A tale of 2 weekends

On Friday night I did a supermarket shop on my way home from work. I then came home, made tea and was in bed by 9.30pm exhausted.

On Saturday I did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, watched the rugby (how bad can we be? gutted doesn't begin to cover how I feel about our 6 nations), went for a run and was in my jammies by 6pm and stayed up late (ie after 10pm), as there was a Taggart on ITV3.

Today I will be doing my usual walk down for the Sunday Times, making food, cleaning up and as it's Sunday, I will have the giddy delights of the ironing. You wish you were me now, don't you?

My Eldest Beautiful Daughter was collected by Hot Boy on Friday night, taken out for the evening clubbing and as I live in mummy denial land I believe that she had to stay at his place, in his spare room, as they had an early start on Saturday morning. Let's leave it there.

My daughter spent her Saturday shopping in Birmingham, she had lunch out and drank 2 glasses of champagne in Selfridges. She then got glammed up and went to a party on Saturday evening. She returned at feck it's early or feck it's late depending on your age.

Her Sunday will be spent in bed reading the Sunday Times I have collected and being brought cups of tea and Ibuprofen.

And she will still look luminous and fresh faced and beautiful even with the hangover and the no sleep and despite me having more sleep in a night than she has in a weekend, she'll be raring to go and I'll be ready for my jammies at 6pm again.

Motherhood

Do not say that your auntie never gives you anything. Week after week, month after month, year after year, your auntie is here providing witty banter, wee funnies and guides on what not to do (all lessons learned)
Today, I can offer you a real tangible thing. To celebrate the release of Motherhood on DVD on March 8th I have been given leave to dispense 5 copies of this dvd to my lovely readers. Finally someone thinks of me as a mummy blogger.

Celebrate ‘Mother’s Day Eve’ and Win 1 of 5 Motherhood DVDs – out on DVD 8th March

To promote the release of MOTHERHOOD, starring Uma Thurman and Minnie Driver – ASDA, MUMS.NET and METRODOME DISTRIBUTION will launch a special new date in the calendar – ‘MOTHER’S DAY EVE’ - which will fall on the Saturday night 13th March before Mothering Sunday, 14th March 2010. New comedy ‘MOTHERHOOD’ follows Uma Thurman as mother and wife racing against the clock to prepare for her daughter's sixth birthday party in the face of chaos.

From writer/director Katherine Dieckmann, the acclaimed filmmaker of DIGGERS and A GOOD BABY, comes MOTHERHOOD, starring Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards and Minnie Driver. Shot entirely on location in New York’s West Village, this bittersweet comedy distils the dilemmas of the maternal state (marriage, work, self, and not necessarily in that order) into the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day. MOTHERHOOD forms a genre of one – no other movie has dedicated itself in quite this way to probing exactly what it takes to be a mother, with both wry humour and an acute sense of authenticity.

Eliza Welch (Thurman) is a former fiction writer-turned-mom-blogger with her own site, “The Bjorn Identity.” Putting her deeper creative ambitions on hold to raise her two children, Eliza lives and works in two rent-stabilized apartments in a walk-up tenement building smack in the middle of an otherwise upscale Greenwich Village. Eliza’s good-natured but absent-minded husband (Edwards) seems tuned out to his wife’s conflicts, not to mention basic domestic reality, while her best friend Sheila (Minnie Driver) understands this – and Eliza -- all too well.

MOTHERHOOD is a hymn to the joys and sorrows of raising children, and the necessity of not losing yourself in the process.

The DVD is available from 8th March 2010.

Log onto www.motherhoodmovie.com for more competitions to be won and details about the film!

So should you wish a free copy of this dvd, please comment and tell me so, if there are more than 5 of you, I'll put names in a hat and get a naked celebrity to draw the lucky 5. I might have lied a bit about the naked celebrity, it will most probably be me, just thought I'd liven your Friday up a wee bitty.

In which I am hoist by my own petard.

I am a bitch, a big fat bitchy bitch. I am also a wussypants bitch. I will seethe and seethe and lose my stomach lining and then bitch on my blog but I seem unable to put the big girl pants on and deal with things. This week I will be bitching mainly about my book group.

I have been in my book group for many years, I actually was still married when it began and that feels like decades ago. I stopped enjoying it probably about a year ago, when we got back from Prague, I liked Prague and the thought of going there kept me going to book group. But me no likey any more. There is a woman there I wouldn't get tired of slapping, I really can't abide her. She talks non stop about her husband and how much he loves her, and their fabulous life and all the things he does and I am flat out bored by it. Please don't think I'm bitter because I normally love a bit of mush and genuinely it doesn't have to be directed at me but I now find I can't be in the same room as her.

Book group trip this year is in June and is to Berlin, it will cost around £500 for the 2 nights and frankly I would rather spend my £500 on something I'd enjoy more. I want to go here There are 2 rooms with 3 in them, pulled names out of a hat and lucky white heather, I got woman I can't stand and the world's most boring woman. Was I a Nazi in my former life? I don't want to spend 2 days listening to Mrs Mushing and trying to make polite conversation with Mrs Per Una.

