New Year New Me

Okay I have wallowed in my misery, gazed at my navel and had my pity party. Thank you for all your kind comments, emails and texts, I do appreciate it.

Time to move on. I never make New Year Resolutions, not sure why but these are not resolutions per se, this is me attempting to clarify what I want from life.

If I blog this, you can all help me, yes I know I'm lazy and I should do this all by my own self, but you're all such lovely people and you all have such different lives and experiences and viewpoints. Please join in and make suggestions, set me little challenges, open my eyes and make me think. I want you all to check in from time to time to see how I'm getting on with my plan

I want to decide what career I'm going to have - will I stay in teaching or retrain ? What other jobs can I do ?

I would like to be more patient with my own children as I seem to use it all up with other people's

I would like to be fitter, my running has all but stopped but I'd like to do more

I want to lose some of the weight I've put on - I will eat less and move around more

I want to be a better friend, I am getting shockingly bad at keeping in touch

I want to be more organised

I want my house to be cleaner and tidier ( no I can't lose the kids)

I want to stop depending on other people to make me happy - I need to learn to make myself happy

I want to stop feeling like a failure because I am single - a spouse or partner does not automatically make people happy and I must try to remember this

I want to have peace of mind

I want to feel truly happy again

New Year Blues

I'll keep it brief as I am like a bear with a sore arse at the moment and I don't want my misery to inflict the blogging public.

I am hoping this is a temporary situation and it's just the usual post xmas, post new year angst - I'm getting old, what have I done with my life, same old same old that we sometimes have.

I am truly grateful for the good things in my life but at the moment it's difficult to keep that in perspective whan contrasted to the complete and utter misery that I feel.

Again, I am truly grateful for the good things in my life. If I keep telling myself that maybe I'll feel better soon

Happy Christmas

A very happy Christmas was had by all. I hope you had a good one too.

With lots of love from your auntiegwen and her emo kids.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I'm home

Drove home to The Mother Country today to stay with The Beautiful Parents. I do love my family, they're as mad as a box of frogs but I love them.

We had a very good journey home, the M6 was not a car park as is it's usual state. We had a very cheery Christmas CD on and there was minimal fighting, all good or as Eldest Beautiful Daughter says, it's all gravy.

The Beautiful Parents have excelled themselves on the spending money front once again, the lounge has been fully redecorated and furnished, just like last Christmas ! My gadget mad dad has invested in a nintendo ds, a wii and an all singing all dancing sky telly, phone and broadband package. Fully complemented by a very fancy new computer and wireless router (despite the fact they have no need of a router as they only have 1 computer) and I have tried to explain this but as I am extremely technophobic and they are pensioners with a penchant for gadgets they don't fully know how to operate, I just gave up.

Life is so good at home, awaiting my arrival was my choice of pornography, the GSPC ( this is a guide to houses for sale in Glasgow) I am an absolute property porn addict, a family size tin of roses and my beloved Empire Biscuits.
As my children have full access to all home technology comforts and then some ( plasma screen tellies and a full sky package, not to mention the brain training that has kept them quiet for the last hour) and a fridge full of crap that they love but don't get at home, I am asking myself...

Why don't I just stay ? Please Mum, this time I'll even keep my room tidy, and I'll always be in bed by 11, I promise !

Spoke too feckin soon

I am so fed up and pissed off I am frightening people. You know that sign that says " I have pmt and a gun, any more questions ?" that pretty much sums up how I look at the moment.

Me and my big fat useless Scottish gob. I've brought it on myself. Remember that smug and happy tone of the last post ? Well, it's come back to bite me big time.

I have had to go back into work to do some cover.

My students have resubmitted their marked work for an upgrade therefore I have to remark.

My children are being truly and unbelievably horrible to each other and so so selfish, I am ashamed of them, where did I go wrong ? they were not brought up like that.

I have in no way, shape or form even made a dent in my xmas shopping. I had started but Amazon sent me the wrong stuff and now I have to go buy it and go to the post office to return the wrong stuff. I still have to do the big xmas food shop and that will have to be done on xmas eve and that just makes me want to cry.

I have no time between now and coming home to write and post cards so for the 2nd year running I am not sending any.

My long awaited night alone with himself so did not go to plan, it's fair to say that we both had a horrible weekend.

