sourweebastard

We bought a Ninja Creamy, so the fridge is crammed with fruits waiting to be whizzed into something with a million calories, by the time they’ve added the condensed milk, cream and pistachio cream, because we’re nothing if not on the zeitgeist in this house. I mean, are you even alive if you haven’t made several versions of Dubai Chocolate? So yesterday, when I reached in to find dinner ingredients, out tumbled  grapes and strawberries and I shouted ‘F**K’S SAKE,’ then, ‘Sorry about that girls!’ and LSB says to me, don’t worry, you’re in esteemed company, obviously referring to Trump’s blooper when he stepped off Marine One and lost his shit.

Poor LSB is sick looking at my ‘ What The ABSOLUTE F**K?’ face. The news gets worse every day, and I’m screaming at Alexa to turn it off when it pops up on BBC Six Music on the half hour, with that reassuring ‘sonic thud’ as an intro, which seriously, they need to address because it’s become a total trigger for me.

So I try not to listen, and endeavour to avert my eyes in the shops lest I catch sight of whatever apocalyptic headline the Daily Mail have decided to run with, to generate as much terror as possible. Their sole aim, I am convinced, is to stir up as much fear as they can and make us believe that the way to peace is to follow the warmongers’ lead, which sounds a tad counterintuitive to me. It’s all very Orwellian, but hey, what would I know- I’m only a teacher, not say a property mogul or a tech bro: apparently they have all the answers.

But needless to say, the news abroad and the news at home, has my nerves royally shattered. Generally I have a somewhat tenuous grip on sanity, so to be living in these “interesting times” has been testing. (LSB will attest to this.)

It’s why I haven’t been on here much, because in the light of global catastrophes, it seems trite to whinge about a rubbish ski trip, a shit house-sitter, or when my children turn up their noses at the wild Norwegian line-caught cod fillets I’ve sourced for their dinner.

To be ‘proactive’ I contacted my MP, (Gavin Robinson) about the situation in Gaza. After two e-mails, a Facebook request, and a phone call to his constituency office, I finally received a mealy-mouthed two-line response. Big Angry Gav doesn’t seem bothered– I mean, if you want a bag of flour in a war zone, you can only expect to first be hounded into a cage and then shot at, right?But what to do? I’ve kept e-mailing. I’ve kept signing the petitions, I’ve kept making donations. And I’m breathing deeply, running a bit and holding it together, because rocking back and forth in the corner isn’t much help to anyone.

If you would like to share your ways of coping with apocalyptic news I’d love to know. I also forget how much doing anything creative soothes me, by means of distraction. So thank you for reading my words. My mental health is the better for blogging, so I’m grateful that there is an audience out there for my musings. Happy Summer everyone.

Meanwhile:

What I’m watching:

 Ghosts with the family. A bit late to the party with this but it is hilarious and clever; a gentle watch if you will, so apt for troubled times.

What I’m reading:

I just finished ‘Lost for Words’ by Stephanie Butland as recommended by Lucy Mangan and it’s wry and poignant: a perfect summer read.

About to start The Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In some of my past Father’s Day posts, things have taken a mundane or even scatological turn. In the interests of continuity this post will be no different. Poor LSB- he earns his moniker for a reason.

What the man needs, above all else, is an uninterrupted night’s sleep. I don’t think he’s had one since 2009, and even those were scarce because we used to live beside a Daniel O’Donnell super-fan who would croon plaintive ballads with gusto at all hours. Strange sort of a fella: on occasion he’d decide to play evangelical tapes featuring the Rev Willie McCrea, delivering a full-on hell-fire and brimstone sermon.  Ruined many a moment, did that neighbour and his antics.

Speaking of Satan, and other things ruining your sex life, we may have two of his willing servants here, in the form of our cats. Not a moment’s peace to they give us, determinedly scratching at our door and mewing pitifully for their pre-dawn snack. Yes, you read that right: PRE-DAWN. Soft-touch that he is, LSB wends his way downstairs to heave food into a bowl. It’s a wonder he hasn’t broken his neck on the stairs because they are quite narrow, especially for one in a somnambulant state.

‘Just put the bastards out,’ I hear you shout at your screen, but alas, they have honed a myriad of ways to torment. If we DO put the tortoiseshell outside, she has found a way to land at our bedroom window, from where she yowls, sometimes standing on her hind legs for emphasis. Relaxing it is not: looking up to see her demonic little head and wild eyes demanding to be granted access.

