She's behind you!! (Oh no she isn't.....)

It's Panto season. And this year, I've come into contact with both a Wicked Stemother

and a Fairy Godmother
(you know who you are).

I've had just the BEST few days away from home, staying with a terrific Twitter friend and meetings lots of other Tweeters. I went down South to see my son in his school play, "Animal Farm". I'm biased, obviously, but I thought it was a tremendous production (well done, Aldenham School)and afterwards I met my son's housemaster, who told me my son was doing really well. I can't tell you how pleased I was to hear this.

Those of you who read my blog regularly (hello, and thank you) will know that I was nervous about the son and heir leaving home and going to a new school and living with his father and stepmother and although the school has worked out brilliantly, home life has not.

His stepmother did not enjoy having her stepson living with her AT ALL. She made life increasingly difficult for him as the weeks went on. He was not allowed, for example, to study at home at the weekends. This, apparently, was not productive and he had to take himself off to Barnet library every Saturday and Sunday. Last weekend she caught him taking a small bottle of water with him and made him put it back in the fridge. "You get pocket money - buy your own water," was the instruction. Several hours later, he returned home in the pouring rain and couldn't get in (he's not allowed a house key; no reason given). He rang his father who explained that he and his wife were shopping and would be home in an "hour or so". He was to "find some shelter" and wait.

Then a few days ago, he was told that his father and stepmother wouldn't be coming to see him in "Animal Farm" as his stepmother, believe it or not, "didn't feel wanted".

On Friday last week I was told by my son that as from January, he would be a full-time boarder at his school. Presumably the decision to whisk my son down to Hertfordshire and live with them hadn't, um, worked out.

Fortunately, he's delighted to be boarding. And because he's happy about it, so am I.

I have no idea what it must be like to be a stepmother, but I imagine it's difficult. Welcoming someone else's child into your home cannot be easy, indeed it must be fraught with difficulties. I'm not going to say what I think of his father's role in all this because I can't do so without recourse to........... well, I'm sure you know what I'd like to say.

I worry every day how this will affect my son's feelings about himself: what will it do to his self-esteem? What kind of relationship will he have now with his father? Will he ever have any relationship with his stepmother? Somewhere along the line I feel I've failed him, but I don't know how to rectify this other than to make sure he knows he is loved and that I'm proud of him for dealing with this farcical situation with more grace and dignity than I would ever have thought possible.

And they call it Puppy Love

If you all want to tell me I'm mad, that's fine. I know.




But just look at him. How can you not love that little face? His glossy black coat that makes him look as though he's been in the tumble drier? The teens raided their savings accounts to buy him and he wasn't in the least bit expensive either. He's an English Springer Spaniel, Patterdale Terrier cross, although at only seven weeks' old he is already much more Spaniel than Terrier.

We love him. Although I hadn't banked on his piteous mewing noises being quite so loud.

Especially when he's asleep.

Back for good - or not

Oh blog. I've neglected you. I have my reasons, of course. Well, reason. I've had a lot to deal with and I'm as miserable as sin. Here's why.

My beloved son did not do as well in his GCSEs as I and indeed he, hoped. He was away on holiday with his father when the results were issued so when I called the school for his results, I was told I would have to attend an interview as the powers-that-be weren't convinced they would allow him to join their Sixth Form.

I duly went to be interviewed the next day and did my level best to persuade them to allow him into their Sixth Form. One of the panel remained unconvinced and so I had to wait for their decision. Four days later my son returned (I might add that his father was reluctant to take any of my calls or increasingly worried emails as to what the alternatives would be) and went into the school to meet said unconvinced teacher. Again, this teacher wouldn't give him a decision. By this stage, most pupils were starting the new term. I didn't know what to do. I asked my ex-husband if perhaps we should consider a school in Hertfordshire which is where he lives. Hmmn.

Anyway, long story short, a school was found down there, my son visited it, loved it, they offered him a place and more importantly they said he could study the exact subjects he wanted for A Level. His current school remained silent until three days before their term was due to begin and said he COULD come back, but with some fairly rigorous provisos. My son said no and the next thing all of us knew, he'd gone to spend term time with his father, but of course returning to me at least two weekends a month and every half term and school holidays. Or so I thought.

Not only has my son been told that now he is staying with his father he is not to go "running back to Yorkshire" because "his family is HERE now", but the maintenance payments I receive from my ex-husband for my son are to stop with immediate effect. All my pleas fell on deaf ears. I'm struggling to make ends meet and keep a roof over our heads as it stands even with this monthly sum of money, so I asked if some compromise could be made, say, I still received a proportion of the maintenance to cover when my son would be with us. No dice. He put it plainly. He "didn't need the money" but it was the "principle". Apparently his latest wife thinks that I am "robbing" her. Considering that the amount I receive(d) wouldn't even cover the monthly fuel bill for her new Aston Martin, this was a tad hard to swallow.