Christmas, you can keep it

Ho feckin ho

Reasons to be cheerful part 1

I am now officially finished teaching for the Christmas Break

I am finished marking Glory Be To God

My Christmas tree is up and I have my Crabtree and Evelyn Noel Xmas candle, lamp oil and room spray in use, that smell means Xmas to me and mine

I am coming home to The Mother Country to see The Beautiful Parents

My Beautiful Children have taken a small break from the undercover work of Satan and have temporarily stopped trying to drive each other mental

I am going to see The Beautiful Man today

The Beautiful Man and I have no, I repeat, NO children to look after tonight and up until tea time tomorrow

The Beautiful Man and I will be in his house completely alone for the first time in 2 months

Again, The Beautiful Man and I will be completely alone tonight

My life is soooooooooooooooooo good

Cynicism, thy name is Gwen

I've had a busy old week, what with work, weans and just general life really. And that's without mentioning the C word.

A few things have made me laugh this week, as follows

Seen written in dirt on the back of a transit van in Birmingham - " This van is called Mohammed"

Written in magnetic words on my kitchen door - " Teachers are pooey brown butt wipes " nice to be insulted in your own kitchen by your own offspring isn't it ?

and finally the pick of the bunch, taken from The Sunday Times

The Madness of King Alex

It has cost THOUSANDS of pounds and months of hard work, but at last Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has unveiled a new tourism slogan to replace the old "Best small country in the world" tag line.
The new catchphrase has been variously described as "stunning", "astonishing" and "showing what a modern, vibrant and successful country Scotland is". The slogan?
" Welcome to Scotland"

Well feck me, they obviously had the keenest minds and brightest talents on double time to produce that one, eh? How did they come up with that ? No wonder the English think we'll never manage without them in the glorious post Devolution Caledonia that has Salmon salivating.

Is it just me or does the Scottish "waste of tax payers feckin money" Parliament fiasco spring into anyone elses mind ?

Five Glass Friday

On Friday night himself and I went to his triathlon club's annual black tie award dinner. This involved a dinner suit for him and 3 coats of mascara and a posh frock for me. It would be an understatement to say I wasn't looking forward to it.

There were more than a few reasons for this,
I don't like getting out of my jeans unless I'm getting into my jammies,
I hate being a plus 1, in the past this has meant me being left to fend for myself whilst the people who know each other have a great time,
I tend to be a bit nervous around people I don't know so I have a few glasses of the red stuff and then think I'm dead funny, everyone else just thinks I'm pissed and possibly obnoxious, not much chance of them being pissed and not noticing as they're all athletes
It being an athletic club, I thought I might be the lardiest one there
We were leaving 3 of the collective beautiful children together without us being there for the first time ( don't worry, the eldest is a very sensible 15 and the others 12) I really wasn't sure how they'd get on. So lots of little niggles before we even got there.

What was I worried about ? I don't think anyone was sober, I saw quite a lot of peoples pants, both himself and I were hit on, I didn't take the 2 kilted men to task for not having any right to wear a kilt ( both admitted they do it just to pull women!!!),and the kids got on brilliantly.

The Beautiful Man looked really yummy and looked after me like I've never been looked after before and he doesn't dance like a dad. Not too shabby is it ?

Mr Angry of Leith

Himself sent me this funny email today and I had to share it. Coming from Glasgow, I always think that the West Coast humour is a wee bit funnier but I did live in Auld Reekie for 13 years, and I did love it there too, so here's a wee bit of East Coast humour for you.

Here's a thought for all the Edinburgh dwellers on the service your boys in blue / black / yellow provide. True email sent to the force, lengthy but absolutely brilliantly written....
Anonymous correspondence from a member of the public

Dear Sir/madam/automated telephone answering service.
Having spent the past twenty minutes waiting for someone at Leith police station to pick up a telephone I have decided to abandon the idea and try e-mailing you instead. Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Leith by means of smoke signal, carrier pigeon or ouji board.
As I'm writing this e-mail there are eleven failed medical experiments (I think you call them youths) in West Cromwell Street which is just off Commercial Street in Leith. Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite. This causes an earth shattering CLANG! which rings throughout the entire building.
This game is now in it's third week and as I am unsure how the scoring system works, I have no idea if it will end any time soon.The remaining five walking abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins. One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a beaver on speed. I fear that it's only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the bottle of calor gas that is lying on it's side between the two bins. If they could be relied on to only blow their own arms and legs off then I would happily leave them to it. I would even go so far as to lend them the matches. Unfortunately they are far more likely to blow up half the street with them and I've just finished decorating the kitchen.
What I suggest is this. after replying to this e-mail with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year (probably bath night) when there are no mutants around then drive up the street in a panda car before doing a three point turn and disappearing again. This will of course serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like.I trust that when I take a clawhammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks you'll do me the same courtesy of giving me a four month head start before coming to arrest me.