The dog, not to be outdone, was also in fine fettle this morning. Hearing LSB up and about, ministering to the demands of cats, she begged to be let out too. I woke up alone in bed, and found both dog and husband in his study on the sofa together. ‘I just gave up on sleep,’ said LSB miserably, staring ahead while robotically stroking her back. ‘She cries if I stop,’ he added.

 ‘Is that shit on her paw? I said, instead of ‘Happy Father’s Day,’ by way of greeting. Reader, it was. In her excitement at her early excursion she’d ploughed through some of her own excrement. How lovely. Off to the bathroom then, to fill a bucket and don a glove and soak a cloth and tend to soiled paw.

She then had to be walked early, so Himself did that while I went for a run. I did buy him brunch later though, by way of thanks.

Frankly he deserves more than pancakes and bacon for his trouble.

Still, he’s an easy-going sort, and as long as he has an hour in the evening to play ‘Doom, The Dark Ages’ (with his trusty hound on the bean bag beside him,) he seems happy enough. Apparently it’s actually set in hell, so it says a lot that this is where he turns for light relief.

I

I read something earlier which made me smile and I’m dying to know what you think.

So apparently Gen Z’ers are done with the whole ‘big proposal’ thing when it comes to getting hitched and are just bandying the idea about and testing the waters first, before trotting off to put a ring on it with zero flap and fuss.

I was talking to some colleagues about it and they were all, ‘Oooh! That’s so unromantic!’ And I was like, are you for real?

This is how we got engaged.

One morning we went to view a house around the corner as we’d decided to look for abode for us both, after LSB having moved into the two up two down where I was residing off the Cregagh Road. Said house was very expensive, and was only ever a dream really, but how grown up it felt, to be looking at properties to buy, as a couple. Yikes, says I, this all feels very serious. By this time we were sitting in St. George’s Market, because I had a powerful hunger on me, and I was tucking into a sausage sandwich with extra onions, if I remember correctly.

There had been no great discussion before LSB had begun co-habiting, other than I picked him up one morning, off the red-eye from New York where he was working, and instead of taking him to his rented place I drove him to my house instead and there we were, ‘living in sin’ as the Free P’s would say. The next stage was getting a cat, who was a narky old bastard and still is, lording it up on the Costa del Ballyholme where she rules with an iron paw and gets fed fresh cream and warm chicken by the Mothership. Anyhoo, that’s another story.

So, having finished my glorified hot dog, we left the market and I says to Himself, So if we’re looking at buying together are we getting married or not? and he said Yes of course we were, and I said, Should we look at a few rings then? and he said Absolutely, and within half an hour I had a my bit of bling* and he was considerably poorer and basically, I’ve been fleecing the poor fella ever since.

Theres a longer version of the story here

(Let it be known that I was wearing my running shorts and an unflattering vest top at the time and the woman in the jewellers hadn’t a clue what to make of the pair of us. Never seen the like, apparently. I finally went for my run but I had to take it handy as sausages are desperate for repeating on you, regardless of whether you’re doing aerobic activity.)

But would we have done it any differently? The proposal I mean? No sir. We were both pretty sure that marriage was the end goal, but it was all very abstract. LSB also knew that I wouldn’t be up for a cringe-fest of a big moment and would have been scundered by the whole affair, which put him in a right pickle because he wanted to ask me but didn’t know how.

Was that very unromantic, me doing the asking? I said, as we took the 6a bus back up the Cregagh, 15 years ago. Course not! he said, it was great! Sure I didn’t know how to go about it, you know what you’re like; not easily pleased.

Folks, I wasn’t even offended.

But it turns out that I’m in the minority, and couples (in my demographic anyway,) didn’t just want the song and dance, they wanted the whole damn West End musical.

So, nosy creature that I am, I want to know how it all happened for you. Were you dragged to the top of the Eiffel Tower, or did you choke on your cava in the Canaries, and would you ever let your husband choose the ring for you? Heaven forbid. You know where to find me with your stories everyone!

*I did quiz the salesperson at length about the origins of the ring and did my best to ensure it was all ethically sourced. If I were doing it again, I’d get a vintage one, to be sure.

You got to hand it to Aimee Lou Woods for calling out the performers on Saturday Night Live for their depiction of her on The White Potus. The sketch made me laugh, albeit ruefully, at the mess that the Trump Administration has made in record time. But why then punch down and latch on to the obvious dig by targeting her looks? Well, IMHO, that’s just lazy, and as Woods said, ‘mean and unfunny’.  It was the weakest moment in an otherwise clever skit.

