It's not what you say but the way you say it.....

When you have an accent that makes you sound like a cross between Nanny from Count Duckula ("Oooooooh Ducky-poos") and Stella ("alright presh") with the additional bonus of an increasingly noticeable West Laaaaaaaandan twang, there are some avenues of employment which start to become inaccessible. Sex chat line host ("awight big boy, there's lovely, you got a gurt big un, ya get me".......the horror, can you imagine........)................news presenter ("it's been a well lush day for the economy my lovers, innit boom ting")................translator at the UN ("I ant got a clue what he's saying presh but he is all up in your grill, brrap brrap")..........I could go on but I won't.....not least of all because my knowledge of street slang has been severely depleted by 2 years away from social work......Now don't get me wrong, I haven't yet reached Nadine Coyle levels of incomprehensibility BUT I am one small regional move away from aural Armageddon..........

My accent has resulted in a complete inability to 'fly under the radar'. I have genuinely had the experience of a Halifax call centre employee remembering me from previous calls by virtue of my accent alone- just think about how many people a week they speak to............jesus...........It has also rendered the subjects of my wrath immobile with laughter as my voice gets higher in tone and more Welsh the more angry I become.....I eventually sound like Alvin the Chipmunk after a spell living in the valleys..........it is neither awe inspiring nor likely to instill terror........it was only during my pregnancies when I had a good 5 stone advantage over ANYONE who I met, that I was taken seriously when riled and even then, they smirked at me from a safe distance.......

When you combine the auditory assault with the er, visual spectacular that is me it is QUITE the first impression....this concerns me.........in the not too distant future, I will be returning to the big bad outside world after a period of fairly cloistered existence as a childminder. I will have to undergo my first job interviews for the best part of 8 years......I will be required to look and sound intelligent......hmmmmmmm. The world has changed and I am not sure it's ready to take me back just yet. The problem that I have is that I love being a  social worker and I particularly love working with teenagers.....they are however not a demographic known to a) hold back on their opinions and b) be mindful of the fragile egos of portly middle aged ginger ladies who have spent the last 2 years wiping bums................I am not so much 'street' as 'bridle path' at this point in my life and it is additionally unfortunate that the jobs I intend to pursue involve working with gangs.............oh they are going to frikkin embrace me...........as if their lives aren't tough enough.......

There is one factor though whose influence I have come to depend on to some degree.........we'll call it the 'Dangerous Minds' factor. In that 1990's film, a svelte and groomed Michelle  Pffiefer gains the trust and respect of her hardened, disenfranchised students. That film stank like 5 day old fish but wasn't just the awful script or the dire acting that didn't ring true in that movie- Michelle looked too good to be trusted by challenging teenagers.......honest.....look at the photos of the real life LouAnne Johnson who the film is based on- crazy hair, carrying a few pounds.......she looks 'right'. Teenage girls will be absolutely FOUL to any authority figure that they perceive as being thinner/prettier than they are and no amount of dedication and hard work will bring the little cowbags round to liking you. I base this sweeping generalization on my personal experiences.....I have gorgeous, kind, caring, slim, fashionable colleagues who have been treated HORRENDOUSLY by their teenage social work clients, clients who focus much of their verbal abuse on seemingly jealous rantings towards these lovely girls..........I just got called a 'ginger c**t' which made a point but allowed us to swiftly move on to the main aim of the session (whatever it was). There is only so much mileage in the ginger/fat/Matalan abuse...........jealousy however will fuel real nastiness.........

I remember vividly the moment in which I discovered that in my cuddly physical blandness I had a useful weapon.......At the age of 22, I was the allocated worker for a strikingly good looking lad of 14 who looked 17. He was very withdrawn and hostile towards social workers and our working relationship was not going particularly well. I took him to an open day at the local college where we met the tutors. He was silent and skulking a good 10 feet behind me as we walked along. My heart was sinking, this was going to be a frikkin car crash of a morning. However, when a kindly receptionist greeted us and asked " Would you and mum like to come and look round", my lad merely smirked and said "yep, come on mum". I followed gasping with indignation but unable to correct her due to bloody client confidentiality.......gggrrrrrrr.......I reiterate that I was 22 and that he looked 17..........at that moment, things changed. I think I became less threatening, a bit of a Les Dawson character BUT thankfully, one that he would now chat with. Three years later, aged 25, I took him to get his Year 11 Prom tux. He now looked 20........the shop worker greeted us, showed him some tuxes and asked which one 'mum' preferred...........aces........my lad smiled, put an arm over my shoulder and said 'Come on mum'.......I nearly cried but this time it was with pride..........