Anyway, funds, or lack thereof, being what they are, getting myself a solicitor was out of the question. I don't qualify for Legal Aid (not many people do unless they're on Job Seekers' Allowance, I discovered via the Citizens' Advice Bureau) but I did get a free half hour's consultation with the firm that handled my divorce nine years ago and thank God I did. I was given a copy of the Consent Order that categorically states I am to receive this maintenance, or periodical payment as it's known, unless either party went to Court and requested it to be stopped or varied.

I managed to speak to my ex-husband and told him this. I was told that unless I accepted his decision to stop paying, then he would take my son out of the school he had just started, send him back to Yorkshire and he could "take his chances". In other words, it was the Hertfordshire school (which is fee paying) or no school. I'd already investigated the possibilities of a place at the two state schools in Harrogate which are excellent, by the way, but was told they were full and that I should have applied for a place last March and they wouldn't let him study the A levels he wanted either. Well, I'm not going to jeopardise my son's happiness at his new school so - there it is. He's there and we're here.

I am, however, going to take my ex-husband to Court. You can do it without a solicitor. The various people I've spoken to at Harrogate County Court couldn't have been more helpful and I am eternally grateful for their patience and understanding. he's definitely got a case for reducing the maintenance but you've got to go through the Courts to do so. In the meantime, however, I have no idea how I'm going to meet all the bills but even more importantly I miss having my son at home. I know I should get over it and everyone's children leave home eventually and he's not gone for good etc, but man: it's hard.

Shanewatch (an ongoing series)

She's at it again. You may recall my trashing of Shane Watson in a previous post and I'm afraid to report she's at it again.

In her latest must-read column in The Times she's back on the subject of WHAT MEN WANT. Oh yes. And what do they want? Shane, in her infinite wisdom, is able to tell us:

"We know that smudgy eyes and Balmain jackets and snakeskin heels are hot, even if men insist they prefer us in bias-cut dresses with shiny wavy hair and a pair of flip-flops.

Ah, how right she is. Men are forever poring over the Boden catalogue, suggesting that their girlfriends/wives buy that nice little bias-cut dress and then jump artfully over the nearest puddle/rock pool.

How would we ever get dressed without her?

The Magic Finger

I'm going to cut to the chase today. I cut through my finger, right down to the knuckle, last week. See, I'm not mincing my words, am I? I minced my finger though. Well, not minced exactly, more sort of sliced, but that wouldn't work, would it, saying I'm not slicing my words and I don't have a sub-editor to go all Giles Coren on.

Anyway, the finger slicing happened because some months ago the ceiling underneath my bathroom collapsed, all due to something and nothing really; running a bath and then, er, pratting around on Twitter and forgetting all about it.

The plasterer (lovely chap) has been and gone, and the decorators are due to start work this week. This led me to stare speculatively at what I believe is called "the paintwork". You know, skirting boards, banisters, door frames, doors etc. I didn't need to be the impossibly rude Ann Maurice to recognise that all of the aforementioned needed re-painting. The doors in particular have taken rather a lot of abuse. A shouty mother and two teens makes for rather a lot of slamming.

Funds being non-existent, I decided to brave the hell hole that is my utility room and see what half-used tins of paint might be lurking in the cupboards and could be pressed into service. Who cares if the various shades of white (china/chalk/cotton) don't match? Pish. Eventually Homes and Gardens will catch up with me and recognise that not-quite-matching shades of white are interior design's new black.

The search for suitable paints took rather longer than I'd anticipated, as the utility room is a repository for all kinds of crap. I have inherited my mother's thrifty gene, which means I am afraid to throw stuff out. Unfortunately, I haven't inherited her concomitant practicality, which would mean I actually do something with the object, instead of shoving it in a cupboard in case it "comes in" later.

So, after I'd waded through mountains of guarantee certificates and instruction booklets for various appliances that broke down years ago and were sold on via car boot sales (don't judge me, I needed the money)I found a plastic tin of paint that looked entirely suitable for the job. If I liked the colour, I'd start with that. Only I couldn't get the lid off, could I. Not even with my special paint tin lid remover gadget thingy. So I moved onto kitchen knives (nope), forks (bent in Uri-Geller fashion), screwdrivers (nope again) and finally my son's Swiss Army pen knife. I don't know exactly how I did it, but the plastic lid bent, the knife blade closed back on itself and seconds later I was clutching the knuckle of my right index finger, screaming "Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!" and trying to stem the flow of blood with dishclothes, tea towels and anything else I could reach.