I for one, am DELIGHTED that Woods has never had her teeth fixed, for the primary reason that they don’t need fixing. Au contraire, I think they add a delicious vulnerability to her look. And what’s more, there’s a defiance, an audacity even, in refusing to conform to the Hollywood beauty aesthetic. How wonderful in fact, to be gloriously distinct. Take a look around if you’re out of a Saturday night. Modern beauty trends seem to dictate a certain uniformity-same hair, same brows, same highlighted cheekbones. This is entirely at odds with the message of body positivity; urging everyone to be themselves, but only if they look like everyone else.

But let’s get back to teeth. My friend was telling me about a trip to the dentist shortly after having her third child. ‘Ever thought of getting a brace?’ he asked her as she was leaving. My friend shook her head. (I mean, who thinks about a brace when they’ve a child still in nappies? I was lucky to even have time to brush my teeth, never mind worrying about correcting them.) You never believe what he said to her: ‘It would fairly improve the look of your face.’

Can you IMAGINE hearing the like of that? I think it’s shocking. ‘Nah, you’re alright,’ she said, and went on her way. I think that was very generous of her. He’d want to be careful, making comments like that: if he’d said that to me he might have needed a full set of dentures after being clobbered round the face with his own drill.

Then there was this: I got a message on Instagram the other day from a local aesthetician, cordially inviting me in for a treatment of my choosing, which I could then document for my social media. I politely declined. It’s a road I don’t want to go down, because I don’t think I’d ever be satisfied: it’s like when you buy spangly new cushions to spruce up your living room, but they only make your knackered sofa look worse.

Do you want the truth? Of course I’m not happy with my face- it’s lines and creases show with painstaking honestly, every one of my forty-five years. Catch me from the wrong angle and I’m a wizened old crone. But I’d much rather spend my money on a weekend away with my friends, reminiscing about our riotous adventures in our youth, and making new memories together. That would bring me infinite more pleasure than someone coming at me with a syringe full of salmon sperm.

But listen, as my yoga teacher says, ‘You do you.’ I have zero business making judgements about how people choose to look. I do worry though, that the boom in aesthetic procedures could make people feel that they ought to aspire to a certain ideal. And that takes a lot of time, energy and cash.

Be fabulously imperfect, and embrace the feautures that make you authentically you,. I’m thinking of starting a savings account: if I toss in all the money I could have sent on dermo fillers and skin boosters, I might be able to afford a trip to some White Lotus resort myself to drink Mai Tais by the pool. Now that is the dream…

********Mother’s Day Post- pleaae skip on if you would rather not read.**********

So hear me out on this- would you be pleased if your Mother’s Day gift consisted of a soft toy and a box of Miniature Heroes? Because, and forgive me if I’m wrong, is this not a more appropriate present for a child? How many mums do you know who would appreciate the like of this? Who on earth would actually say: ‘That’s exactly what my life has been missing! A pastel pink boom box cuddly toy with blue hearts and teeny tiny legs!’ Readers, let me reassure you that I’m not in the grip of some menopause induced stupor, but I saw such an item in a well-known service station on the Saintfield Road.

Have you ever seen such a pile of crap?

There’s no accounting for taaste, but while I’ve no issue with chowing down a few Cadbury’s Dairy Milks, I’m wreacking my head to come up with a single person I know, who would want to add to the mountain of kid’s stuff they’ve already accumuated. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, I’d be bloody livid if I was handed this next Sunday. It’s unthinkable. ‘Hi Mum, as a big thank you for the trauma of having us plucked from your womb, here’s a floppy-eared elephant fron Sainsbury’s.’

Observe the dark circles under the eyes. I blame the decluttering.

Maybe I’m touchier than ususal on said matters because I’ve recently instigated a clear out, and quelle surprise, I’m the main one  doing the clearing. Let’s be clear: I’m not trying to rob my offspring of all their worldly goods, but we’re being buried alive under all manner of shite and it’s destroying my happiness. So I took action, and lobbed a few soft toys into the machine and hung them out by their ears or arms in the winter sunshine. The Small Child, (or our very own Lord Sugar) got busy on Vinted, but it her Sour Wee Mother who packaged up two neon coloured sloths and a ‘Spring Bundle’ ( two lambs and a rabbit) for which we were offered a paltry sum.

Take them to Oxfam! I hear you cry, but very few charity shops actually accept teddies, so they mostly end up in landfill; the thought of which makes me go a bit funny.