I remain sir, your obedient servant?????????

Mr ??????,
I have read your e-mail and understand you frustration at the problems caused by youth playing in the area and the problems you have encountered in trying to contact the police.As the Community Beat Officer for your street I would like to extend an offer of discussing the matter fully with you.Should you wish to discuss the matter, please provide contact details (address / telephone number) and when may be suitable.
RegardsPC ????????????????Community Beat Officer

Dear PC ?????First of all I would like to thank you for the speedy response to my original e-mail. 16 hours and 38 minutes must be a personal record for Leith Police station and rest assured that I will forward these details to Norris McWhirter for inclusion in his next book.Secondly I was delighted to hear that our street has it's own community beat officer. May I be the first to congratulate you on your covert skills. In the five or so years I have lived in West Cromwell Street, I have never seen you. Do you hide up a tree or have you gone deep undercover and infiltrated the gang itself? Are you the one with the acne and the moustache on his forehead or the one with a chin like a wash hand basin? It's surely only a matter of time before you are headhunted by MI5.Whilst I realise that there may be far more serious crimes taking place in Leith such as smoking in a public place or being Muslim without due care and attention, is it too much to ask for a policeman to explain (using words of no more than two syllables at a time) to these twats that they might want to play their strange football game elsewhere. The pitch behind the Citadel or the one at DKs are both within spitting distance as is the bottom of the Albert Dock.Should you wish to discuss these matters further you should feel free to contact me on ??? ????. If after 25 minutes I have still failed to answer, I'll buy you a large one in the Compass Bar.
Regards???????

P.S If you think that this is sarcasm, think yourself lucky that you don't work for the cleansing department.

Now you see, if the police weren't so busy arresting and putting men on the sex offenders register for shagging their bikes they'd be there like a shot....

My Mondays

Now some of you may know that I work from home on Mondays. This is the day when I attempt to clean my house, do shed loads of laundry, run ( ha ha ha, I put them in to save you the trouble of laughing for yourself), do a supermarket shop, plan lessons for the week, go to the bank, post office, dry cleaners etc etc etc. Monday is the day when I try and do a weeks worth of stuff in a day. This is what I plan to do, every Sunday night and every Monday morning, I tell myself that this will be the day I do it. In my head the plan sounds great, achievable even. This is the plan.

This is the actuality

Every Monday, I get up, go straight to Beautiful Baby Daughters room and get into her bed for 10 minutes where I kiss and cuddle her, then I go to The Beautiful Son's bedroom where I get into his bed and kiss and cuddle him for precisely 10 minutes, they actually time it to ensure neither of them gets a peko second more of my attention. I then knock on the door of the Bride of Darkness aka Eldest Beautiful Daughter and get a grunt in return from under the duvet, I would be happy to kiss and cuddle her to but I am more likely to get a belt in the mouth for my trouble, like me, she's not a morning person.

I then proceed downstairs to the kitchen, I put on my first load of laundry for the day, empty the dishwasher, make packed lunches, call the beautiful children at least 4 times to come and eat the feckin breakfast, dispense money, find lost kit, homework, school books etc etc.

I then return to my bed with the first of several large mugs of coffee, I watch channel 4 on the telly whilst eating my lightly toasted cinnamon and raisin bagel, occasionally I can persuade EBD to make me another coffee and I stay there contentedly till I've seen Will and Grace.

I then get up and empty the washing machine and put on yet another load of laundry. I sit at the pc and log on, I read my horoscopes, handbag.com forums and anything that catches my eye on the home page, I then go to blogger and read all my lovely regular round of blogs and then I think I should blog myself.

So it is now 11 am, I am still not showered or dressed, the washing is still not pegged out and I have achieved nothing of my plan but before you deride me for wasting my time, have a little look at what I've found out, today I give you something I found on the tiscali home page, it is a list of laws that have never been repealled, and I 've included the foreign ones so you can see that people really are nuts the world over.

Strange but True Laws

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down.

3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish shop.

4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day.

5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter.

6. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including a policeman's helmet.

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King and the tail goes to the Queen.

8. It's illegal not to tell a tax official anything you don't want them to know but legal not to tell them information you don't mind them knowing.

9. It's illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour.

10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the city walls but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.


And for our fruit loops abroad...


