wotnopeoplecarrier

It's dusty in here. Haven't poked about in this section of my life for a while - so you'll have to excuse me if there are a few dust induced sneezes as I fumble for the light switch and try to remember why I kept a blog.

oh it's coming back to me now - well it would.... I've just tripped over a pile of ranting about something so it seems I blogged to rant. I rant therefore I blog.I blog therefore I rant. Anyway...

I've calmed down a bit these days.....very serene...almost nirvana like...

but as I'm here again and before the old blog lightbulb pops, I just want to mention that it's a bad idea to tell anyone, especially a village football team child welfare officer (eye rolling moment thankyou) that your son has an allergy to peanuts.

Now i'm no expert on the beautiful game - but I am pretty honest so when the form came home to be filled in I sleepwalked into the 'does your child have allergies' section and confessed that yes we do own an epipen.

An epipen. Not a nuclear warhead. And we've never used it despite repeated accidental attempts on his life with prawns and runny egg. Ok not repeated but let's just say finding out what makes him swell into a zeppelin and lose his eyeballs has been through trial and error.

Anyway, this flaming busybodied child welfare officer (which means she owns a fire extinguisher/blanket in her kitchen and has probably plied an ofsted person into registering her as a childminder) has decreed that I must at all times be poised by the training pitch or the match pitch with epipen at the ready.

Really. Not for my boy the delight of going off with his mate and mate's Dad to footy without his mother fussing about. Oh no. I have to stand there like a confused miniature spear thrower in case a freak gust of shellfish or coconut flash flood takes hold while he's trotting about in defence.

I did of course challenge the child expert....but perhaps misjudgee the tactic by simply saying that the rugby team he plays for doesn't nancy on about something so trivial (in the context of sport obviously - not trivial if he had joined a nut and oyster tasting society with regular training and away matches) and this seemed to inflame things.

So that's that. If Charlie wanted some independence and saw footy as a way of getting it he's been scuppered.

I think it's a human rights issue .

Mine.

I hate standing in the cold with women who come to show their new tattoo off whilst hoping a coach might do something interesting with their tackle on the way home.

Feels more like home now in here....yes this is definitely my blog. I've missed you blog. I have blog guilt....

In a thrilling last minute team change Charlie got the call to play in the county tag rugby festival.

I wanted to deck a particularly annoying father but apart from that a great day was had by all and what a delight it is to watch your 7 yr old on the wing grinning from ear to ear.

He bulldozes his way through does Charlie, not for him the lengthy pretty run round the back, he just pushes his way through and somehow in a scrappy scruffy way gets the try.

I ate too much picnic then went out for a late lunch and then met the new child bride girlfriend of a good mate of ours who has dumped his 50 yr old wife.

She was rather dull, (the girlfriend) but had the 'please take me roughly right now' look about her that some men appreciate.

I resisted asking how she helped when his piles flare up - which they do from time to time - and decided to let her enjoy her aging stud for a while. But it was odd....I have intensely disliked the company of his wife for the past ten years, and I felt strangely disloyal chatting to the shiny new model with the skinny jeans and the low cut top. Odd that, I was actually comfortable disliking his wife because it was what I was used to.

Anyway, the new squeeze is firmly on the scene now and her new dad,, sorry boyfriend is besotted. But it's all a bit false really, her hanging around with us oldies, and frankly talking about hollyoaks was enough to make me cheer a team i didn't know to look busy.There's no fool like an old fool, but he looks a happy fool and you can't argue with that can you?

But what a try kiddo, what a flippin try....

It's all a bit baby centric in my life currently - I have 3 pregnant colleagues and a newborn niece. So I feel a bit like an aging expert on all matters maternal and was absurdly pleased to have remembered how to burp and settle a two week old baby at the weekend and then smugly declare it might be time for a little glass of something while the 'owners' fretted about whatever it is you fret about with something the size of a galia melon that's sleeping anyway.

And that's the thing - you can't bloody well remember! Truly - I cannot remember my sons as babies. Yes I recall the tiredness and the exhaustion and in my case the whole 'will they ever leave hospital' but the day to day daily stuff you forget.....no you do...

'Did yours feed every 4 hours?'

'ermmmm'

'Did they like a bath?'

'Err...'