So, I am grumbling and grousing because I should just say I don't want to go and I'd like to quit book group please but I don't.

Then, unexpectedly I get thrown a lifeline from the ex mr auntiegwen. He has booked a holiday and he'll be away on the weekend of the trip. I have no childcare so I can't go. The date is set in stone as trying to find a weekend that all 6 women didn't have something to do or they weren't required to be a mummy for 48 hours was incredibly hard as we have 15 children between us. So I make my apologies and urge the others to carry on, this happened last year when a different 2 pulled out but 4 of us went.

Home free.

I thought.

Today I've had a flurry of texts and calls. Weekend is cancelled because I can't go, despite my protestations. We are now going to a day spa so I can get home at night and our trip will be resheduled for autumn.

Grandma in Cyprus, look away now, I'm going to use the hard f word.

Fuckity, fuckity, fuck.

Queen of Strange

This will be a long post, get yourself comfy, maybe a cup of tea, glass of wine, are you ready? This is my disclaimer, I love my child but Eldest Beautiful Daughter is off the scale strange. I've eased you into it starting with the other 2, but obviously she was the practice child.

She has an extreme phobia of feet, she hates naked feet, foots in sockeys are fine but naked is a big no no, even her own. This is manageable at home, we make sure we have socks or slippers, this is less manageable on holiday, she actually sunbathes in socks, I have pictures. She will be the only woman in the world that insists on socks being left on during sex.

Numbers are a trouble to her also, she likes even numbers best. If she is taking stuff out of the oven or microwave early it has to be on an even number preferably a multiple of ten. She wouldn't get out of bed on an uneven number, again a multiple of ten is best. The volume level has to be even but she can cope with a multiple of five on this, so she can cope with a 15 or a 25 but 20 or 30 are best, both even and a multiple of 5 AND 10. In the car the temperature control has to be the same on both sides, both have to be even. Sitting on trains, planes etc has to be on an even row, I always look forward to explaining that at check in with a big queue behind me.

Food also has some quirks. All cheese has to be grated or melted, even if the cheese is going to be melted it has to be grated first. When she is making tea, a certain order and method must prevail, teabag has to be placed on left sugar on right then water stir clockwise then bag out then milk, she will only drink tea she's made herself or if it's been made by someone she knows will make it in her way. When she eats spaghetti hoops they have to be in her special blue bowl and she places 6 hoops on last prong of the fork, before she can eat them, she eats the whole tin like that.

Ascending height order prevails, in cupboards everything is arranged like that and labels have to be facing the front. On her desk everything will be arranged in length order.

If there is a double plug socket both switches have to be facing the same way. She dresses the left hand side of herself first.

I could go on but I wouldn't want to worry you all.

Let's hear it for the boy.

Following on from yesterday, here goes with the boy. He's not that bad, well compared to his sister, just wait till you read about EBD tomorrow, she is Queen of strange.

I don't think he has many weird traits, he did use to check the door was locked several times a night but that dissipated. He does wear an X box headset and talk to people on the internets a lot but I believe lots of teenage boys do. He always has his pants on show, again, not pleasant but not unknown. He will quite happily chat away and tell you all, tact wouldn't be his strongest thing but maybe he'll learn that, if there is something you'd rather wasn't mentioned, he'll invariably say it, he seems to lack the embarassment factor.

The Beautiful Son is quite quirky. I think he's screamingly funny and this probably encourages him. The strangest thing about him is that he talks in a very exaggerated Scottish accent and pretends he's an old man, he calls everyone son or laddie, even me. He talks a lot about "in my day" there are a lot of dinnae's and cannae's too, I've said before that he sounds like an unsexy Sean Connery.

He has a very quick wit, I think this may have been inherited along with the can't be arsed gene. He always, always has to go for the funny.

Yesterday he opened the door to hot boy and said in his very old man Scottish voice

"That's a very poofy looking cardigan you're wearing there son. Did you mug Starsky?"

Can Hot Boy survive us?

Our strange little ways

If you've popped into your aunties before, you'll probably know that the beautiful children have their own little quirks, some of you have been kind enough to share some of your own little quirks with me, make me feel less weird. We are quite happy in our own little world but we have some fairly weird stuff going on.

We'll start with the Beautiful Baby Daughter, she is the least weird. She thinks she was put on earth to keep the rest of us right. She is competitive and determined. That is the extent of her weirdness, in another family, an alpha type family this behaviour would go unmentioned and it might not even be noticed. She always has an interest on the go and that consumes her, for a while it was Twilight, all the books were read, posters bought, all computer time was spent searching for Twilight stuff. Then she was making lip balms, (vaseline, lipstick and flavouring) Dancing was a phase, where she did the choreography, assembled costumes and put on shows. Make up (which she's still not allowed to wear) was a huge passion, she would apply all different kinds to her face whilst on webcam and then upload it to youtube. There are several videos showing you how to give yourself a fun party face by Beautiful Baby Daughter aged 12 who lives with a remarkably mean make up on small children hating mummy.