1. In Ohio it is illegal to get a fish drunk.

2. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

3. In Bahrain, a male doctor can only examine the genitals of a woman in the reflection of a mirror.

4. In Switzerland a man cannot relieve himself standing up after 10pm.

5. In Alabama it's illegal to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle.

6. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on a Sunday could be jailed.

7. In Vermont, women must get written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.

8. In Milan it's a legal requirement to smile at all times except at funerals or hospital visits.

9. In Japan, there is no age of consent.

10. In France, it's illegal to name a pig Napoleon.


Time well spent, I'm sure you'll agree

I want to ride my bicycle

This is a word for word quote from November 4th s edition of The Sunday Times

Cyclist of the week

A hotel guest has been put on the sex offenders register after attempting intercourse with his bicycle. Two cleaners interrupted the man at a hotel in Ayr after they knocked on the door and heard no reply.
" The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to stimulate sex" Ayr sherrif court heard. He will be sentenced later this month after admitting a sexual breach of the peace.

Well, lordy, lordy it takes all sorts doesn't it ? What a shocking waste of tax payers money to prosecute him. I do feel slightly sorry for this man though, I personally wouldn't get my jollies with a bike but I do know grown men who get excited on buses. I kinda feel that if it's an inanimate object and it's in private then it's no bother to your auntie, whatever lights your candle.

Does the hotel have to take some kind of responsibility for this? I mean, why did they decide to call the police ? Hotels make shed loads of money from showing adult movies to lonely sales reps. I mean, if it's a rainy Tuesday night in Ayr and they're showing the Porn De France on pay per view, what do they expect?

All you need to know

On Thursday, as I was teaching my trainee nursery nurses, I was giving them the statistics around just how much learning takes place in the child's early years. Which incidentally is a lot. Last night I came across this poem and I think it summed it up beautifully. The foreword was

All I needed to know about how to live and what to do and how to be wasn't learned in Graduate school but in Kindergarten

The Lessons of Kindergarten

Share everything

Play fair

Don't hit people

Put things back where you found them

Clean up your own mess

Don't take things that aren't yours

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody

Wash your hands before you eat

Flush

Warm cookies and milk are good for you

Live a balanced life - learn some, think some, and draw, paint, sing and dance, play and work some every day

Take a nap every afternoon

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup, the roots go down and the plant goes up, we are all like that

And remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Robert Fulghum - All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten


So there you are, all you need to know about life, simple really isn't it ?

Never again

It has taken me longer to recover from the Beautiful Baby Daughters birthday sleepover than it did to recover from the 4 glass Friday escapade of Jo's birthday !!

I met one of my students the day after and she was extremely puzzled as to why I looked so different - this is what a night of no sleep and 5 little girls intermittently fighting and crying does for you. Touche eclat and Beauty Flash Balm don't even make a feckin dent in it.

We had the full gamut of emotions, missing mummies, so and so doesn't like me, I want my own way itis, scary storytelling followed by a severe dose of the frights, 2 headaches needing calpol and a nose bleed !!! helped along by fizzy pop, truckloads of e numbers disguised as sweeties and a slight sprinkling of mischief as they weren't in their own houses.

Eldest Beautiful Daughter disappeared at the crack of sparrows in case she was asked to help in any way, shape or form, The Beautiful Son hightailed it to his mates to watch the Rugby Cup Final where he endeared himself to the parents by cheering on the Springboks (you can take the boy out of Scotland but you can't take Scotland out of the boy) and this left me...ALL ON MY OWN

Pre pubescent girls can be feral like creatures and this lot weren't too far off the spitting and snarling at each other. There's always 1 wee scone who is liked less than the others and there's nothing like a group of girls to find your achilles heel and put the boot in.

As a mummy who has already had birthday sleepovers for her other daughter I knew this would happen and I kept telling BBD that these sleepovers were better in the planning and the anticipation than in the actuality, that they would all fall out and somebody would want their mum and it really would be a disappointment. She was having none of it, her friends were different, they were all really nice to each other and way more mature the EBD s mates were at that age. As I've blogged before the BBD is always right, top barristers have to practice their debating skills with her, it's an integral part of their training. So the damn thing was arranged for the night of her birthday or Black Saturday as it's now known.

It really was hellish, and I'm an old hand at this and it was still hellish. I had to take 5 little girls out in their pyjamas and dressing gowns to collect TBS after the rugby as they were too scared to be left alone for 5 mins, I had to phone 3 separate mummies for permission for calpol, a reassuring chat with their daughter and to tell them of the fairly spectacular nose bleed repectively. 1 girl was sick and we had another who locked themselves in the loo. All this in between eating, drinking fizzy pop, singing very loudly to that feckin awful umberella song which has wedged itself into my addled brain. At no point was there much of the sleeping.

