a forklift would be a big Brucey Bonus.
So I'm going to work at it. And I'm going to write. I love writing, I've always loved it. I love the way that the words ripple out of my head and I can get them to sculpt and flow into formations which paint a delicate picture or which convey and subtle tone.
I want to sculpt myself in the same way but honestly, that's a serious task that takes effort. However, if my physical picture is to become as sculpted as my written one, I need to crack the chuff on.
My name is not actually Nia but it fits the voice that helps me to shape the words in my head.
I am Nia and I write stuff. I hope you like it x
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