THIS, and this alone, is all that I bring to the street gang table........cuddliness and a crazy accent.......Theresa May needs to rethink the current Gang Strategy as I feel that I have hit on something........a whole swarm of chubby mummies covertly dropped into Tottenham, Tower Hamlets and Peckham armed only with some handbag soiled haribo, inoffensive mid-high street wardrobes and an accent that can stop traffic and I think we might see some real change............or maybe just a sudden spike in the murder rate........hmmmmm..........

Burkinis, beaches and back on the blog

It's been a while you lovely bunch and it's Easter which is always a dangerous time of year, given its combination of renewal, rebirth, freshness and enough calories to shame Elvis. In other news, my children are still too young to keep an accurate record of their gifted eggs which is frankly their own foolish oversight. I'm a year older and more haggard since my last blog.........I now dye my hair (ginger....seriously, it's like a sort of self flagellation with a L'Oreal bottle)...............I haven't been to the gym for 10 weeks..........something odd is going on with the skin round my eyes. Not necessarily wrinkled but definitely a little rippled and glancing at my reflection in shop windows has become a little bit like shame roulette

There is a moment in everyone's life when you realise that a certain threshold has been crossed. My friends  20 minutes ago, I crossed that threshold. I googled 'burkini'. This little action has sent me on a 20 minute journey to places I NEVER knew existed.........I have encountered the hardline Christian 'Modesty Movement' who (ironically) produce exactly the same style swimwear for ladies as their Muslim comrades but with more emphasis on gingham and a few more frills. The orthodox Jewish ladies are at the top of the trend tree with their sleek almost surfer-like modesty swimwear........ I can't help but feel that the conflicts in the Middle East could actually be resolved through swimwear......humanity's 'sameness' exemplified by a woman from each of the three religions wearing their identical modesty-wear with some sort of slogan:

 "Religion doesn't matter when you're fat and have a beach holiday booked. Put down the guns and love each other- flab before faith'.

 I'll admit that it needs a bit of work but I'd like to think I'm on to something......

Anyway, I digress. As my finger hovered over the 'buy now' button on a particularly flowery number with detachable bonnet, I realised that a line had been crossed. The shock drove me to an Easter egg (one of the smaller ones that TOTALLY arrived under the kids radar- they'll never miss it.......) and to my blog. It has been a LOOOOOOOONG time since I bored everyone. Some hardy souls claim to miss this blog- I both love them and worry about them equally.........the ramblings of a loon.

I have no idea how much I weigh at this point- pondering it too much will drive me to another egg. The truth of the situation is that things are 'snug' and my son spent a 'hilarious' 10 minutes today playing a game of 'boob or tum'........it went like this

"Mummy (points at largest roll), is this your tummy"
"Yes"
"Is THIS your tummy (points at secondary roll which sits above my leggings)?"
"Yes"
"What's this (points at the roll that sits below the largest roll)?"
"Still tummy"
"Nooooooo"
"Sadly yes"
"You got LOTS of tummies Mummy. How many boobs you got?"
"Two"
"No mummy, you got lots of boobs too. 1, 2, 3 (the multiboob caused by ill-fitting bra), 4 (ditto), 5 (he's now counting the secondary tummy roll), 6 (ditto)".
"Mummy, you got lots and lots of boobs and tummies. Youz funny lady. Ha ha ha ha"
*silent despair and brief contemplation of child abandonment*

I'd like to point the finger of blame at Vermont......because I ate the entire thing whilst on holiday there last month.......then I washed it down with a week of Canadian goodies............I'm guessing that it's very probable that by the time I got back, my weight didn't start with a "1" in the stones section............I would also like to add that the GREATEST THING ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH is the Dessert Table tradition at Canadian weddings. Here in the UK, we might get a few chicken legs and a sad looking pork pie at about 10pm at an average wedding. Not in Canada, God bless 'em. We get the buffet BUT THEN later, an ENTIRE TABLE of cakes, desserts, sweets, candy *dribbles at the memory* is brought out. They provide 'takeaway' boxes if you need more storage space (I had removed my tummy control undergarments at this point due to them being taken beyond the point of usefulness- I had no idea that lycra could creak........... storage was therefore not an issue for me.........I had room for growth). It was a more joyous moment for me than any other in recent memory (wedding day and birth of children pale into insignificance when present with unlimited desserts.......). I frikkin love Canada.

Anyway, I have a modesty birkini in periwinkle blue, with matching bonnet in my shopping basket which requires my attention. I wonder if they do it in purple too.......