Five Mile Friday

Do I feel good ? Oh yes, today for the first time in a year I ran for a full 5 miles. Shin splints, pah, I speet on your shin splints. God, I feel good.

Sex and the City, The Review

We met at 5.40. We drank cocktails, Kir Royale, Cosmopolitan and Ipanema Breeze were the chosen ones.

We arrived at the cinema, just in time for the 7pm start. I spent the next 2 hours in a blissed out state. It was fabulous. I cried at several parts. At the end the audience got up and clapped, I've never seen that before at a film.

After the film we went out to eat, we all had something in the film we could relate to. I really care about these characters and I was glad my really close friend Susan was with me as I was extremely tearful recognizing how I'd grown up with the 4 and how much my life had changed since 1998. A lot of the things in the film were dilemmas I ve had to deal with in my much less glamorous life.

It is simply a story of friendship and love. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of you who are my friends and thank you to those of you who love me.

Sex and the city day

It's here !!!!!!!!! At long last the day had arrived. Tonight myself and another 6 forty something women (I am the baby of the group) will get glammed up, go for cocktails and then go see THE film.

Cosmopolitan, anyone ?

Good luck

Sending love and luck to Anna and her Beautiful Man who got married today. This is third time lucky for both of them. I wish you the best of everything.

Newfie - Your blog has gone, I ve tried emailing you but that's been closed too. I hope that you're okay, I send you tons of love and you know where I am if you need me. Please just let me know you're ok.

Sending love and luck to those competing in the Lanzarote Ironman today. A massive test of physical fitness with a 4 KM open sea swim, followed by a 180KM cycle and finished off with a marathon. The ultimate challenge. I've been watching out for the Team Cherwell (kiss the badge) red and yellow and thinking of you.

I don't know if you'll ever read it but I still thought of you.

Priorities part deux

Just after I posted the first blog today, I read it back and the date surprised me. On May 19th 1987 I got engaged. Every year we celebrated the date of our engagement. This year even though I wrote the date several times yesterday, it didn't even register with me. How weird is that ? How far have I moved on ?

Priorities

Scene

This morning, day of the English Literature GCSE exam, my bedroom, Eldest Beautiful Daughter looking perturbed

mummy/auntiegwen, looking concerned," Don't worry darling, English is your best subject, you're going to be fine"

Eldest Beautiful Daughter, looking at self in mirror, thoughtfully, answers slowly "No, I don't like this handbag with my new hoody, but I don't have a pink or a grey one"

Well, that's ok then isn't it ?

My Weekend

Morning all. I've had a lovely weekend and hope you've had too. On Friday night I watched 2 episodes of Desperate Housewives and had a Marks and Spencer Raspberry and Strawberry Cheesecake, yum. In my jammies, like the crazy rock n roll mammy I am. Seriously I was completely alone and it was the best weekend night I've had in ages.

On Saturday, Eldest Beautiful Daughter and I went to Bicester and, boy, did we did shop. I bought a very swish Paul Smith top and a less swish but very me top from Jack Wills, EBD got a mahoosive hoody from Jack Wills, I swear it weighs more than she does. We bought half of Quiksilver for the upcoming birthday of The Beautiful Son.
Quote of the day from EBD " Oh you should get that, it's that sludgey grey colour you always wear" Makes me sound tres stylish, don't you think ?

Saturday night EBD went to see her friends band Subsist that were playing at The Shed and I went out to dinner, I had a better time on Friday, but no complaints.

I had masses of texts over the weekend and that always makes me happy.

On Sunday EBD and I walked down to Sainsburys and got the Sunday Times and nice nibbly bits for lunch, we came back, read the papers in the conservatory and then ate the nice lunch. We were in such a giggly mood which is nice as she's been very distracted with her GCSEs, but we have just decided to lie about the results. Like the official party line is that I own up to passing my driving test on the second attempt, my official weight is still 8 stone and I passed my maths o level first time round. We have decided that EBD will get 10 a* Gcse s which takes the pressure off a bit, don't you think ?

So wish my beautiful girl luck today as she sits her first Maths GCSE, maths, just like her mother before her, is her nemesis. She's gone off this morning without a protractor, I shamefully had to ask what it looked like when she asked me to help her find one, but I hope she can borrow one at school. So big big love to her as this will be the hardest of her 10 to get.