What I’m saying therefore, is that toys are work. Anything, in fact that comes into your house, is work, that primarily the women have to deal with. Items have to stored, cleaned, and prised from the mouths of family pets with a strange proclivity for chewing off their eyes and noses.

I’m suggesting that mums deserve more than being gifted this sort of nonsense. So here’s a handy guide to what I think counts as a present:

Looking something thoughtful and sustainable? A charity shop may have the answer. Who wouldn’t appreciate a vase filled with hand-picked flowers a well-chosen book and maybe a bag of good coffee to go with it?

Feeling harried and put-upon? (Me- almost always) then a relaxing experience is what you need. Close to my heart in Belfast are Betty (Betty’s Place, on University Street) or  Geraldine Boyd who operates out of her snug and perfect ‘cocoon’ in Rosetta. Both use their intuition to tap in to where you need it most. A reflexology session or massage are two gifts in one- time away from frenetic family life, plus the benefits of something restorative.

No time or funds for any of the above? Maybe then on Mother’s Day, mum has dinner made for her. And, I mean deciding on, shopping for, cooking and cleaning up after the meal: the full hog.

In our house we don’t go big on these occasions. Case in point, last June LSB spent Father’s Day screwing on a new Toilet seat he bought in Homebase. And on Mother’s Day 2020, I trailed him to a random house off the M2 and we ended up coming home with a greyhound. ‘It’s entirely my project,’ I told him. It didn’t work out like that though; in fact he’s out walking his project now. But it was unintentionally the best present ever. And beats a toy boom box anyday. She’d only try and eat it.

Final day when sun has appeared. Finally. Like, ‘here’s the holiday you could have won.

‘Has your last holiday been an utter shit-show? Don’t worry, it could be worse. Make yourself feel better here, with SWB’s Guide to making your first ski-trip as stressful as humanly possible…

One– work your ass up to the last possible minute at work, filing reports until that final bell rings and you are spat back out into the community with your brain turned to mush and with spanking new crow’s feet round your eyes from squinting at Excel spreadsheets.

Two– Rock up at airport nervous and jittery, convinced that you’ve forgotton something essential. Meet new friends ‘Orlagh and Ronan’ at the bar and chug down a glass of Marlborough Sauvignon while you chunter on about your worst fears of coming a cropper on the slopes. Shudder as Ronan regales you with tales of going off-piste with zero-visibility and narrowly avoiding death by skiing off the side of a ledge with a 600ft drop in. Easily done, apparently. Eek. Swiftly knock back another glass of Sauvignon.

Three– Snooze on plane and arrive in Geneva with optimism restored. Marvel at its short-termed nature when there is no evidence of the expensive private transfer you have booked.  After retrieving your luggage, run gormlessly around the terminal, sweating like a bastard inside your borrowed ski coat, while you try to locate him.

Four– Arrive late to your hotel, where you lash another glass of wine into you, while slurping up a pasta dish so swimming in butter and pecorino cheese that you wake up (and consequently wake the rest of your family up) at three am evacuating your bowels in a hotel bathroom with poor ventilation and horrifying acoustics.

Five– Omit to check how far away your hotel actually is from ski-hire shop and the cable car where you are to meet up for your group lesson at 9am. Huff and puff your way to said shop to be kitted out by the slowest man in history.

Six– Discover that ski boots are the footwear from hell, explicitly designed to make your feet go into agonising spasms by halting the blood flow at the ankle.

Seven– Walk another two kilometres in aforementioned items of torture, carrying heavy skis along a narrow footpath while the buses, for which you haven’t purchased a ticket, trundle past. Phone the ski-school en route, and try not to vomit when they deny all knowledge of your booking, despite having fleeced you eight hundred quid for the week.

Eight– Locate cable car staion with joyful relief, and hop on, hoping for a miracle at the top. Receive call from school who have located your booking and provide directions on where to meet your group. Exhale. Make your way over to the meeting point, where none of the instructors will have a clue who you are, or give two hoots. With no previous experience, attempt to descend a nursery slope on your own, taking reassurance from that fact that children as young as toddlers are managing it with some prowess. Take off at terrific speed, while shrieking, ‘OH FUCK, OH FUCK, PUTAIN DE MERDE,’ so that said toddlers can hear you scream bloody murder in both English and French.

Nine– Admit defeat, retreat to cable car and descend. Mop up salty tears of rage, fear and frustration and blame husband for everything going to shit, even though it was you who booked it all. Realise that the ski-school is right at the bottom and go in. Observe the chaos and realize that it’s just EXTREMELY busy and that with a million others, your small family of first-time skiers have just fallen (mercifully not literally) through the cracks that morning. Munch pommes frites and mayonaise prior to afternoon lesson to self-soothe. Cry again when this attempt fails spectacularly and sends you scarpering into the small establishment’s single toilet, where you commit a crime against public restrooms and hope to God that no one at the little bar recognises you tomorrow.