No one will play board games with her any more, she is always desperate for someone to play Cluedo with and we just flat out say no, she gives out to you if you don't give it 100% and if your attention wanders she can get quite cross. This is bad, piss off the pusscat (one of her nicer pet names, aka Little Miss Last Word and Little Miss Bossy Knickers) at your peril. If you play with her, tv and music go off, mobiles have to be left switched off in another room and you have to go to the toilet before you start. She knows, you see, that if you wander out to the loo, you'll just check if anyone's called or texted, then you'll reply and then the games a bogie.

She is, by far, the cleverest of my children both in academia and in life, she is the only 1 of the 3 who didn't inherit my can't be arsed gene. On Friday night I was going out so she was being minded by EBD and her hot boy (aka fairy cake.) She waited till I was just about out the door, giving out my instructions, ie don't disappear upstairs and ignore your sister, and then she made her move. In her sweetest little sister voice, she asked EBD and hot boy to play Cluedo, she says she knows they want to be on their own for a bit so how about one game and then she'll go off to bed, now hot boy doesn't know what she's like at board games and EBD can't say no without looking like a total bitch. How to get your own way in one easy lesson.

Determined and resourceful are the words that describe her best. I used to joke that one day my child would be ruling the country, I think now she's going for at least Europe

My Current Obsession

As the "Tis the season to be jolly" has passed and your auntie spent said season getting mighty jolly with omnipresent Baileys and fruit and nut toblerones, I have to accept that never mind the goose, the auntie has gotten fat.

My last job seemed to find me walking from one end of the school to the other, walking round the classroom, up and down stairs etc, I seemed to be able to eat and still fit into my jeans. As my now not so new job seems to find me sat upon my getting bigger by the nano second derriere upon my executive twirly chair I am quite a wobbly, heavier auntie. Do not even think about my boobs which are bigger again, people would pay money for bosoms this size. This is not good, I am not a happy auntie, I am a chubby auntie.

So my current new obsession is my pedometer. You are meant to take 10,000 steps per day. On my average day where I work, cook (all right, heat up), pop into Sainsbury's for the few bits and bobs I forgot when my middle aged wobbly self did my weekly shop and obviously wandering around aimlessly looking for my keys, I take around 4,500 steps.

Ergo, why I am fat, I have discovered the key points, I need to eat less and move around more.

So, obsessive wee scone that I am, I know now it takes around 1,000 steps to get me up, showered and out to work. 2,000 steps will take me around Sainsbury's. 2,500 is what I do at the office.

I look very fetching with my wee blue pedometer on my hip, I have no shame, I clip it straight onto my jammy bottoms as soon as I get up, I come out of the shower, get dried and clip it straight onto my pants. It is now permanently attached to me. I will not sit down for the evening until I have done my 10,000 steps for the day.

I got completely overgiddy when on a day to a big shopping centre I did 20,000 steps, I have got a wee notebook and every night in bed I record what my step tally for that day is. No, I have no idea why I am still single either !

Now, my FitFlops are kinda key to this too. If I am doing all these steps what could be better than foorwear toning up the thighs and wobbly bottom while I step my way back into my size 8 jeans? I love these, I feel like I'm getting a huge bargain, I hugely approve of getting extra benefit from doing what I normally do anyway.
Remember how I wanted the gorgeous and scrummy fitflop boots? well, I couldn't find them but I am now ubertempted by these FitFlops I could wear them outside as it's still chilly here but when the weather improves I could see me getting my toes out in these beauties

So, I have me pedometer and me FitFlops. I will soon be back in my size 8 jeans and then surely, surely I can find me a man?

In which I am disconcerted, twice

My Beautiful Baby Daughter has returned home from her ski trip to Switzerland full of tales of her exploits. She was extremely proud of her certificate and twas proffered to me for perusal.

I was more than a little disconcerted when I read the adjective they'd chosen to describe her, a mother never wants her daughter to be thought of as saucy, especially not her 13 year old one. Now, the BBD is not a flighty or even flirty child, if I was choosing words to describe her I would use something like sensible or strident or forthright, her unkind siblings would choose bossy. So I was more than a little surprised to read saucy. On querying this I was reassured it was because she had spilled ketchup all down her cream pashmina, actually MY cream CASHMERE, VERY FECKIN EXPENSIVE, IN CAPITALS FOR EMPHASIS, pashmina which had gone on a wee jolly to Switzerland. Bet it wished it'd stayed at home in it's special wee sleeping bag with me now, that'll learn it, swanning off and getting ruined.

Reading further down, I was again, more than a little disconcerted to read that my 13 year old baby, who has never been on a mountain before, my teeny tiny baby girl who 3 days previously hadn't set eyes on a set of ski's in real life had won the speed test, clocking up a speed of 35 miles per hour. This rendered me momentarily speechless, and that takes some doing. My child, who is a human child, a regular human, managed to go faster than I drive most days. This is neither natural nor desirable.