I know this is not a very exciting post or very funny but I am just so happy. I just want to record how thankful I am for the gift of her and I want to enjoy the short time I've got left with her as she'll not want to spend these kind of weekends with me for much longer. I'm very grateful for it.

You go girl, your mummy wuvs you

Feel Good Friday

Oh yes, said in the Churchill dog's accent. I love Fridays, I really do, my favourite day of the week. Today, I am particularly chipper. Porquoi ? I hear you ask

Ar school on Friday's we have Feel Good Friday, where if we pay £1 we can dress down. The money goes to our sister school in Africa, so you get to feel good about helping out a school who have so little and you get to wear your jeans (and we all know your sad auntie only likes to be in jeans or jammies)

I only teach till lunchtime, leaving the afternoon completely free for Starbucking, shopping, lunching or any kind of ing !!!!

After tea, my children will be going to stay with their other parent for the weekend ( this doesn't happen every Friday ) but nice when it does. And that's today.

So tonight I have an "empty" ......... score

Tomorrow, I am going on a wee trip to Bicester shopping village.

Tomorrow night I am off out on the town, that will probably follow the pattern of the last few jollies and the most fun I'll have will be the getting ready, but no worries.

On Sunday, I am going on a nice longish run as last night at running club I got a form to enter my very first race. Yes, that's right, your auntie, the least competitive woman in the world, is going to compete.

Hope whatever you do today makes you happy.

Rock n Roll

Last night The Beautiful Son came into my bedroom and said to me, quite seriously too, " You're up late, and you're still in your clothes!!! "

Readers, it was 10 to 10

Gives you a flavour of what a rock n roll lifestyle I have, usually in my jammies and in bed by 9.

Jealous now, aren't you ?

Raindrops on Roses

I have been tagged by Indigo16 aka Alison for this meme

Last movie you saw in the cinema - " Son of Rambow" last Friday evening with The Beautiful Son and Beautiful baby Daughter, he loved it.

What book are you reading - The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris

Favourite board game - Trivial Pursuit, I am really good at that one

Fave magazine - I like Red, Eve and Scarlet

Fave smell - Babies, Crabtree and Evelyn Noel, DKNY woman, Armani code men, freshly baked bread, lemons and laundry thats been dried outside in the fresh air, especially newly laundered sheets when you get into bed

Favourite sounds - absolute silence, my children laughing, the noise my phone makes when I get a text, The Killers, Scottish and Irish accents, The Edge's voice

Worst feeling in the world - unrequited love

First thing you think of in the morning - coffee

Fave fast food place - are you kidding me ? Starbucks of course, silly

Future childs name - unlikely to happen but it would have been Grace Stephanie for a girl and either Finlay or Ellis for a boy

Finish this statement " If I had a lot of money I'd..... travel the world, have better shoes, get my teeth staightened, and set up an orphanage and a school in Africa, I would so love to cuddle black babies all day long

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal - no, I am a grown up

Storms scary or cool - always cool

Fave drink - Lanson Rose champagne, Oyster Bay merlot, venti skinny latte, venti skinny coffee light frappucino, a pint of sparkling water after my run, coffee I didn't have to make myself

If you could die your hair any colour what would it be - prob black with fuschia tips

Name all the places you've lived - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicestershire and part time in Hisaronu, Turkey

Fave sports to watch - Scotland playing rugby, TBS's team playing rugby

Nice things about the person who tagged you - uberstylish, talented, thought provoking, creative - thy name is Alison

Would you want to be born as yourself again - no, I've done me, I'd like a new person please

Morning person or night owl - I'm an afternoon girl really

Favourite place to relax - oh easy, my terrace with the fabulous view of Babadag mountain in Turkey, anywhere in Scotland and in England either my bed or my sofa

Favourite ice cream flavour - rum and raisin


This meme is open to anyone that would like to have a go, I'd be interested to know your responses

Yesterday

Yesterday

I did have my hair cut, please see photo and tell me if you like the shortest hair I have had in years.