'Did they settle themselves or was it a case of holding them all the time?

'hmmmm'

The plain fact is that after your brain's been addled by 2 kids in 3 years you can't remember jackcrap about anything much. Yes I know I fell in love with my newborns. Yes I am pretty certain they did the eye following thing that tells you they're einstein and yes they probably did support their heads really well and were probably described as 'very alert'

(I'd be alert if someone was constantly tampering with a nappy on my undercarriage but there you are)

i just don't remember the details ok? Yes they're adorable yes I love them but actually the love is very much in the present tense. i remember hoping my first baby would never walk or talk - not in a sick way but because he was just so squidgy and gorgeous that I never wanted his pudgy legs and feet to need anything more than a nibble and a tickle (not rugby boots like now) and then suddenly I can't imagine not having a little tag rugby scruff who loves his Mum and xbox equally.

Amnesia - all parents have it.

Sorry who are you?

We have a very large boardroom where I work. In it is the biggest table ever made on planet earth. It makes the UN table look intimate - it's vast - it has a strip of branded coloured lighting going down the middle of it (which no human arm can reach) and it says 'Look at the size of my nob' Figuratively speaking of course. It's designed to strike fear into the heart of anyone sitting at it, and it does this very well. It is so enormous that it's got built in microphones all over it - and if you sit at one end you need opera glasses to see who's wittering on at the other end.

So anyway, I don't like the boardroom because it doesn't actually represent anything the company stands for anymore. Yes when the old MD was there it did, but life has moved on, and he and his nob (small clearly) are elsewhere. So it isn't often we go in there, only VIPs.

The last time I went in there was when the global HR something or other paid a visit and we'd been primed and primped to say our piece. There were about 18000 people sitting round the table and, not scared of public speaking, even I went a bit wobbly just before my turn. I needn't have worried though, because having listened intently to everyone else and made notes at appropriate moments, this global guru took a call on his mobile and then walked out as i was mid sentence.

'But I was just warming up....don't go!' I protested in vain as everyone looked at their feet. 'I'm just getting to the good bit! come baaaaack!!!!' People laughed, I was mortified, and became a legend after having made the global chosen one feel small. He didn't of course, people just said it to make me feel better.

The very first time i went into the big tabled room was to hear about a reorganisation that might mean losing my job. I wanted to scratch 'jules woz ere' in the veneer but decided against it and probably wisely as I'm still very much employed there.

And today I had to go in there because we were doing a VBP (very big presentation) I wont bore you with the content but the audience was mainly people for whom sitting on the board doesn't mean a week in Newquay. We're talking heavyweight big brains in the commercial sense. The kind of people I find rather intimidating, men in blue shirts with nice pens who you just know supply expensive ponies for their daughters and 6 holidays a year for their perfectly formed wives.

Nothing like me then.

I hate ponies and have sons.

So in the food chain with people like this I'm somewhere between mollusc and amoeba. And yet, due to last minute flapping and faffing, somehow, from a project team of great and almighty, I ended up doing part of the VBP (do keep up) Only a bit - but the expression 'punching above weight' sprung to mind when I found i was to speak about subjects not exactly in my area of specialism. And with slides someone else had prepared. Fatal.

But I was pretty relaxed this morning despite the obvious pressure, got a coffee and chewed the weekend over with the team as always.

I noticed we were looking very tidy and thanked them for the spring clean

'Yeah, I OCD'd your desk' said my planning analyst ' cleaned it too'

Thanks

And then the visitors started

'Hey JPR - you OK? All ready? ' This was my big big boss

'Beyond ready'

'Now I'm scared'

how we laughed!!

5 minutes later

'Hi JPR - all set? anything you need? Feeling nervous?' This was the project manager

'Er, no. All ok. Should I be nervous? Was feeling er OK....'

10 minutes later

'Hey - you happy with the slides? All good to go? Any amends?'

'Erm, no, as I've said a few times I'm not nervous but now really getting quite nervous because everyone's so interested in my nerves could do with...' am cut short by another visitor

'Thank you so so so much for doing this today - really - it's so so appreciated'

Good. Good then. So everyone's happy that I'm not nervous only I am now and I wonder what the hell they're expecting from me. Cirque du soleil? I have a reputation for being creative and I now realise perhaps for being a 'risk'

'Um, Julia, I was thinking, if people don't laugh you would change to things that aren't funny wouldn't you?'