Fortunately I remained in mummy denial land until she was safely home with her full complement of unbroken limbs and a fully functioning brain. Yes, I know, even after nigh on 18 years of parenting, I remain a horribly over protective mummy.

Book Group Blues

I have been a member of our book group for the last 4 maybe even 5 years. We meet once a month in our local pub and dicuss the book we've read and then choose a new one. I believe it is now the law for all middle aged women to be in a book group although the flightier of the genre also do salsa dancing (no, not me, would you give yourself peace!)

My book group usually meets on a Wednesday but for some reason we met on a Tuesday this week. Which confused me mightily when Sarah appeared at the door with book in hand.

This meant I had to get out of my jammies (navy and pink polka dot fleecy ones, oh yes, sexy is my middle name) I was gutted, I got home from work and as BBD was away skiing I didn't have to drive to and from Girls Brigade and there was a Jo Frost thing and a babies being born thing on the telly, so straight into my jammies, on the sofa, I had a fleecy blanket, full charge of the remote and some cookies. I appear to have bypassed middle aged completely and stormed right into old lady hood, don't feel even a bit sorry for me, I love the idea of sitting around in my jammies and a wee nap if I get tired.

So I got dressed and we went to the pub,
which was heaving,
on a Tuesday night,
in the middle of a recession.
The reason for this became apparent, they were having their regular pub quiz. Now I have never taken part in a pub quiz, that is another of my very last forms of virginity gone now, I've only a few left, I'd better ration them out, don't want to get rid of them all so quickly and with no thought or care.


How hard could it be, we thought.

I'm a whiz at Trivial Pursuit, I thought.

We are quite clever women, we thought.

At our table there were 6 women, 28 years of university level education and 7 degrees between us. Comprising ...

A solicitor
A dentist
A pharmacist
A nursing sister
A teacher
A director (of a big Government agency, with multi million pound projects and big posh do's at The Houses of Parliament)

Readers, we came last.
24 points out of 50.
The shame.

Little Miss Last Word

My Beautiful Baby Daughter is still away in Switzerland on her ski trip. She's been very good at keeping us updated unlike her brother who last year only texted to say he'd arrived.

Phone call Wed am 7.30 am auntiegwen time

ag - "Is this the day you ski into France?"

bbd - "Should have been"

ag - "Oh, are you not going then?"

bbd - "No, I've moved myself down into Emily's group, she has a lady instructor"

ag - "Okay, do they not let lady ski instructors into France?"

bbd - "No, they're going on Thursday"

ag - "Ah, bloody EU regulations"

bbd - "Stop trying to be funny, I'm not prepared to ski into a different country with a male instructor who's idea of teaching is to say "right, follow me"

Nobody will ever steal that weans scone.

In my day

You realise how different a childhood your children are having compared to your own when...

They think having 2 foreign holidays, a school trip and a few weekends away per year are the norm.

Your children's friends go on holiday to places like Peru, China, Iceland and Vietnam.

Your 18 year old brings home a school friend who has never eaten a chip butty.

You have friends (in the plural) whose children play the harp, it used to be the cello but that's just ordinary now.

Your children don't even think that not going to university and getting a job is an option.

Your own son says without a hint of irony that he enjoys swimming but he only likes to swim in his own swimming pool.

6 in a row.

This morning at the "Feck me, it's early" hour the family von auntiegwen got up and dropped the Beautiful Baby Daughter off at school for a school skiing trip to Switzerland. This is the 6th year in a row I have entrusted Mr Watson (who we all heart) with one of my beloved offspring, EBD had 2 skiing tips in 2005 and 2006, TBS had 3 snowboarding trips in 2007, 2008 and 2009. This year only BBD remains at that school so this year it's her turn. I don't even want to think of the skiing maths (if I didn't have to fork out for 6 school skiing trips I could have bought) as I know I could have bought a new car with it. But school trips have certainly come on since my day, when we had a day trip to Culzean Castle, bring your own packed lunch to eat by the time the coach has left the playground and a quid for the gift shop, sorry should have put a middle aged woman rant alert in for you there.

So, at the crack of sparrows we are all in the car and the ex mr auntiegwen asks BBD if she has everything, he goes down the "passport, tickets, money" route, BBD answers in a hugely sarcastic fashion that of course being a school trip the passports and health cards have to be handed in at least a week before because people are too stupid to remember them all by their own selves.

He then asks about ipod, DS, phone plus chargers. Then a huge shriek from the back alerts us that "Little Miss Organised and I don't need any help thank you very much, I'm not retarded like the rest of them" has indeed left her mobile at home, so we turn around and go back for the phone.

