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.
Thursday 19 April 2012
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.
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