About an hour later, when I'd stopped blubbing, I peeled off the makeshift bandages and had an experimental wiggle of my finger (bad idea of the week). Blast. Still bleeding. I couldn't ignore this, I would have to go to A&E. Now, I enjoy four hours of sitting in a waiting room looking at children with pans stuck on their heads as much as the next person, but I had a meeting to go to in a couple of hours and I couldn't afford to miss it (collecting payment). On the other hand, I was in rather a lot of pain, and it was a weekday morning, so surely Casualty couldn't be that busy? Pausing only to secure my bloodstained, tea towel-bandaged finger with a scrunchie, I got onto my bicycle and started the long cycle to the hospital.

For a mercy, the roads weren't busy, and you'd be amazed at how quickly one stops when one brakes only with one hand, although there is a certain amount of skidding involved. Free-wheeling downhill, the scrunchie failed to hold everything together and my now bright red tea towel unravelled, flapping gaily in the wind and scattering droplets of blood on startled passers-by.

When I arrived at the hospital and went to park my bike, I realised that in my panic, I hadn't brought my bike lock. The Hospital Reception staff greeted my pleas for some sort of substitute with blank stares. Eventually one bored charmer looked up from her computer monitor and called behind her to her equally bored colleague: "We haven't got anything that would do, have we Leanne?" Leeane dragged herself away from the no doubt thrilling occupation of gazing into space and replied "What?...............No."

I was then treated to a gripping lecture on the hospital's policy of parking at one's own risk, cannot be held responsible, more than my job's worth etc, and decided to cycle back home and patch my finger up myself, rather than face the distinct possibility of having my bike stolen for the sake of an elastoplast.

The following night I went round to a friend's house for dinner and one of the guests was a male nurse, who kindly gave the offending digit the professional once-over, asked me what I'd done to fix it (sprayed a bit of antiseptic spray on the wound, applied a couple of steri-strips, a dressing and covered the lot with a finger bandage) and said I done exactly what he would have done and not to worry.

And where did I find such professional wound dressing supplies? You'll never guess. The utility room.

Patronising Claptrap

I'm sorry. I should have posted ages ago but sometimes I'm a lazy cow and so I, er, haven't.

Last time I posted on this blog was to bore you all to death with tales of my birthday. Still on that subject - you can tell not a lot happens to me - I received lots of lovely presents, and one not so lovely. Shane Watson's book.

The irony of this is that I had written about her book before and I wasn't too complimentary about it either. There is just so much about this book that I dislike. The title, for one thing. How To Meet a Man After Forty. The multitude of assumptions in this title infuriates me and I can only assume I was given the book by a well-meaning (married) girlfriend because I, as far as she is concerned, fall into the the correct demographic.

I looked over what I had written earlier this year and I haven't changed my opinion at all, so here is an only slightly modified version of my original review.

What you first need to know is that the author, Ms Watson, is actually a Mrs, having finally hooked her own bloke three years ago. (I'm sorry to say, the poor sod is referred to as The One. No pressure then.) Now happily validated by society, she is free to fret in a particularly smug manner at the plight of her single, aged sisters. Yes, this book is for those of us for whom the bloom of youth is now but a distant memory, or would be if only the ageing process hadn't robbed us of so many brain cells.

I'm sure Ms Watson means well - or at least, means to make a lot of money, which may be the same thing - but this sort of patronising claptrap really gets my goat. The assumption underlining every word of this magnum opus is that a woman is incomplete without a man. A man who is married. To you.

For those of us who have dithered about, unsure as to what characteristics constitute "The One", Ms Watson has helpfully compiled a "list". This list has on it seven, absolutely immoveable, non-negotiable conditions:

- Must be kind. If you have heard him be vile about anyone, seen him be cruel to animals, children or boring hostesses, then this man is not kind.

- Must like women. You think this goes without saying. Of course every man you've ever been out with has loved women. But are you absolutely sure? Did they like it if you contradicted them in public? Were there many women they found attractive who were a) over 50, b) large, or c) noisy? Thought not.

- Must adore you.

- Must be smarter than you, or at least as smart. Smarter, probably, or you will keep looking for that Achilles heel.

- Must have bigger feet than you. Obviously. And must be hairier.

- Must be able to make you laugh in all situations, including when you get to the airport and discover he has no passport.

- You must fancy him unconditionally.

What I find particularly offensive about this list is the requirement that "The One" must be cleverer than you are. Or, to put it another way, you must be a silly little woman if you are to bag your bloke.

It is, therefore, not enough that we must be pea-brained fools with size two feet who laugh like a drain. If we are to nail our hairy, clown-footed Oxford don with a great line in knock-knock jokes, personal grooming must be attended to. Every hair below eyebrow level must be napalmed into submission and the resultant hairless limbs must be spray-tanned. All of this is fairly pedestrian advice and rather assumes that a single woman hasn't got time for a spray tan as she's too busy teaching her cats to sing and knitting her pubic hair into a sporran.