Ten– Return to nursery slopes with instructor, and remain on said slopes for the next three days running because you are filled with terror. Ponder if you have a hitherto undiagnosed condition that impairs the transfer of any messages from the brain to the legs, which splay at odd angles akin to someone having a cerebral episode.

Eleven– On day four, move to a green slope in the middle of a blizzard. Prove incapable of gaining any purchase on this slightly greater incline, and clatter down multiple times, having forgotten anything gleaned previously. Cry, and then plead with your instructor that you want to go back to the nursery slope again, while your children look on, appalled.

Blizzard

Twelve– Award Brownie points to yourself for the following-

• Not stabbing an Australian woman in the eye with a fork who boasts about her five-year-old mastering a challenging blue route and telling you to book yourself and your husband into private lessons ‘which would only cost £250 for the morning.’
• Not throttling a Scottish man who laughed uproariously when he asked (and you stupidly told him) what you paid for your holiday.
• Using all your yogic skills to draw in deep, deep breaths when an English fella in a restaurant holds court at his table and tells his friends that really, Trump ‘isn’t all that bad,’ and that ultimately, ‘his transactional method of doing politics will work out in the long-run.’ Tool.

Attempt at ‘jolly family photo.’ Observe tight, forced smile.

Take aways-

On reflection, Australian woman may have been correct and a couple of private lessons wouldn’t have gone amiss, especially given my nervous disposition.

If doing this again, at a different resort, plan to arrive at a sensible hour the day before to arrange ski hire etc, to avoid the shambolic start. Accept that learning to ski at 46 years of age is really just an exercise in humility. Give thanks that everyone arrives home with little damaged only pride, and rejoice that you took the children when they are young and have no fear, enabling them, hopefully, not to look like a pair of total bollocks when they fall on their arses with all the grace and dexterity of a hippo on a unicycle.

I’m dying to know what you make of this. So, flicking through last week’s Guardian Weekend I read a feature on habits we can fall into with our friends. Great! I thought, because while  articles appear regularly on parenting hacks, or how to jazz up your romantic life, less is written on the topic of friendships. But one particular suggestion took not just the biscuit, but the entire box of Fox’s Festive Favourites.  Instead of meeting for brunch, says the author of The Radical Potential of Female Friendship, owhy not meet for a workout instead (ok…potentially) or wait for it, fill out your tax return together.

Can you imagine! ‘Hi Karen, listen, forget the huevos rotos in General Merchants this week. Yep, that’s right, no extra hot latte for you. You’re coming to mine;  I’ll put on a brew, and we’ll nail those self-assessments forms.’ Well, I know what Karen would say: friendship terminated-don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And she’d be quite right too. I mean, go for a walk, visit a museum, head to the cinema. But a tax return? That’s deadly! Another idea was to do the weekly shop together. Are you having a laugh? I have the concentration span of a praying mantis. I can barely get round Sainsbury’s to pick up  all the ingredients for dinner, never mind make it a social event.

But aside from these two appalling suggestions, others resonated with me because I’d discussed some of the issuess with my friends recently.

‘PLEASE can we go to more gigs this year?’ said Aisling. How we used to love a frolic. Twenty years ago we’d have been tearing up the dancefloor in Auntie Annie’s to the Stone Roses and The White Stripes. The release of a Saturday night dance after a week of teaching practice was not to be underestimated. But if we went to a club now we’d feel about seventy-two, and sure we wouldn’t know any of the tunes. A decent gig would be more like it, with the benefit that they start earlier and we could be home and in bed by eleven. Thus we plan to scour the listings and get booking. #decentnewyearresolutions

Something nice happened last year when I decided to take a risk…

Last February we were going to London and on a whim, I decided to contact two friends I had lived with on my year abroad. I hadn’t seen either for years and I was nervous about initiating a meet up. But was I glad I tentatively sent off those texts? You bet. I met Mary for lunch in Elliot’s on Borough Market while I despatched the family off to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. We had glasses of chilled red wine and ate cheese puffs and marvelled at our new ‘grown-up’ status. ‘How is it possible that we’re married now? That we have mortgages? Children?’ we mused. The years literally melted away and we could have been flatmates again,  in our funny little apartnent above a sex shop* on the Rue du Four a Chaux on Reunion Island. ‘Can we do this again?’ I asked as we hugged goodbye in Blackfriars Station. Abso-bloodly-lutely, she said.