OK so plainly there is feverish debate one hour to go about whether mollusc should be unleashed on lion. Arguably not but it's a bit sodding late to change things.

i am asked to go to a run through. Bloody hell - now I'm really nervous.

Am nervously halfway through it when in the true tradition of that fecking big tabled room someone burst in - the HR director in fact - looked at me and said

'Why are you practising? Christ almighty - you're making me nervous Julia! I don't prepare because I know you don't have to!'

Good........

It went OK, noone keeled over or vomited during my slides which was a bonus of sorts. I didn't fall over some fresh air like I did at the conference at Olympia, nor did I get snowed in like I did for the key note speech I was meant to give at the RAC club on the Mall.

I await feedback - but something in the eyes of the project manager told me that being invited (unrehearsed) to open the intros with

'Yep - I was just thinking that at a time like this what you really need is a piano player' may not have hit the spot.

But at least the table looked good. I should know - I was cleaning the sodding thing with an improvised giant cotton bud made from a flip chart and a duster half an hour before kick off because once lit the dust of a thousand boardroom skirmishes was pooling unpleasantly in the middle of it.

I'm nothing if not versatile.

had one of those days where just about every single thing you wanted to do didn't happen through no fault of your own? As though some cosmic trip wire had been laid in the night and you tumbled over it before even opening your eyes?

So today there were a few things going on...

1. 8am planned c-section for latest addition to brother's brood and because it was breech etc I wasn't judging but planning a marvellous lady bountiful aunt type trip to see them all first thing tomorrow. Niomi Rose - welcome to the family - sorry and all that...

2. Deadline for VIP (very important proposal) at work which despite having a day of leave I had planned to review at least on email and if possible see in person at the office before it was sent to people far more important than I am who won't understand a word of it.

3. Food shopping. Not as major as a new life but fairly major to me and my kids if we're at home all day

4/ And most important - a day of fun and merriment with my boys which they'd always remember.

What actually happened then

1/ 7.30 am unmistakeable sound of heaving and vomiting. Checked it wasn't me or Mr PR and concluded correctly it was a child. Charlie went on to vomit green doctor who bile over the entire upstairs in his attempts to get to a loo.

2/ 8am Realised had missed all important 'good luck with large cut in belly god help you' text opportunity to sister in law.

3.realised planned trip to bestow pretty pink baby clothes everywhere on newborn infant with oddly spelt name was now not going to happen. Risk of infection etc. As someone who had to scrub up for 3 months to visit her second born I am nothing if not aware of the danger of bugs from vomiting 7 yr old that will nestle happily in a carseat and jump out on arrival at a hospital ward.

4. Was very - no - beyond disappointed about trip being cancelled. Dude. Man. Bummer. Really wasn't good had been very excited about it. Typical.

5. Then learned that random mental email issue meant no way I could forward proposal to yahoo to print off and read before deadline. i mean, yahoo.....not working.....it's not possible.....it's like Will Carling having skinny thighs.....unthinkable...mmmm rugby players

6. Then no food crisis hit, as did 'Mummy feel better now let's go out'

7.Yes! Get food get toys get whatever just get out!!!!

8. BrhghgasdiuggRogGPUHG - Henry did he get all that vomit in the bag? Did he? Mommy can't stop Mommy is on a motorway.....DID HE?????

9. It's OK - Mommy is now stuck in a huge tailback and will probably have time now to examine the precise contents of the bag and therefore Charlie's stomach as night will surely all before they clear this latest A1M bit of carnage.

10. Home in time to think oh damn about tomorrow and visiting baby again and then realise it was THE SLEEPOVER today. Nothing major, just something Charlie has been looking forward to and talking about for, oh, 5 weeks.

Sleepover cancelled.
Weekend cancelled.

Just one of those days.

Aha! i've found it! My blog! knew I'd left it somewhere but since i GAVE UP SMOKING and JOINED A GYM and was told I DON'T HAVE GLAUCOMA BUT DOLLOND AND AITCHISON HAVE CALIBRATION ISSUES I have been in a frenzy of busying myself being smug and fit.