Now to let you into a little background, I like to be early for stuff like this, if I have a plane to catch I will be one of those people who will turn up 3 hours before we leave, when the school trip letter says be at school at 6.30 am I will be there at 6.15am, the ex mr auntiegwen not so much, he has missed several planes and was actually late for his grannies funeral, truly I was mortified. He is of the opinion that if they say 6.30am then it's perfectly acceptable to be there at 6.30 ish. As we're going in his car, we're going on his time frame also.

So, we arrive at the school just 5 minutes late but there is nowhere to park as all the early parents have got the spaces. He drops me and the children off and goes to park. My friend Susan is there already, I love Susan, muchly, even though she is a Daily Mail reader and owns a selection of Per Una cardies, I know I will grow up to be Susan. Em is waiting on the coach for BBD having secured a good seat (Em belongs to Susan, the girls are good mates and very similar in the way Susan and I are)

I say to Susan how annoyed I was at being the last parent there (she gets the not being late thing) usually Susan and I will be there together tut tutting at the unorganised mummies, we're good at raised eyebrows too. I explain about the forgotten phone and she assures me that she was en route when they realised Em didn't have her ski jacket.

Another shreik from BBD, jacket at home on her bedroom floor.

Phone ex mr ag, get him to bring car back and again back home to collect jacket and back to school.

Coach is waiting for us, last disorganised parents, I have to do the Bad Mummy slink of shame onto coach to hand over jacket and receive the slow applause.

6 years in a row, you'd think I'd be getting the hang of it by now.

Metrosexual in our midst.

Like all of us, I am a product of my environment. I am from an overwhelmingly female family, the only men I have shared a bathroom with are gadget mad dad, the beautiful son and the ex mr auntiegwen. They are of a similar mind when it comes to grooming, in that, it's for girls. Don't get me wrong, they have perfect hygiene but their grooming routine consists of a shower, wash hair using same stuff used for washing body, spray of deodorant, brush teeth and they're done. Maybe if it was a big night out they'd use aftershave, maybe.

That's what I think men do, I fully expect them to take the time it takes me to fasten my shoes for them to perform their whole routine.

Eldest Beautiful Daughter has a new amour, oh don't worry that I'm telling you tales, I read it on her facebook page, she's in a relationship. This is a big deal, for the last 2 years she's had the Matthew, we were used to the Matthew, you knew where you were with the Matthew. Matthew was of the same mind as the men we are used to.

This new amour is what would be called a Hot Boy. He is 20, drives a car and is in a band. This band plays gigs in real places and they get paid. They are mentioned in newspapers and t'internet as up and coming. He is very used to being admired and getting his own way. He is now besotted by EBD and it is unusual for him to have to do the wooing, he is usually the wooed. He adores her, can't stop contacting her, popping in, leaving little treats for her and general worship. It's very funny for us, we love all of this, he calls her "Treacle", when we try that, she tells us to feck off.

He is exotic to us, we all keep looking at him, he is just so different. Eldest Beautiful Daughter completely rips him apart with her sarcastic sense of humour (no, I've no idea where she gets it from either) She doesn't get the grooming thing either. He takes longer to get ready than she does. He is what my dad would call a "jolly boy"

She made him fess up his grooming routine to me because when she told me I didn't believe her. Now to be fair to him, he looks lovely, he does look like someone you'd see on the telly but it comes with effort.

He sleeps with a hairband in to keep his fringe off his face so he doesn't get spots.
He uses exfoliator, face wash, moisturiser and lip balm, daily.
He uses shampoo and conditioner, he washes his hair with shampoo and conditioner one day and only with conditioner the next, it keeps your hair fluffy apparently.
He uses heat protection spray and then blow dries his hair, before straightening it with GHD's, then he messes it up with wax, then he applies hairspray.

Are you exhausted yet?

He has his hair cut every every few weeks, he has an asymetric fringe and it frames one of his perfectly threaded eyebrows. he actually goes and has his eyebrows threaded.

He looks like Abercrombie and Fitch threw up on him, you may well wonder if you'd seen him in a Jack Wills catalogue. He has a man bag, a personalised number plate and a Paul Smith wallet.

Eldest Beautiful Daughter calls him fairy cake. May the balance of power remain in her favour.

Rantie auntie

I fear this may become a regular feature as I hurtle towards grumpy old womanhood. I worry that I'm only a brooch and a Per Una cardigan away.

This is really a post about all the things that are currently making me cross. I fully accept that a great deal of the blame for this can be fully apportioned to me as I appear to be cursed with the Unholy Trinity of Passivity, Indecisiveness and Martyrdom. This is not good. I spend my life making things easier for other people. This is the big one, I suppose I feel very unappreciated at the moment. I read Working Mum's post on how she is doing it all too.

I am currently very fed up with friends who only contact me when they want something. Friendship should be a 2 way street, we should phone, text, mail, meet up on a regular basis. You should not just contact me when you want to have a moan about your husband, your boyfriends gone away with work for 2 weeks and you're bored or you remember I exist and wonder where I've gone. This is not fair, I understand everyone has a busy life (you should try mine sometimes) but if I love you enough to be your friend then you can spend 2 minutes sending me a text. Then the next time you want to moan about your husband I will be much more sympathetic. Do I ever tell you that you've pissed me off? That would be a no.