The next day when they's all gone home I asked BBD if she'd really enjoyed it and as she can never ever be wrong, she was very enthusiaistic about how it had been great. As I can be the bigger person, at no point did I let dab about the text she'd sent to The Beautiful Man which he then forwarded to me

Sleepover not going 2 well but i an co ping

Mo Chridhe

Yesterday was Beautiful Baby Daughters 11th birthday. As I held her in my arms for the first time I loved her so intently and with a tiny tinge of sadness, knowing that she was the last baby I would ever have.

She has grown into the most complex of my children, a creature of extremes - at times as wild as the heather mixed with the most gentle and tender of hearts. Sometimes seemingly so grown up but remaining as much of a baby as she ever was. I feel she is the most like me, both physically and emotionally. I see all my faults glaring back at me and this can make for fireworks between us but it in no way diminishes the deep and profound love I have for her.

She is incredibly enthusiastic about things and has the biggest heart. She is always telling people how much she loves them and will often write little love letters to us or give us certificates praising us for our good points. Her generosity of spirit is fabulous. She is definitely the most creative of us all and life with her in it is never boring.

I still sneak in and look at her when she is sleeping and as I see the glorious mop of titian curls slightly damp from the bath covering the still babyish curve of her cheek and the thumb remaining very firmly in her mouth, I can still see the baby in the cot.

I love her so very much and she is still now, and always will be, her mummys darling baby girl, and my heart, mo chridhe

Procrastination, thy name is Gwen

As I sit here, fiddling away at the computer and eating hobnobs (which incidentally aren't as nice as I thought) I know I really should be running. It's really cold outside though and I have to catch up on all my lovely bloggy friends weekends etc, etc.

I know I should be running, when I get out I do really enjoy it but it's just the getting out that's the problem, I am becoming shockingly lazy and consequently lardy. I am really content at the moment so I'm not off my food, I have started eating chocolate again, which I had given up for nearly 2 years. On Saturday I ate a whole portion of profiteroles, a whole portion, me who hasn't cleaned her plate in years - ask the Edge ( my best male matey boy) he only eats with me because he gets to eat all his pizza and then at least half of mine. I am just completely unmotivated to run.

I thought that being with The Beautiful Man would make me more inclined to exercise as he is very sporty and competes in triathalons. Himself is incredibly focused and trains as much as time allows him to and there's nothing like having to get your kit off for a man who has not 1 spare ounce of flesh on him to make the vain part of me want to stay in reasonable shape.

But still I procrastinate, I have a gym membership and like all normal people I never go. I was bought a little pink ipod for my birthday so I can be entertained, still can't be arsed. I have now bought good proper running shoes, they're not even dirty. I didn't run at all last week and as I sit here on the only day of the week that I don't have to officially go to work ( I am meant to be working from home, which really means sitting here in my jammies eating hobnobs and messing about on the computer) and I don't have to take care of any children I am still not out there running.

I started off with, I'll just check my emails till the washings done and I can peg it out, then I read my regular round of blogs, then the washing still wasn't done, so I did this and now the washing's finished so I have to peg it out and then go.

Glory be, there is a God, it's just starting to rain and everyone knows I wouldn't lace my trainers up if there's a spit of rain around, aw well back to the hobnobs.

Paris

Well, I did come back, I didn't really want to but I did. I absolutely love Paris. Highlights of this trip were many but I really enjoyed using the metro, which I didn't do last time and I loved Abbesses metro station , it's only one of 2 original Guimard Art Noveau metro s that remain so I was really pleased to see it.

I enjoyed wandering round Montmartre, I went to pray in Sacre Couer (lapsed Catholic that I am) and although the Church is really impressive, inside I was left feeling slightly uneasy at the juxtaposition of the sanctity of the church with the requests for money at every turn. Signs reminding you to respect the church by not taking photos and not talking ( which I completely understand) vying for position with signs asking you to donate 10 euros to light a candle and 2 euros for a tealight, donations of 15 euros for masses said and the uneasy spectacle of a gift shop within the church itself, just off the right aisle. I understand that it costs to upkeep the church, but isn't the Catholic Church the richest institution in the world ?

I loved the old style Paris with the beautiful traditional architecture and I was surprised at how much I liked the very modern style at La Defense in west Paris. I could quite happily live there.