So now that's over and I realise that actually smoking and drinking and all those things are in fact the things I really like and now I even bore myself with my inner chats about my inner thighs I feel the need to give the world an update on all things me.

1. I still have a job despite loafing about pointlessly most of the time in an attempt to be selected for the chop - yesirre I actually seem to be in more demand than ever.

2. My car, the big girly wussy pathetic girls aloud of the vehicular universe is my least favourite thing since just one snowflake renders it incapable of movement. I have dug it out no less than 9 times during the few days of snow while Ford ka's and little berlingo's whizzed past me. I think supermodels are less diva like and for this reason if global warming means an ice age I'm getting rid. Oh yes Audi, I mean it.

4. Mr PR was 50 a few weeks back and my wonderful weekend of surprises and thrills ended another 'feud' leaving me to conclude I should never ever ever bother to do nice things. Sorry!

5. i've got fatter since I joined the gym

6. no really, i am in fact heavier and bulkier than I used to be

7. Think Fatima Whitbread minus the javelin (and moustache thanks)

8. My eldest said ' he gets on my tits he really does' in front of everyone at the holiday club

9 My eldest was player of the week at rugby

10. My new fridge sucks it's smaller inside than the old one somehow

That's it really.

I bought us a new fridge last week. Very exciting. Trundled round Currys for ages gawping firstly at something I resent having to pay for at all, and then gawping at the excitable women explaining to bored men why smeg was the only possible way to go in the coldness department. As the men yawned, the women smelt triumph, and so did the saleschild (sorry they are children I don't care what the labour laws decree - currys and comet employ children)

I can't get het up about fridges. As far as I can tell they're all the same but if you really are crazy you pay for a smeg one, if you really have pretensions to the american dream you buy one bigger than my car and everyone that sees it will outwardly ooh with envy but inwardly say ' wankers who do they think they are the Ewings?' and that leaves you with thin ones in silver or black or white.

Charlie and I agreed that a fridge should not be the focal point of the kitchen

'Get that one Mum, it's got a water thingy'

Oh dear, the only gadget in sight and he spotted it.

I was by now beyond bored and realising that no amount of wandering round 20 foot high fridges would make them free so I got the one with the water thingy.

400 quid lighter I went home and lost the receipt/delivery note etc. This didn't come to light till midnight the day of delivery and Mr PR threw a minor hissy fit about how when HE buys things from Currys all is good and when I buy things from Currys it all goes wrong....cheek...

'Sorry love it doesn't say we'll take the old one'

Mr PR rolled his eyes and his nicotine patch

'Hang on, I expressly asked the saleschild, Charlie was his name, to put this on the order'

'Well he hasn't'

'Well that's not my fault - why would I want to keep the old one? He's made a mistake!'

Luckily the nice one of the two relented and said they'd take it - and I gave them a tenner.

We unwrapped our new toy, with the water thingy that we don't need, and there was much oohing and ahhing at the sheer sparkliness that is a new fridger freezer.

Bored by now I wandered off to flick through the instructions, mainly I wanted to know what superfreeze was. Could I point it at the children like a gun when they were naughty I wondered?

Anyway, I learnt two very impportant things.

Number 1 - never ever put a living thing (eg pet or child)in the freezer. The instructions say so - ensure that everything you put in there is already dead. Phew....lucky I read it eh?

Number 2 - before disposing of old fridge, remove all shelves - but be aware that in doing this you will have created a 'Child Entrapment Danger' Make sure, as the fridge is taken away on a trolley, that all of your children are present and correct and not in fact hiding in the old fridge (as they do) because the fridge will go to a recycling plant and little johnny may spend the rest of his days as an icecube tray.

So - don't say I didn't warn you.

Still none the wiser about superfreeze....but I think it was reading time well sepnt don't you?

For most elderly people,the gap between xmas and new year is a good opportunity to have a nice sit down at the local GPs and bore everyone senseless with the latest bunion complications (gout usually) December and January are peak times for popping off, it's true, ask your local undertaker and they'll do a kind of gleeful and mournful grin which means oh yes baby business is booming once everyone's 'hung on for xmas' So doctors shift with sheer boredom in the twilight working days between xmas and yet another year to get through, while the elderly (who may pop off) ramble on about 'this chest doc'

I joined in this morning. Oh yes. And the excitement of seeing the GP was heightened only by the fact that this was my first appointment at my NEW doctors! Oh joy! I was going along to try and get someone to please refer my high pressured eyeballs to someone who knows about such things...it's only taken me 6 weeks...still best not to rush these things at my age.