I am really pissed off that although I live with 3 other people, who are, on the whole nearly functioning humans, I am the only person who does any chores on a regular basis. I do all the laundry and ironing. I do all the shopping and cooking(all right, heating up) The dusting and hoovering, also me, mopping and wiping of surfaces, again me. Any kind of cleaning is me. The fingers that can work computer consoles, text and facebook appear not to be able to spray polish and remove with a soft cloth and no one could find the Dyson without a map. It enrages me when the first thing people say to me as I return home after a 10 hour day is "What's for tea?" I usually still have my coat on at this point. I do ask and they will do stuff on an ad hoc basis but it's not thorough and it usually needs redoing so I do it myself and save the "quit nagging me's" Most of this paragraph is aimed at the work shy article I call my son. Eldest Beautiful Daughter is the best but is studying and doing voluntary work and has a part time job so I know she is busy.

I don't want to live in auntiegwen town. We moved here because my ex husband got a job here and when he left I stayed so the children would have the stability and routine of same house, school and friends. He now lives in a nice place too far away to help with the school runs or activity runs and has 2 of the 3 children for less than 60 hours a month. 2 overnight Saturday lunch to Sunday teatimes. He doesn't have to worry about who'll look after them when they're too ill for school or having to try and fit in a life of his own around guitar lessons, Girls Brigade, rugby practice etc etc etc. I'm not even slightly sorry if this sounds resentful, I did not choose to leave Scotland and bring 3 children up alone. I am resentful that he earns 5 times as much as I do and can afford to treat the children when they're with him and have great fun and just enjoy them. I love them and I hope you all know how much but I still have to be the parent who says eat your broccoli, tidy your room and do your homework. I want to be the fun parent and I would be the best and most fun parent ever if I only had to do it twice a month.

So by the time my Beautiful Baby Daughter leaves home I will have spent 15 years living somewhere I don't like for the benefit of other people. And to my growing dismay I will most probably have to stay here as I don't know where else to go.

FML

Today my sister had her scan. They couldn't find a heartbeat.

Romance Central

Love is most definitely in the air around me. There must have been an army of Cupids all with bow and arrow trained upon chez auntiegwen. The atmosphere around us is cloud soft and sweet. Love has found us and we are being pursued and wooed with an ardour than is surprising. I would tell you more but you'd feel queasy.

Everyone has an admirer. Some of us have two, this is not good, we are not decisive by nature, this is why 2 of us are vegetarian, less choice on the menu, how do regular humans cope with 20 or 30 things to choose from?

One of us has a choice of both genders. One of us has received 2 bouquets of flowers. Mush is in abundance.

We are living an episode of Hollyoaks, there are twists and turns and updates every day.

Can I enjoy this mushfest?, can I feck, one of us has a big feck off, counts for masses of your A level Sociology exam on Tuesday.

And one of us is a Mummy who will never stop worrying about her Eldest Beautiful Daughter, who is spookily and scarily just like me, can't make decisions and is being torn between the old and the new and who really doesn't need the distraction before her A levels. I would like her to ignore both and engage with her revision and then when they are over she can enjoy the high dramas and decisions and excitement and wooing to her hearts content.

AFTER THE FECKIN EXAMS, we are on the home stretch, don't distract her now.

So words you never thought auntiegwen mush junkie would ever say

Please make the mush go away.

Except mine, I can cope with my portion.

Stories and Songs Meme

I have been tagged by the lovely Brighton Mum for a musical themed meme.

Apologies to the readers who've been with me for the last 3 years since this blog started and know my story.

In the summer of 2006 my marriage was ending. Scary stuff but I was changing and little by little I could feel the old pre mummy pre wife me coming back. I didn't listen to music very much during my marriage, I seemed to have got out of the habit, in my car I had children's stories and songs and when in my husbands car I listened to his choice of music so it wasn't especially significant to me.

I was given "Hot Fuss" as a 40th birthday gift and enjoyed it so when "Sam's Town" came out in October of 2006 I was bought a copy. I loved it, I was beginning to listen to music much more and the track that seemed to express how I was changing and evolving into the me I am now. This song has become my own personal anthem for my new life.

In August 2008, 2 years post split I went to see The Killers at Marlay Park in Dublin, see picture above for a very happy auntie at the gig. The wifey me would never have spent that kind of money on herself but auntiegwen me felt it was worth every penny. This band and song re-ignited in me the passion I had for music and gigs. It was probably the best gig of my life.

And the first song they played was "For Reasons Unknown".

Please feel free to play along.

On a scale of 1 to 10...

How likely is it that I can build Beautiful Baby Daughters new bed before it's bedtime?
Without injuring myself?
Without getting stressed, cross and shouty?
Without any kind of DIY equipment? (excepting the mini screwdriver set I got in my Christmas cracker)

I haven't really thought this through, have I? Please pop round, bring gin and maybe a tool box.