I demented Eldest Beautiful Daughter by making her take several photos of me as I want to get a wee picture of me beside my name when I comment, I still can't do that, please tell me how to.

I went to a hen night and was the most sober there by a gazillion miles ( and I had 3 glasses, you'll hear more of that later)

I sorted out a lovers tiff by making someone on the corresponding stag do, text his girlfriend ( I had to speak to him on the phone as I was the most sober one there)he had not told her he's arrived in Newcastle and she was feeling a bit teary and neglected.

I spent 45 minutes with a very tearful woman talking her out of ending it all, she tried to run out into the road and I had to get her back, poor poor thing she was so unhappy, mixed with shed loads of alcohol, lethal combination. I went to the loo and when I came back she was enthusiatically snogging some random bloke !

Even though I was the most sober one there, I agreed to join my marathon running friend and the bloke she runs with (he owns the restaurant we were in) in running the Berlin Marathon in 18 months time. Oh yes, I can stretch my 3 miles into 26, nae bother to your auntie, completely do able....

See what happens when I go out, Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph, I really am much better off at home, much less eventful.

Miss, I don't get it

Every bloody Wednesday afternoon, that's what I get from my year 13 A level group, the plaintive " Miss, I don't get it". I am truly stunned at the lack of depth these students have. I can only conclude, sadly, that either I was a 18 year old genius or exams are getting easier and teenagers are getting more stupid.

This module we are doing is on understanding human behaviour and we cover the big 6 theories of development. I have to teach Eysenck's Biological theory. I was telling them that he was a Jewish sympathiser who had to leave Germany due to the Nazis ( neatly linking in with Tajfel's social identity theory and Allport on prejudice and how it can lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide), I know, I know, you're riveted too. Then I get, quite seriously too....

" Miss, what's a Nazi ? "

There were 4 students in my group who had no idea what World War 2 was about, never heard of Auchwitz, Dachau or other concentration camps, no idea who Hitler was, just that they'd heard the name, no idea of Kristallnacht or the forced wearing of The Star of David, some didn't even know what it was. So before I could even start on old Hans and his theory, I had to do a diet lesson on WW2.

Now, Eysenck had a theory about personality, there's a test I had them do on line. I spent the whole lesson explaining words that included - dwell, brood, dominant, submissive, melancholy. That's the ones I can remember and then the killer question that flummoxed a 19 year old student

I respect authority

" Miss, I don't get it " to which I very sweetly replied " Of course, you don't sweetie, it's harder than colouring in isn't it ?"

If this student didn't have an offer of a university place, it wouldn't be so worrying.

Tag, I'm it

Your mission should you choose to accept it is,

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you

Okay, never let it be said that you don't get value for money with your auntie. As I am in my usual position of prone on my bed with the laptop, the nearest book to me was on my bedside table, there were 3 on top of one another, so I shall give you the extract from all 3.

Something had to be done, although he had no notion of what that something might be, and he stared, stricken, at the doctor's wife as she put her hand to her throbbing head and moaned. He might be stupid, but he knew what this meant. Calamity was coming.

Taken from " The Thirteenth Tale " by Diane Setterfield.

Sleep can do that to you - erase the most important thing from your mind. Iris listens, straining for sound. Nothing.

From " The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox " by Maggie O' Farrell.

And now Yanne Charbonneau was watching me in a fearful silence that spun and spun like a silk cocoon. I could have said, well, that was lucky, or just just put back the dish without a word, but it was now or never, I told myself. Strike at once, while resistance is low.

From "The Lollipop Shoes" by Joanne Harris.


I would like to thank Indigo16 aka Alison for this, and please don't apologise for tagging me, I never mind in the slightest, unlike the Edge who I think has only done 1 tag in living memory.

I know some of you have already done this but I would like to tag anyone who's interested, I'd love to know what you're all reading. Yes that means you, TF, Karen, Gwen, Katie, Flick, Mob and Lena all in the UK. Also Newfie ( in Canada) and Lisa and Craze in the US of A,are you reading very different stuff over the pond ?
See me, see my blog, .... international.

(ps, that last bit was tongue in cheek, just in case you thought I was getting a bit full of myself, which is a cardinal sin where I come from !!!)