Princess pieds

I am back from Berlin, 'twas ace and fabulous and you should all go there. I will post pictures when I stop having a strop with my iPad. To be fair to the iPad, it's not its fault, I am struggling to have text and photos  in a manner pleasing to your auntie. I shall not be defeated, I expect my husband will post with better photos as well so go and see him HERE


So today I am going to whine about my feet, when in Berlin for the 48 hours I was there I racked up 67 thousand something steps, that's a lot of steps. I love a good walk but I am now beginning to struggle with my feet or more precisely I struggle with footwear, my feet don't match me, they're not the feet of a middle aged stoical lady, my feet belong to a Princess who is currently wondering why someone has stolen her feet and swapped them with trotters belonging to a peasant.

My feet hate all shoes now, the balls of my feet are a trouble but my heels are the most princessy part of them, anything touching my heel for more than a nano second sends them into a swoony faint and they demand a chaise longue and a wee rest. I can work with this in the summer, I wear fit flops which are very cushioned underneath so I can walk and my heels are naked, my heels like naked, they are the only part of me that does. I have lovely fit flop slippers which leave the requisite heel to fresh air ratio,  I have even managed to find fit flop boots, they saw me round my 67,000 steps of Berlin, so why am I moaning?
Dear reader, they are not the most attractive of footwear and they don't suit anything other than casual wear, normally this is okay as I'm not a dressy up kind of auntie, I wear maxi dresses and fit flops in the summer and I wear jeans and fit flop boots in the winter, at home I wear the slippers. I am not geeing my ginger with this, I can adapt, my feet look special but they are continuing to move the auntie round, I'm not complaining but...
 I have to go and speak at a conference this week and for some reason the lecture I will give will not be understood by the attendees if I show up in my maxi dress and fit flops. For me to get my point across I need to be in nice lady clothes, again nae bother to your auntie, I have loads of serious lady lecturing outfits. None of them, sadly, work with fit flops, boots or slippers, I know, completely #firstworldmiddleagedladyproblems.
So enterprising wee soul that I am, I have sourced and I have paid good cash money for a pair of black high heeled suede mules and a packet of something called party feet, they appear to be wee gel cushions you put in your shoes. I'm not sure I would class the Royal College of Nursing's Education conference as a party but us middle aged ladies with bad feet have to take our kicks where we can find them.

Ageing

Yesterday I received a letter inviting me for breast screening. Jings, crivens and help my boab (the husband and I have given up swearing, it's going quite well but I did slip when I had my legs waxed)  Had I  turned 50 but was too busy to notice?. Apparently not, they are extending the screening age to 47. I'm pleased about that, I expect the excitement of being able to go on Saga holidays and breast screening would have been way too much for me in the same year.

In which I feel more ancient than usual

I went to a 40th birthday night out. One of these nights that you don't really know anyone except the person who is 40 but I don't get out much and it's nice to because we all know I just sit at home and be mocked.

I wasn't the oldest person there (you may read my sidebar and think I'm 41, I was, once, I am now getting on for 45) but where I was sitting everyone was around the 40 age and they all had 4 and 5 year olds. That's lovely, I looked at people's photos and heard all the funny stories but my 19 year old uni costs and my 16 year olds drunk paper rounds aren't really fair to tell, in case they scare easy. Much better for them to think their children still are genii (I can't be arsed to google how to spell it, correct it by yourself) and will never give them a moments worry. I had my children earlier than most people, not quite documentary early but a good decade before the people at dinner. I did feel a bit out of step with the rest.

Indeed, it's a bit weird when your EBD and Hot Boy pop into the restaurant to wish the birthday gal a good one, and then persuaded some of them to tag along to experience the fun to be had jaegerbombing. I expect it's a bit unsettling for them to think of going out partaying with their child as they are still all in Disney mode. Indeed it's weird for me to see an unwrinked and thin version of myself.

The upside is the next morning, no 5 year old bouncing on the bed, fully revved up and waiting to be entertained. Just a hungover 19 year old who didn't surface till tea time.

Every cloud and all that.

Things I'd rather not hear

BBD - auntieangela and I saw who you used to babysit for. She's a granny now. That's just grand, thanks for that

EBD - your son does tricks for smarties, I made him pretend to be a dog, he rolled over, gave paws, the lot. Cheers. I'm so proud.

M6 info board - long delays between J23 and J20 (they are feckin liars it was J24 and 18, bastards that they are, I concur most heartily with my friend Edge about the M6)


TBS - that wee light showing on your dashboard means there's an engine malfunction. Feckity feckity feck.

Mad Mother - Could you go on the computer and get me and Gadget Mad Dad a flight to Turkey? Fuckity fuckity fuck.

You know you're getting old when...

You get to have breakfast at the weekend with your daughter. She is returning home after a night out and you're just getting up at 6 like you always do.

Weekend mornings become very peaceful, there is no rush to swimming/ballet/drama/rugby/horse riding. You are the only person awake till at least mid day.

Your son counts the beer bottle tops in his pocket when you ask him how much he'd had to drink. The vomit on his t shirt and in his hair kind of gave me a clue is was more than his allotted 3 shandies.

Everyone stares at you as you walk down the street, well at your very beautiful daughter beside you. You are now invisible.

You cry at the end of Toy Story 3, I won't spoil it as I know I've seen it early but it is particularly poignant for Mummies with teenagers.

Your child has a boyfriend with a mortgage, a car and a career and pension plan.

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.

I've lost it

I got my copy of our corporate plan (no, I don't know why schools have such a thing either but I've found it best to just keep quiet) So, I'm reading my department's section, I'm not too fussed about the other lots, just my bit. I read about what our plan was for last year and how we acheived it and it all sounded very what splendid.

I read about how we had appointed AG as a Subject Specialist and that this extra cost was justified as we had a complete 100% pass at A level etc blah blah blah. I momentarily wondered why I'd never met our subject specialist and mused over how strange it was that we had the same initials...

Yep, it's official, my brain has retired.