So, I wandered in and stood aimlessly looking at the empty and vast reception desk. I also looked at the crowds of receptionists sitting in the back area who clearly had no intention of doing anything. Hmmmm

And then I saw the self serve check in. Very high tech. My old doctors required you queueing to announce your attendance but often the queue was so long you'd be ten minutes late for the bloody apppointment and be made to rebook...

So I was impressed.

I then sat down to wait and started to contemplate the feng shui of waiting rooms. I did this because this one was arranged in rows, like a cinema, and everyone sat watching the digital display on a far away wall that rolled on with its messages....everyone by the way was about 85.It was like a bizarre theatre of the ill.

The messages were quite interesting

'1301 appointments were missed in 2008' Not me I thought, didn't live here then must be you lot.Shame on you.

'216 appointments were missed in November 2008' Everyone looked, blinked, looked down again, it was like a kind of appointment missing brainwashing class.

The next one was a bit more upbeat

'Free condoms are available' But only if you haven't missed any appointments presumably. And probably not much use to most of the visitors I could see in there.

Then we had
'Please don't take it out on reception if the duty doctor is running late'

Blimey, did they mean people actually attack the desk? Cos there ain't noone there that I can see!

And then...then...it flashed up

Mrs Julia ** * Dr Hodgson room 3' Everyone looked, I was relieved it didn't spell out the reason for my visit ' Dodgy balls' or something. All rather disturbing. Not sure I want everyone in there knowing my exact name and maritaL status. But it was too late to argue ...I then went through the big door and was immediately lost in a maze of rooms and numbers thatvwere like something out of charlie and the chocolate factory (except for the choccie) And either I was going mad or the corridor did actually stretch and I was getting bigger as it got smaller. Dr Hodgson, Dr Lane, Dr Amazon (sounded hunky) Dr Depp (just kidding) and on it went. Hundreds and hundreds of rooms with doctors in them.

I forgot where I was meant to be

'Lost?' This was, in the half hour I had been there, the first time another human had spoken. It quite threw me

'Er yes, gosh isn't it huge?'

Probably not the thing to say to Dr Small admittedly but I was lost. At my old place it was all very different, two doctors if there was an ebola outbreak and that was your lot.

I found my lovely Doctor at the back of the maze. She referred me to someone in Hitchin, she thinks I won't die from glaucoma this New year, all is well.

So the whole point of childhood, to sane people, is that it isn't adulthood. There's no tax, no nasty stuff, no famine or disease, no X Factor. But to other less sane people childhood is an opportunity to vent their own anguish/neurosis.

Happy Xmas by the way.

So at my play a couple of weeks back (it went fine thanks - no prompts just one wardrobe malfunction which rendered me unable to turn my back on the audience) I bumped into an old acquaintance.

'Jules! You were amazing!'

'Sarah! Blimey! It's been years! (since you tried to seduce me in a bizarre evening I've been blotting out for the last 13 years)

'Jules I have a baby now!'

Thank god I thought. You've obviously discovered that boy bits are more entertaining than mine....I'm still in counselling from that unfortunate lunge in the Hare and Hounds.

'Wow! Really? Pink or blue?!'

And so on - it was pink - Tallulah or something achingly chavvy, I admitted to having two babies of my own called achingly uncool names and so we quickly progressed onto the whole xmas presents business

A serious expression crossed her face.

'Jules - tell me you haven't lied to your sons'

I thought about this...there was the time I told them the police had installed CCTV in their bedrooms, oh and the time I told them if they moved while the roof was down in my car they'd fall out....but no....not really a parental liar

'I dont quite follow'

'All that Santa crap. Tell me you haven't lied to them'

'Er, well they believe in him if that's what you mean' This was worse than the clumsy attempt at a snog that only a well-timed fag saved me from....

'Julesyyyyy, how could you? I've told Tallulah how it is. Mummy and Daddy buy her presents'

'Oh. How nice. How old is she?'

'32 months'

I hate parents that do that - my maths isn't good enough - at 12 months they become one why can't everyone agree on that?