The following day we headed to Richmond to stay with my other old flatmate, Emily. Initially I had said NO WAY when she’d invited us, because four days when we hadn’t met in over a decade felt like an imposition. So we compromised on a two night stay and planned a trip to the zoo with the kids and I booked Plaza Suite in the Savoy Theatre for us both by way of a thank you. It was a joy. Tom, who’s another one of those long-suffering husbands, opened a bottle of bubbly on our arrival, which we sipped with a rich chocolate cake which Em and her daughter had made because it was LSB’s birthday. They’d even dug out a bottle of the rum we used to drink on Reunion Island over which we toasted our reunion. We regretted this over-exuberance as we stood in front of the elephant enclosure in the mizzly rain the following afternoon. (Elephants do have their own quite distinctive odour, do they not?) That night, LSB took all four kids back to Emily’s on the train while we sought sustenance in a cosy bistro in the West End before the play. ‘What  made you agree so readily to have us over?’ I asked, over a restorative plate of samosas. ‘Because I need more fun in my life,’ she replied. Isn’t that just the nicest thing you’ve ever heard? It transpired that a friend of hers had interviewed an aging TV director who was still working despite being in his eighties. He said what kept him young was a conscious decision to have ‘deliberate fun.’ Deliberate fun; I like that. Such is the daily grind that I think we could all do with a bit of this, but it doesn’t happen on its own: it takes planning, risks, perseverance. But worth it in the end, I think.

Sometimes taking a chance is the only way if you want to see the people you care about. On Monday I messaged some girls and asked if they fancied going to Idyll on the Ormeau Road at the weekend. I didn’t expect anyone to be free, but miraculously, five of us sat down to a meal last night, and madder still, most of us drove, which left us sprightly enough to pursue our respective pursuits this morning. I managed a run in Belvoir Forest which I definitely wouldn’t have managed if I’d necked half a bottle of Malbec.

In essence, effort is required to keep friendships going. It’s too easy to do the same old things, and sit round the dinner table rehashing the same tired subjects. (Can I put my hand up and say that I bore the absolute bastard out of myself doing this so God knows how my poor friends feel.) So make plans, have craic, and seize the day. But for the love of God, do NOT suggest filling in a tax return.

*It was quite a large first floor apartment and below were three shop units: one which sold climbing gear, another was a pet store and then the aforementioned sex shop. I was only in the latter once, to borrow some chairs for a party we were hosting. Incidentally, our landlord lived next door to us and he was a Hindu priest. His wife, a lovely woman,  used to bring us home made rougail, which was a pickle made from green mangoes and evil little birds’ eye chillis. Merely opening the jar was enough to singe your nostril hair. My eyes still water thinking about it.

Last night I celebrated Nollaig na bhan in a beautiful, understated way. Initial plans to host a pre-emptive soiree on Saturday evening hadn’t materialised, so instead, a friend and I opted for ‘Mellow and Mindful’ yoga with Carla in Studio 52 in Hill Street. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the building, but it’s a gem in the Cathedral Quarter, and we practised on the top floor in a candle-lit room with creamy walls and dark beams.

The session focused on floor work with low lunges and lizard and pigeon poses and the occasional downward dog: it wasn’t the night for warriors and balances. As we stretched out on our mats for savasana at the end, I could hear the soft padding of Carla’s feet on the wooden floor, as she came around and dabbed our wrists with a drop of sweet-smelling oil- a fusion of lavender, eucalyptus and bergamot.

It felt like the wisest thing I’d done in a long time, to allow myself to lie in the company of other women and melt into forgiving poses. ‘Thank you’ said my aching muscles after a gym session that almost killed me last week.

‘Push. Push. Push. Keep going, just get the through the week.’ That’s like the mantra of modern living, isn’t it? Diaries bulging with targets and deadlines, endless chores and commitments. And inevitably we get sick, and then we feel bad and guilty for falling behind and ‘letting people down.’ We can’t even recuperate in peace.

Surely it’s basic biology, that in the cold our bodies have to work harder, and in the absence of daylight our rhythms naturally want to slow down. Then comes Christmas, with its heady mixture of adrenaline, expectations and over-indulgence which can drain us further.

And then, just when should be nourishing ourselves as we face three more months of could weather, we are hit with the usual January shite of ‘New year new me!’ Well, excuse me when I say, Fuck that. I’m not even sorry. In the words of Anne Lamott, ‘It’s hard out there.’ And she lives in sunny California!