So I'm home now and back with a bump, got up at 5 to fly back in time to teach my year 13 s. Went straight to work where a visit from EBD food tech teacher to discuss her lack of progress in handing in course work was awaiting me. After school, lesson prep for tomorrow then home, where I had to take TBS to his electric guitar lesson, assemble a costume for BBD 's book character day and then cook tea and deliver TBS and his maddest mate to rugby training. In between the normal cleaning, laundry, mummy type stuff I do.

Was it only last night The Beautiful Man and I were strolling hand in hand along the Champs -Elysees ?

Things you should never say

Me to my group of trainee nursery nurses

I'll mark and return all of your 2000 word assignments to you in 1 week


Me to Eldest Beautiful Daughter

Yeah, I'll drive you to David's on Fri night ( I ended up doing 2 trips as I couldn't fit all The Matey Boys in the car and spent from 6pm till 7.40 pm in my car)


The Beautiful Man to me, when looking at old photographs of me

God, you used to be a big old bird, didn't you ? Did Gordon have to open the double doors for you ?


The Beautiful Mans mother to me

It's not that it's not lovely to meet you Gwen, but it's just so strange that you're not Caroline


Beautiful Baby Daughter to me, in the car with all 3 beautiful children and The Beautiful Man driving at speed

If you get married again, can I be your bridesmaid ?

To his credit, he didn't crash

More rugby stuff

The Beautiful Son returned home from his school trip to France yesterday. I do miss him when he's not here. He has been befriended by a matey girl who has got a hold of his mobile and put in her mobile no, her home no, her email address and her birthday. She's even put a photo of her dog as his screen saver. She's been texting him all day today, I think my days of being his best girl are numbered !!!

Watched the rugby last night mainly behind The Beautiful Son's back. What a shocking display of nothingness from the Scots with the exception of Chris Patterson our kicker extraordinaire. However we did beat Italy and we are on our way to the quarter finals where we will face either Argentina or France.

Beautiful Baby Daughter has grounded me again, she's not happy that I am going away next weekend. Now I know I am a lucky girl, I am a very lucky girl and The Beautiful Man is taking me to Paris next weekend, where we will go and see rugby, how good is that !!! and he doesn't even like rugby, he's a massive football fan and he's ( don't tell anyone this, I'll say it really, really quietly he's not even Scottish, I can hardly bear to tell you this but I have to fess up that he's English ) but how good is he to take me when we follow different games and support different teams ?

Beautiful Baby Daughter gave me the full 3 verses and the disco chorus of how neglectful a mummy I am. If I ever blogged what lengths himself and I go to to meet everyone elses needs, all the children, work, family and even the ex partners, you would realise that we as a couple come right down at the bottom of the pecking order. So I have stood my ground and to Paris we shall go, despite protestations about me leaving her in her birthday month ( it's not till the 20th !!!) and a stern telling off about my carbon footprint as I had been to Italy in August with him. She will so end up running the country that one.

As others see us

Last Friday I was teaching my year 11's about stereotypes and prejudice. I turned up for the lesson dressed in Eldest Beautiful Daughters black emo/gothy type clothes, very short black funny looking sticky out skirt (over my black trousers) and a vans black t shirt with a huge pink skull on the front. Resplendant in lashings of black eye liner , skull and cross bones belt and the piece de resistance of her prized coffin necklace ( complete with skeleton inside) I began to teach in my normal way.

We had a really good discussion about how unsettled they were to see me looking different. We then discussed how en masse others who are not like us can scare us and how we like to belong to groups, that old saying of birds of a feather flock together type stuff. We really do like to belong, don't we ? most of us like to fit in.

Then at the weekend I read about The Scottish Tourist Board spending millions of pounds to raise awareness in America so all the lovely American tourists can come and spend their dollars over here. I will say now that I love America, the American people that I personally know are charming and well educated people. When I have been on holiday there I met very polite and helpful citizens all over, I know that I am extremely nasty about Italian people and that is irrational prejudice on my behalf based on a few unpleasant experiences I have had. This prejudice does not extend to Americans. I know I have some readers from the States, I sincerely hope that you will still read on, I still love you guys.

In this survey, many Americans could not name a single Scottish city, they didn't know where we were in relation to other European counties. Some students were unsure if Scotland had the internet and others didn't think we as a country had computers or microwaves. The person who most typified the Scots for them was Willie, the Scottish gamekeeper from the cartoon series The Simpsons.

I wonder does that say more about the Americans than it does about us ?