PS - When I answered the door this morning, the delivery man said "John Lewis, Where do you want it?" and do you know HOW MUCH it killed me not to quip...
"autiegwen, anywhere you give me it"
or
In a faintly puzzled and quizzical voice "Oh I don't know, maybe the kitchen?"

Cosmic Ordering

On Hogmanay I posted a review of the decade and in it I mentioned my sister and how she very much wanted a 3rd child. She is now pregnant, please keep everything crossed that she gets to have this baby. Please, please, pretty please send all manner of positive vibes their way, after 2 miscarriages and an op to remove a brain tumour, I so wish for them to have their dream realised.

And in my own inimitable "I have to go for the funny every single feckin time" style. I am not overestimating the power of my blog but...

My last post was about getting a wedding ring and a Chanel handbag.

I have bored you to death with the wanting to shag David Tennant (and if one more person tells me he's gay or friends I have had for a looooong time remind me of my former crush on Alan Cumming and my refusal to believe he was gay, I will not be responsible for my actions)

You may be wondering how the fruit and nut toblerone diet was going to make me lose 2 stone and eradicate my wrinkles.

I'll keep you all posted

Product Placement

I love blogs, I spend far too much of my time reading them, tis a fantastic hobby. The beautiful children would have preferred my hobby to be cookery or baking but thems the breaks.

Over the last year I've noticed on lots of the blogs I read that some lucky bloggers have been given free stuff (including shoes and holidays!!!!!) to review. Now I'm not going to moan about the fact that I mention Tiffany, Starbucks, Fruit and Nut Toblerones, Chanel handbags and LK Bennett shoes with boring regularity. All by my own choice, no freebies have come your aunties way, these are things I have and love or would love to have in the case of the Chanel handbag. However, should any company wish the wise words of auntie on their fine, fine products, please feel free to email me. My readers are all intelligent and lovely people with oodles of spare cash.

Ahem, moving swiftly on.

Would you like to know what I have been offered freebies of in exchange for reviews?

A peeloop penis extender

and

wait for it...

A titanium wedding ring. Yeah, throw back your head and laugh like a muskateer at the irony of that as you go through a divorce. Like I always say my life is very feckin funny when you're not living it.

I actually emailed the jewellery people back and told them if they could find me the husband I would link to their jewellery site on every post I ever wrote. I never heard from them again.

Noughties or Nicies ?

A very Happy Hogmanay to you all, I hope your Christmas went well, ours was splendid, in The Mother Country, with the family and David Tennant on tv every single day, how good is that? As the Queen gets to do a wee speech at Christmas I feel it's only fair that I get to do a wee blog on Hogmanay, after all nobody puts my face on a stamp and you don't have to pay to keep me in tiaras, corgis or castles (but if you wanted to, stroll on, be my guest)


How has your decade been? For me this has been the decade which has probably seen the most change, some for the better, some for the worse, some I have just had to accept and adapt to.

On Hogmanay 1999 I was meant to be at a ceilidh in Linlithgow to see in the millennium and our last Hogmanay in Scotland, instead I was at home with a poorly child (Eldest Beautiful Daughter) in Edinburgh, sad that I was leaving Scotland, worried that I was leaving my mum who had just had a stroke and low level excited about our new life in England, we moved here in March 2000.

I stopped being a nurse and retrained as a nursery teacher and then again as an adult eduction teacher specialising in childcare and parenting skills (no laughs from the back row please, my kids are perfectly fine, thank you). The group I set up in 2001 to support first time parents is still going strong 9 years later and I have worked with over 1000 families just through that wee group alone, it remains my favourite job of all time, one day a week I get to squish and kiss babies to my hearts content. I have taught in FE colleges and in a high school (which my bloody year 12 btecs nearly finished me being a teacher for good) and now I work for a children's charity but I still do a lot of training and working with families. All change on the job front.

I am still in the same house in England 10 years on, the longest time I have ever lived in the same house. I don't love this house like I have loved some of my others, but I know I will probably stay until the Beautiful Baby Daughter finishes school, so I have another 5 or 6 years here. I also have The Beautiful House in Turkey as well, until it sells, so if you know someone who wants a house abroad, let me know, mates rates and all that. Same goes for rentals, I think all you bloggers should visit my house this year. Not much change on the house front.

My children have gone from nearly 8 to nearly 18, 4 and a half to 14 and a half and 3 to 13. Huge changes. They are all now bigger than me. They are my life's work and the joy and pride of my heart. They are kind, funny, polite, smart and beautiful and I know I am biased but other (non related) people say these things to me too. They are the love of my life and my reason for everything.

My family, my beautiful parents are alive and well and enjoying retirement.I have added 2 nieces and a brother in law. My sister very sadly has had 2 miscarriages and this has been a hard realisation that her dream of 3 children won't happen. My brother in law has safely had a tumour removed from his brain and at his last 6 monthly check, all remains well. I lost my paternal grandmother at the age of 90. I have almost completely lost touch with my inlaws barring 1 set of brother and sister in law who still love me and I remain a part of their lives. That is sad, I spent 21 years as part of that family and I miss some of my nieces and nephews muchly.