Now is the time to cultivate warmth, to go slowly, reflect. Sleep like a squirrel. Doze like a dormouse. Hibernate like a hedgehog, and should you be disturbed, feel free to fire up those prickles.

Over the holidays I had plans to write; to pick up after a fallow period. But the more I forced it, the less it came. I wrote NOTHING. This was exacerbated by LSB gifting me a new laptop since my older one was banjaxed, with a battery life even flatter than mine. ‘Now you can write,’ he said gleefully. Oh the pressure! And then the negative self-talk came in- you’re useless, you haven’t a creative thought in your head… on and on it went. I wasn’t very nice to myself. So instead of feeling relaxed and rejuvenated after the break, I fell a bit miserable.

But I wasn’t producing anything because I felt like I had to, trying to tick boxes before I went back to work. What I wasn’t acknowledging was that I had to release the pressure before I could flow, which sounds a bit new-agey but I don’t care. The writer Katherine May sums up my feeling in her words below:

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

On Sunday I took myself to The Black Box to hear Stuart Murdock from Belle and Sebastian in conversation with Wendy Erskine. He suffers from ME, a condition for which he is now an ambassador. But he recognises that were it not for the disease and the enforced periods of incapacity, that he would never have become the songwriter that he is today. The time spent alone in a room, made him more introspective, and this lent itself to the creation of some of his most memorable lyrics.

Surrender has been a word which kept appearing in Miranda Hart’s recent book. She too has endured long bouts of illness, but having recently discovered the root of it, she has learned to live, and to live better. By acknowledging her limitations and not just doggedly ‘pushing through’ she has found peace and acceptance. I don’t think she’d be having any truck with this ‘New You’ bollocks, unless it’s about self-kindness, making better decisions and reflecting what it is you really need.

So I leave you with this today- what does ‘wintering’ mean to you, and how are you going to prioritise your needs when the ground is icy and the sun resolutely sets before five pm? Take care of your lovely selves, and it is so good to be back on here with you.

I made a terrible mistake last week. My right earhole is still sore; it may even be perforated. It all began when I rang the Mothership to tell her about our Christmas tree debacle. What should have been a festive occasion had descended into one of chaos. There were the usual shenanigans with broken lights which hadn’t survived their sojourn under the eaves for 12 months. But while LSB went to buy NEW set, the dog decided to puke all over the sofa. Extensively. I was stressed after a day at work and LSB had a rare day off so I left him to deal with the vomit and stringing up the new lights. This was a mistake, as he bundled the newly washed sofa cover into the spin drier, where  it promptly got snared round the drum.  We now had a lovely twinkly tree, but a sofa cover with a big hole in it. MELT.

So, my opening gambit when I rang home was this, ‘Poor auld LSB,’ says I. ‘He’s having a worse day than Gregg Wallace’s PR team.’ (It was of course, LSB dealing with all the unpleasantries while I feigned busyness with baubles and strings of decorative gold beads.)

Down the crackle of the line, I heard The Mothership inhale sharply. This never bodes well. What had I started? ‘This business with Gregg Wallace is NO LAUGHING MATTER,’ she exclaimed. ‘How has he not been booted off on the air? And they call him THE TALENT? Talent my eye!’

My God but the Mothership was livid. What had really incensed her, were the comments by men (funny enough) on on-line sites, who had Wallace’s back,  claiming that he was doing the contestants a favour with his ‘bawdy banter’, by preparing them for life in ‘real kitchens.’ And, then, one of his defenders, had mooted, that if the contestants were so offended, why hadn’t they just walked off set and withdrawn from the competition?

This got the Mothership’s goat something terrible. ‘Withdraw from the competition? Why should THEY be the ones to miss out? That crass, bullying UPSTART driving people away while he stays on, raking in for a fortune! Is this what I’m paying my license fee for?

I haven’t heard the Mothership so exercised since they moved the Great British Bake Off to Channel 4. On she went.

‘Now who I really blame, is the BBC- don’t tell me they didn’t know about this. Of course they did. They should be out sourcing new talent, not keeping on the likes of him who’s engaging in the behaviour of a dirty old man!’

I have to admit, at this stage the phone was jammed between my ear and left shoulder while I fried up some chicken up for dinner. (I’d have given it a two out of ten in the taste-test.) I was only half-listening. But then she said something which struck home. ‘Imagine if that had been one of your girls on there, and him saying God-knows-what to them. You’d have had something to say about that!’