Let me enjoy it

The rugby world cup is making me very happy at the moment. Scotland have won both their games despite not always playing tremendously well. Chris Patterson is kicking beautifully. Dan Parks is simply simply gorgeous. Rory Lamont is also not too shabby. England got humped by South Africa, all good. Please let me enjoy our little victories.

On Sunday I will be back to reality when we face the mighty All Blacks. There is a part of me that wants Frank Hadden to play his best team and for us to really really try and Inshallah, beat them, the old Scotland the Brave type stuff. I know there has been some talk of sending out a squad that doesn't include our best players. Then reality sets in and I want the best team to be facing Italy as I really hate the Italians and I know it's not very pc of me to say it but nothing would give me greater pleasure than to beat the Italians, well, maybe beating England would be on a par with it.

I know that I will be watching on Sunday from behind a cushion, that is unless Frank gives me a call, I reckon I could get a game, The Beautiful Son is all ready and waiting for his call up too.

Four glass Friday

On Friday it was The Beautiful Friend Jo's birthday. She was 43 candles old ( sorry sweetie). In honour of this auspicious occasion , we decided to stir our stumps, leave the conservatory sofas ( where we spend most of our evenings together) and go out - into the real world, with people, to a bar !!!

Off we pop to Dos Hernandos, a niceish, localish bar, where incidentally we went last September, that's how often we go to bars. It was really busy and I endeared myself to all the men in the vicinity as I cheered on South Africa as they humped England at rugby.

During the course of the evening, several men meandered over to talk to us. We find this strange as neither of us are very good at talking to men, Jo because she's been married for 10 years and they stopped speaking in about 1999 and me because I hate people mimicking my accent and that seems to happen a lot in England.

At close of play, I had been offered several drinks, a lift home and 2 offers of dinner. I wasn't even wearing my impulse spray. Now, is that because men are like buses and they all arrive at once or is it because when I told them I wasn't interested because I'm already with someone, they felt the need to chase ?

When I looked round that bar, I noticed all the men my age were talking to girls several years their junior and yep, you've guessed it, everyone who chatted me up was in their 20's , youngest aged just 20 and the oldest aged 26 !!! I've got tea towels older than that.

I did however pay for my night of the 4 glasses as I was sick several times, setting a beautiful example to my 15 year old daughter. The next day I had to dispatch the matey boys to buy me ibuprofen which being the sweeties they are they did. Matt and Alex, cheif matey boys even made me a Happy Hangover card to cheer me up too.

So, I've been out into the big world and it was interesting but I'll stick to the conservatory sofas for the time being, much more me.

His First Gig

The Beautiful Son went to his first gig on Friday night at the grand old age of 12. He went to see a local band called Freefallfelix, their lead guitarist called Ed teaches TBS to play the electric guitar.

Ed is a very, very hot boy around here and I make loads of teenage girls jealous as I have his mobile no and he will text me from time to time about TBS lessons, you want to hear teenage girls squeal when my phone beeps and I ever so casually say " Oh, it's Ed " Eldest Beautiful Daughter also thinks Ed is pretty ( her expression, not mine) I know what constitutes hot and pretty to them but it's so far removed from what I think would be attractive, as my mother would say " You wouldn't even dust it !!! "

TBS really really wanted to go and see Ed and the band but like I say, he is only 12 and usually these gigs are for 14 plus. EBD, her friend NIki and the matey boys were going, so I knew there would be 7 others there and I said he could go if they promised to mind him and he promised not to be a pain in the arse to them and behave himself.

Off they all went, all promising faithfully to look after him and not to drink till after I'd picked him up, when they were all going on to a party. When they arrived the doorman asked TBS how old he was and TBS replied 12 before they could say 14 for him !! After a bit of pleading he was allowed in and was under strict instructions by the doorman to keep a low profile.

EBD said as soon as the first chords were struck up, he disappeared right into the front of the mosh pit, where he remained until the gig ended, she spent the entire evening in a mix of being worried about what she was going to tell me if they broke him and admiration for him as he moshed his little heart out. She would catch occasional glimpses of him as he crowd surfed like a pro, both with his shirt on and off !!!

The Matey boys were so impressed and they now say they won't go to a gig without him, he is chief mosh boy. He had the time of his life and I'm so glad I let him go.

How others see you

Last week I started my new job teaching Health and Social Care. I am teaching on the Btech ( with 15 year olds) and the AS level ( 16 and 17 year olds) and A level ( 18 year olds). The way the timetabling is done is that I have each group for a double lesson 1 per week, the rest of the time they have other teachers.