There are more sage words to come, however. "If you want sex, then you need to dress with sex in mind." And our super-successful sex kitten authoress has very firm, if unexpected, views about what turns men on. If we wish to get our man, then we must choose from "a bias-cut floral dress and kitten-heel slingbacks, wrap dresses worn with cashmere cardigans, and pastel ballerina tops over slinky skirts". One can only sit, slack-jawed in amazement, at her ability to see into the minds of men. Why, at this very moment, chaps up and down the country are simply begging their wives: "Please, PLEASE take off that black satin babydoll negligee and matching crotchless knickers darling. Can't you slip into that gorgeous bias-cut floral dress, just for me? Aaaaaaaaaaaah. Not the kitten-heel slingbacks. I cannot resist........"

And yet, and yet. As we hairless, perma-tanned creatures, all wearing pastel ballerina tops the better to disguise our dowager humps, prepare to launch ourselves on the multitude of available, hirsute, quantum physicists out there, we are unable to dispell the nagging feeling that there is something missing from our ensemble. What can it be?

Fear not. Ms Watson has already thought of this, and on our behalf turned to international fashion icon Isabella Blow. "Once, a long time ago, the brilliant Isabella Blow told me I must wear a hat if I wanted to find The One. You have to stand out in a crowd. You have to let them see you," she said. "And men love a hat. They see the hat and they want to meet the girl."

Alas, Ms Blow does not reveal what kind of hat will clinch the deal. Perhaps it does not matter, and any one that comes to hand will do. I have an old riding hat somewhere in the house. I shall wear it, safe in the knowledge that it will definitely make me stand out in a crowd, particularly at a drinks party.

A plague on this asinine book. Nobody can really be this shallow. Or desperate.

Fag Hags and Glad Rags

Today is my birthday. Yay! I've given up caffeine, chocolate etc for the moment, so after much behind closed doors discussions, the Teens (who don't really have any money of their own) bought me a box of my absolute favourite, but too expensive for everyday drinking, Bettys "Special Rare Green Tea". It is, as the blurb on the box says, a "light delicate blend of rare green teas, with pale pink rose petals." Isn't it lovely?








Sometimes my teens are capable of the greatest sweetness.


This came with my present:






The slim, wrinkle-free, top bird is, apparently, me. I WISH. Mind you, when they want to, they can certainly put me in my place. I remember one occasion, several years ago now, my daughter had a nightmare and wanted to sleep for the remainder of the night in my bed. The next morning, I turned to her sleepily and looked at her lovely little face, flushed pink with sleep, and I smiled gently at her. She smiled back and said: "Your face is all wrinkly, like Granny."

Actually on that subject I have just this minute bought from Boots.com their latest "miracle" cream, No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum. In four weeks, I fully expect to look, ooh, at least six months younger. Man, I hope it works. I've got frown lines that make me look like Evil Edna.










Remember Willo The Wisp?



I'm also going to take the opportunity of saying huge thank you to all the wonderful people on Twitter who wished me a happy birthday. Many of them asked me what I would be doing to celebrate my birthday and I told them all that I would be going to Hales Bar in town for their Stars in your Eyes competition with a bunch of friends, most of whom are gay. Henri is coming with me. She'll be meeting everyone - including me - for the first time, so I hope to God it's a good night and everyone behaves. Having been informed about the planning revelries, Carrie asked if she was allowed to refer to me as a "fag hag" (saying she was one herself). I rather think I am. But are you?

Answer the following questions:

Your significant other dumps you. What do you do?

* Cry hysterically for a week, refuse to get out of bed and check your mobile for signal every 30 seconds

* Indulge in a spot of retail therapy, then go out with your mates and get blind drunk

* Invite your friends round to bitch about what a loser your ex is, drink copious amounts of champagne and finish the evening performing a selection of Broadway musicals

Speaking of musicals, what is your favourite Julie Andrews show?

* Mary Poppins

* The Sound of Music

* Who the hell is Julie Andrews?

Have you ever had a boyfriend who later turned out to be gay?


* Don’t be ridiculous

* Not that I’m aware of, but so what anyway?


* So that’s what happened to my shimmering cleavage enhancer after we broke up


Your local gay bar is:

* Against God’s law

* Really good fun, actually

* About to name a cocktail after you

When you go out on a Saturday night, your aim is to get:

* Drunk

* Laid

* Arrested

Answer yes or no:

* Has a friend ever left you alone in a strange city in the middle of the night because he met someone cute and had to have sex immediately? (Award yourself an extra bonus point if he was dressed as a woman and had all your money in his purse.)

How did you do?