My own personal life has gone from being totally happily married to totally unhappily married and then a detour through separation and a journey through divorce. I have ventured into the dating world after a few decades absence with sometimes painful and sometimes hilarious consequences. There appears to be a theme with my relationships which I call The Unholy Trinity. If you drive a BMW or are an IT/Project Manager or indeed a management consultant or are a Virgo you will be attracted to me. Only men who have at least 2 of the 3 will ask me out. I am catnip to the middle aged executive. The last 3 people I have dated have had 2 out of the 3, the one who had the 3 of 3 (IT GOD) for those of you have been reading a while was the one who was the most difficult to be with, to love and to forget.

Friendships have remained fairly unchanged I still have the ones I started the decade with and very fortunately I have added a few more. Some friendships have seen me through my darkest hours and I will be forever grateful for that. Some of these friendships are virtual, I now know courtesy of blogger, people from all over the world, people who mail me and facebook me and I have never actually met but they are still my friends. Some of these friends I have now met in real life and I have really enjoyed their company. I now have some male friendships, I didn't have that when I was married, I just had female friends and coupley friends, some of these male friendships are completely platonic and some have a will we won't we quality, I like this, a lot.

So for me the noughties have been overwhelmingly a time of change, I didn't think I liked it or could cope with change but I do. I have rediscovered lots of passions and added some new ones. This has been definitely a good decade for me, definitely. So once again I am truly grateful for my beautiful life.

Driving home for Christmas

Today I will drive home to The Mother Country. Since I took this picture a few days ago, our snow is much deeper but I hope the motorways will be clearer, I'm low level worried about Cumbria and the borders though. Hopefully you won't see me on News at Ten.

Conversations with ex mr auntiegwen

ag - "Did you tell Beautiful Baby Daughter she could have a Nintendo DSI for Christmas?"

ex mr ag "yep"

ag - "She asked me and I said no because she doesn't really play with the Nintendo DS she has and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the one she's got"

ex mr ag -"But it's Christmas"

ag - "She doesn't need it"

ex mr ag - "But she wants it"

ag - "I want to shag David Tennant and a Chanel handbag, that's my Christmas present sorted then."

Tis the season, hic

Should I be concerned that Eldest Beautiful Daughter is overly fond of the Baileys Hint of Mint bought for Christmas?

It apparently is fab in hot chocolate, adds a certain something to chocolate mousse and she is very much looking forward to using it to replace the milk in her coco pops.

I'm so proud.

Reasons I am a "failed grown up" tm The Beautiful Children

I am a disorganised Mummy and didn't check the schedule for the weekend.

I now have to be driving to Sheffield to buy gig tickets as part of a Christmas surprise for The Beautiful Son (don't trust anyone to post them as they may not be real) at the same time as taking Beautiful Baby Daughter to her Girls Brigade Church parade. She will now have to walk to church and as we all know that I am a horrible overcontrolling mummy I won't let her go on her own that means Eldest Beautiful Daughter will have to walk her and be my replacement. EBD's cup of joy runneth over at the thought of getting up and being in church with a hangover. BBD's cup of joy runneth over at having to get EBD up and out and grumpy at being there. I have pissed off both the daughters at the same time. I am too scared to tell them where and why I am going as it would piss them off even more that the recipient of such a hard to get treat will be snoring his fat head off in bed as opposed to walking the 20 mins to church in the rain. And you know it will be raining.

I got overexcited and didn't check dates

I spent most of last Friday morning and £160 buying Peter Kay concert tickets as part of The Beautiful Children's Christmas present. When I got the confirmation email I realised that they are for April 2011. Eldest Beautiful Daughter won't even be living here then. Happy Christmas, you have to wait 16 months to enjoy it.

General failure of life stuff

I have got to provide bank statements and credit card statements for the last year as part of my divorce. Hmm, enough said.

I have to count up all mine and the children's total cost of living, how much we spend on absolutely everything and I am scared to do that level of real maths. I can do shoe and handbag and nice lady things maths (I can spend £165 on these LK Bennett shoes or I can buy the £66 charcoal grey Kew longline cardie and the £85 black and plum leather Kew tote and a new Mac lipstick)

General I still behave like a teenager stuff

I am overgiddy with excitement because we have sublet one of our unused office rooms to the site managers from the buidling site next door. There are men in and out all day long. Surveyorie type men and builderie type men. There are lots and lots of men. In hard hats, with tool belts and in our kitchen being manly. I reek of DKNY woman, am wearing really nice clothes to work and my lipgloss application has tripled. The builderie and surveyorie type men all seem pleased to see me and pop up to my office to see if I want a cup of tea made for me. I am extremely enamoured of this type of office perk. Extremely.