And she’s right- I would indeed.  TV sets are daunting, not to mention the stress of the competition itself. The last thing anyone needs is some narcissistic green-grocer in their ear, spewing filth that would make the bananas blush.  Because it wasn’t just ‘bawdy banter’; it sounded much more like harassment, aimed at those who were least likely to report it.

All I’d done was ring home to get advice about the vomity sofa cover, and now I had a hole in both the sofa cover AND my ear drum. I had to open a bottle of red to calm myself. But fair play to the Mothership for getting so incensed, because if we ignore this sort of toxic shite, it will just keep happening, won’t it? And when people leap to Wallace’s defence, I want them to imagine that it’s their daughter stuck in a lift with him, or manipulated into situations which are at best uncomfortable, and at worst intimidating. Thankfully there’s still a few #MiddleClassWomenOfaCertainAge to challenge him.

Anyway, the tree is up, and it’s looking lovely, (Even the dog approves, as you can see in the photo.) And LSB just the fired the sofa cover back on, with the holy bit on the other side. The job’s a good’un.  Pukka, in fact, to quote another celebrity chef.

I learnt the most wonderful word today- ‘tartle.’ Heard of it? No, me neither. I spend most of my adult life being ‘startled’ as the world grows ever more chaotic, but ‘tartle’ was a new one on me. It’s a Scottish term for that particular excruciating pause when you can’t remember someone’s name. We’ve all been there, gormlessly staring at some expectant soul as your tongue tries to wrap itself around their moniker, only to be left adrift, without a bloody clue.

I wonder though, if the Scots have a specific word for not remembering anything at all, because you’re menopausal and your brain is trapped in a perpetual fog? If they don’t, maybe they should.

In an attempt to dissipate the gloom, I took myself to Holland and Barret’s and picked up some Lion’s Mane for focus. ‘Give it a week,’ said the fella behind the till, who was a helpful sort, ‘and you’ll feel more focused.’

‘I should fecking hope so,’ said I, when I clocked the price tag, but I didn’t have much option. I live in constant fear of forgetting things; checking my diary six times a day and just waiting to be caught unawares.

It doesn’t help, of course, that Mother Nature is playing silly buggers. How is it possible that the age of one’s off-spring should coincide with this delightful new chapter? People tell you terrible lies about parenthood. ‘It’ll get easier,’ they say, when you’re schlepping about after toddlers, making sure they don’t brain themselves by clattering off the slide at the playpark. Well it doesn’t, ‘get easier’. It just changes. Yes, your pre-teen may suddenly be able to make you a peanut butter cup, and at a push a cheese toastie, but tragically a protein packed snack isn’t enough to solve all your problems.

The flip side of independence is that my have taken to gaslighting me, swiping my socks and my hairbrush and worst of all, MY MAKE-UP.

‘I just don’t understand how it got there,’ said my eldest the other day, when I found my favourite Mac lipstick on her dressing table.

‘You can help yourself to all the Rimmel and the No7 you like, but I swear to God, if you touch the Mac again I will disinherit you,’ I said in a low and menacing tone, akin to Liam Neeson when he tells the kidnappers in ‘Taken’ that he’s a man with a particular skillset.

Not content with thieving my skincare, they are now perilously close to robbing me of my sanity as well, by impinging on those moments one holds close, as a parent, the much dreamt of NIGHT AWAY. Himself and I had, some time ago, booked tickets to see  Vampire Weekend in Dublin.

Cool New York Indie Band? Tick.

Trendy hotel by the docks? Double tick- we’re coming for you baby!!!

Children and pets catered for? Who’d have guessed it but we’d managed that too!

And then. Didn’t the pair of them get through to a Cross-country final: in Waterford. THE SAME WEEKEND.

So we’re still going to the concert. All four of us. We can’t all be together- as the Small Child is still too wee for a standing ticket, so Himself and I will enjoy the tunes with a child each at opposite ends of the venue. The aforementioned trendy hotel had no rooms left, so we had to cancel our booking and are now headed to a dingier alternative further out. It might be Finglas, which the only information I can find out online is that someone once brought a horse into a Tesco. And a family room, obviously, so there goes the romance. Then the next day, it’s off to Waterford when we will tramp around a sodden field, likely in the pissing rain. Hurray. I’m already excited.

I hate to appear curmudgeonly, and it would be quite wrong to begrudge one’s offspring’s a chance to compete, but of all the bloody weekends?

Anyway, rant over. Happy Friday everyone.