'Oh. So no santa then?'

'No - I could never let my daughter suffer the trauma I did when I found out my parents had lied to me - it's abuse'

'Really? What about the tooth fairy?'

I was by now quite annoyed

'Come on Julesyyyy;

'That's Julia actually'

'Juliaaaaa - it's all lies. you should tell them the truth. My god, an intelligent woman like you subscribing to all that crap'

I seethed a bit, and then asked her if she also subscribed to the school of thought that childhood immunisations were a bad idea. I did this because I came across someone whom I'd credited with some intelligence as having 3 daughters who aren't immunised against ANYTHING because it's all a cosmic conspiracy and wearing recycled knickers would protect them against polio, tetanus, meningitis...pretty much anything.

'Well now you mention it, I don't want Tallulah growing up thinking drugs are the answer'

I took a deep breath.

'Then I'm afraid, lovely as she undoubtedly is, I want your poor neglected daughter nowhere near my sons. You see, I think childhood is all about fantasy and being a kid, and I think my job is to keep the world of adults away from them for as long as I can. They have been immunised, they have been lied to, they are safe little boys who live in the world I create for them. '

'Julesyy...are you saying you don't want a new year playdate? I have my blackberry on me to arrange a time'

' I think that's what I'm saying'

I thought I had plenty to think about - the play opens on Dec 9th and no.. I still don't quite exactly know my lines, oh then there's the small matter of moving house on Friday - and no I still don't quite exactly know what packing a house should involve....and of course the relentless demands of a job that's getting so big I think my blackberry is getting stretchmarks....OTHER than that everything was fine. Busy but fine.

Until Wednesday. Don't want to get too detailed about things but let's just say that I began the day taking my 4 yr old on an adventure which ended at the doctor's for pre school jabs (look I know how important they are but please don't try to tell me that the look of hurt betrayal in their eyes when the needle goes in isn't more painful than measles and tetanus put together after a month of diptheria because I won't believe you) and ended the day with poorly eyes.

Poorly eyes...hmm....have had them before. Have poked them over the years with masacara sticks while trying to drive, have bleached them inadvertently with contact lens cleaner, have even scratched one once...but this poorly eyes thing was a bit more serious.

Ironically, I had bounded into the opticians flashing my 'I'm 40 now so I get free sight tests because my mother had glaucoma' smile at everyone and joked about how useful it was to be short-sighted and to be able to benefit annually from my late mother's affliction. Not that I'm mean - it was just a bit exciting and possibly the only good thing about turning 40 as far as I can make out. Unless the periods stop and I can save tampax money every month.

Anyway this optical rapture came to a swift end when the serious optician stopped waffling on about how scratched my glasses are and how I should rest my eyes from contact lenses (yadder yadder) and the gravely told me I had what appeared to be a symptom of glaucoma. Well two symptoms to be precise, each eye was bulging with pressure it shoudn't be. Not that I look like Marty Feldman (in case you're wondering) but something isn't right.

Immediate reaction

'I'm too fucking busy for this'

Followed by

'Sodding typical - utterly bloody typical so that's it I'll be blind by next week - I knew something would stop me enjoying my new house'

Followed by

'Er, how bad is it?'

Stupid question

'Bad - bad enough for you to come back'

'OK, er let's see, how about second week of Jan?'

''How about next Monday?'

'How about I rewind my day to some time before Henry looked at me with confused bewilderment in his eyes about being stabbed twice' I thought

'OK - you're upset'

'No, not really - just wondering if it could be anything else?'

'Not really - come back in an hour - we'll test again'

So I wandered off for some retail therapy and timed my only clothes buying trip for ten years in M and S (definitely getting old... surely this is a more conclusive sign of old age than the onset of glaucoma?) precisely 7 hours before they announce their 20% sale.

Went back muttering about badly calibrated equipment and the result?

Even fecking higher.

OK...it's not life threatening, it's only sight threatening and yes I KNOW it can be controlled with eye drops etc.

But....but....my eyes are the only body parts I like, and it seems a bit unfair that 6 months past my 40th birthday my corneas are diseased. This will be confirmed next week in the next round of tests no doubt. Why couldn't my cellulite have got some kind of random medical issue? Why the only two parts I have never criticised despite them being a bit near sighted?

Hmph.