My Btech group are doing a module on communication, so because they didn't know me last week it was a good way to teach them about the way you communicate depends on what you think of the person you're communicating with, how you can stereotype people and make assumptions, and how you mentally pigeonhole people quickly to form your first impression. I asked them to have a look at me and to write down what they thought about me, what did they think my life was like ? including things like

age
was I married
did I have children
where was I from
was English my first language
what hobbies
did I drive
what car
what did I do before teaching
what do I drink

What a laugh we had, most people thought I was married but that my children were young, no one thought I had 3, a few were stunned to find out who's mummy I was ! , lots of the class thought I was Irish and not Scottish, nearly all thought I was sporty and 1 girl thought I played competitive netball. They were nearly all on the money in saying I liked shopping, one boy had me as a reader and another had me as a very keen cook !!! Oh, how my family wish that were true. They all thought I drove, I had a range of Fiats, hatchbacks, a honda jazz and a mini cooper, again if only that were true. Most people thought I had always been a teacher but 2 thought I used to be an estate agent. No one guessed the red wine, lots of white wine and spritzers, a few vodka s and slimline tonics and no one had me as a Starbucks addict.

The best bit of all was the age, the oldest guess I got was 40, most had me early to mid 30 s but the youngest one put me at 28.

I love my Btech group.

My Wish List

After picking myself off the floor post separation, a good few months later, when I was feeling slightly more human, I began to think about a future that included another man.

I'd always enjoyed compiling my celebrity shag lists with my friends and the shag, marry or throw off a cliff game. Compiling my "What do I want in a new man" list kept me entertained for hours, my other single friend Christina and I went over our lists endlessly, updating and adding to them.

My wish list for my fantasy new man had some very stringent criteria, I was extremely fussy, some of what I wanted was ludicrous in the extreme, but the list grew longer and longer. You would have thought that I was some kind of gorgeous supermodel with a mensa type IQ to be asking for what I was asking for, but no, I'm just me. I did actually go out on dates with men who didn't immediately fit the criteria, I didn't dismiss people completely out of hand. But on the date I could feel myself mentally ticking off things on the checklist and very, very rarely did I accept a second date, if I felt that they were too far removed from my fantasy new man. When I think about it now, it is so awful and completely stupid but shows that my head was so not in the right place to think about being with someone else. Let me share with you the list, so you can have a real laugh at how mental I was being.

My Fantasy New Man

Age between 40 and 44
Height - minimum 6 foot pref 6 foot 3
Physique - very toned - no man boobs
Hair - must have a full head of hair, pref blonde this time
Eyes - no real pref on colour , maybe blue this time but must have nice long eyelashes
Clean shaven - at all times

Must be funny
Should be able to talk about how he feels
Be able to be supportive
Be happy to text me numerous times during the day
Previously married and divorced a long time ago
Have had children before ( so he knows what real women's bodies are like post childbirth !!!)
Children to be grown up and living independently ( I know that's a bit of a stretch given the age criteria, but I warned you it was a crazy list)

Must have a regular type job and not be an ambitious career sort
Not be a dominant alpha male
Get home from work at 6pm every night and never have to travel away
Ideally the job would be something like a builder, someone really practical who would be able to fix things for me, like diy or car problems

Must not like football, rugby is fine but no footie fans
Must love shopping
Must be good at sex and never fall asleep before me afterwards
Must go to Starbucks very regularly and NEVER say " Jesus, that coffee cost me £ 3, I could have bought a pint for that"
Must never get drunk and only drink a tiny little bit, pref red wine
Must read avidly
Must not drive a BMW
Must want to travel and explore new places
Be willing to arrange and sort out travel plans, so I just have to turn up

Preferably Scottish ( shared frames of reference, similar humour etc) and prepared to wear his kilt at every opportunity
Prepared to take on and love my crazy and dysfunctional kids and my much madder extended family
Want to go back and live in Scotland with me
Be prepared to stand up to my ex and to say no to him as I found that v difficult

In short I wanted someone to totally take care of me and my every want and whim. How passive am I ?

Now, lucky, lucky me I have managed to meet someone, a man who has made me extremely happy. I don't wan't to wax lyrical about him as I will make you vomit as I can be extremely mushy about him and if it all ended next week I'd look extremely foolish professing undying love for him and all that.

Does The Beautiful Man fulfil all my stringent criteria ? does he fit the important bits ? Some of them he does, some of them are the polar opposite of what I wanted and thought I needed. I have mentally ripped up the list and have allowed myself to take the chance to be happy. That has been the best decision I've made in a very long time.