wotnopeoplecarrier

Which is unusual - I am usually an expert sleeper - strictly only till 6.45 am however....my sleep pattern doesn't care about weekends but this is useful when you have 2 young sons and a husband who spends many long nights out and about doing brave stuff.

Last night he answered his mobile and said that a tanker was on its side - just another Friday night then - I tried to lighten the impending seriousness of the situation by proclaiming that a wanker on its side must indeed be very serious and couldn't they just roll him the right way up.

Made me laugh.

So today I had a 4 hour rehearsal for what is rapidly becoming the biggest regret of my 'yep no problem' attitude to life. I can't remember my lines, I can't remember which ones I can't remember the most....and it's all going wrong. Opening night could well be the final curtain on my acting career. Should have stayed in retirement.

The boys began the day by trying to set the house on fire, and ended it by flooding the upstairs. At least the elements were balanced, but I could do without the place falling down before my triumphant departure scheduled for November 28th. They are snuggled together in the eldest one's bed - and it's the most peacful time of the day/night/morning.

I don't know why I can't sleep. Perhaps I'm nervous for DO Robinson doing his marching thing at the cenotaph tomorrow. He has to report to the drill ground at 6.15am. But I suppose compared to going over the top or a spell in Helmand province it's peanuts.

I'm a bit cross about being awake if I'm honest - but luckily by writing drivel I am boring myself to sleep. Sorry if I lost you 3 paragraphs ago....I'm listening to a track from a very upsetting Kevin Bacon movie (Death sentence) which I hated. But this song, 'I will love you' (NOT WHITNEY THAT HAD AN ALWAYS IN IT) by Fisher is just wonderful. Kind of sad, kind of happy, the perfect song to stroll through the leafy avenues of the long term memory.

And with that (AND NO IT REALLY ISN'T WHITNEY'S NAUSEATING BASTARDISATION OF DOLLY PARTON'S MASTERPIECE) I'm off to stay awake doing something useful like ironing.

That you get to a certain age, and, interspersed between the invitations to 40ths, divorce celebrations and god childrens' teenage booty parties (or not), you also find yourself at the funerals of other people's parents. This is all rather depressing. I am something of an authority on parent funerals having (mercifully I now feel) got both of mine out of the way for want of a better expression. I don't have to dread the day I lose them, or wonder how I'll cope because I have been there and done it. The only good thing about having lost both parents by 38 is that I will never have to go through it again.

I was thinking about this today as my friend and I turned up to the funeral of another friend's mother. The local crem was busier than Wembley after a stones gig, and really it was the undertaking equivalent of the flightpath at terminal 5 where every 30 seconds another one appears on the horizon, only in this case it was a hearse about every 30 minutes.I looked at the faces of my friends with living parents, and knew what they were thinking. Namely, oh god this will be me before long. The folks won't go on forever. Must make more effort.

It was the usual sombre affair, a reading, a poem and the cracked voice of her only son, and the singular faux awkwardness that is the english funeral. The place smelt a bit odd to me, that horrible mix of souring flowers and broken hearts. I wondered (as we all do) who might turn up to mine. I can't help getting a bit anxious about it....I wasn't sure that the reading about her did her justice. Sounded like alot of lace making and needlework to me, I made a note to ensure that I write my own eulogy.

I looked around and not surprisingly reflected on my own mother's funeral, and how utterly everyday the whole business is. And yet for those in that awful front pew, how just being in that place means that life will never be the same again. I was quite relieved to hear some useful things about earthly pilgrimages and things not ending, but looking around it's all a load of hooey for the man clutching at his son knowing he's on his own now and his remaining years won't be the way he planned them.

Being the 'young friends' we sort of lurked together - all three of us. Rachel said she wanted to smoke but appreciated my suggestion that could be bad outside a crem. She related the story of her grandfather's funeral, and I wanted to fall over laughing but didn't. It's always struck me as odd that every departed soul had a wondeful sense of humour, an infectious giggle and a warm love of fun and merriment, and yet on the one day you might pay homage to that you'd rather eat your own tits than actually laugh out loud. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, Rachels' grandfather...the sad day coincided with a random appearance by the water board to install a water meter, something that had almost brought her parents to divorce anyway. The random visit wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't gone to all the trouble of digging a large coffin shaped hole in the front garden of her parents' house as the funeral cars arrived bearing mourners for the post burial piss up.

Outside the crem, eyeing pitiful flower displays (makes me competitive - I made Rachel promise not to let me be the one with a small mean bowl of pot pourri when everyone troops out - and we settled on a full sized grand piano crafted from black roses in case you're interested -don't laugh.. my uncle had a small 2 seater sofa from cream chrysanths for his late wife - she had apparently missed the delivery of her new sofa and never lived to sit on it) Even in death we can't help forming an opinion of someone because they've got small displays. And there's always show-off Winnie over there who's got GRANDMA in ten foot roses. If you see what I mean. You can't help looking at other people's flowers!Admit it! Blimey they were in there only half an hour ago - being commended and blessed etc. The pamphlets with the same prayers and hymns had Edith/Ted/Joyce's picture on a few seconds back. It's a miracle they don't mix them up.

I related the tale of the funeral cake for mother-in-law's boyfriend Bill, when I cut the damn thing between the B and the ILL and tried in vain to stick it back together for the rest of the wake as various people tutted (I still don't get the funeral cake please tell me if i'm missing something)

We shuffled about, and were awfully polite. That's what you do. We admired the flowers, cloying though the smell was, then deliberated about which way to go to get to the car park. I wanted to avoid swimming upstream through the 4.10ppm mourners, so walked for ages, hopelessly lost, wondering who thought a perilously slippery bridge was a good idea outside a crematorium. Surely they're not drumming up business, the place is flippin packed I muttered as I teetered along wishing i'd worn wellies.

My point is that the whole business is of course terribly sad - nothing shatters the heart more than the loss of someone you can't replace. I still only believe my own mother isn't here when, with each birthday that passes, there is no envelope on the mat with her neat writing on it.. Because she was a stickler for cards, and it was unthinkable to anyone that she might not have one in the post well before the special day. The mat, empty as it is every year of a white envelope with a Boston postmark on it is a jarring and unwanted reminder.

And because of this, I don't think it hurts every now and again to look at a dismal crem, and the borderline thug funeral directors wrestling with flower displays looking as out of place as they would holding a newborn baby, and taking a second to think what I thought...

This is it. This is bloody it. I can see about 25 people here, none of them looks anything like upset enough in my opinion considering I am about to be commended or committed or whatever, there's one over there even smiling. SMILING. There's a bloke I never met ushering my nearest and dearest about, another bloke I never met has just forgotten to tell everyone that I really was ok. Not god, not perfect, but OK. And now there's someone who thinks opening up some kind of soup kitchen in my house is OK and oh dear lord the place looks a tip!!!! I wish I'd told him what I thought, I wish I'd shown I loved them a bit more, I just wish I had one more day.

In a whirl of work, rehearsals, flying about organising the big move (5 weeks today not that I'm counting down to leaving Watford or anything) it suddenly turned out to be October 24th.

And October 24th is a big day in this house. And it gets bigger every year...this year Charlie was 7 and Henry was 4. They shot out of bed at 1am and stumbled about the landing looking for the birthday fairy. I appeared in my non matching pyjamas and encourgaed them back to bed. This worked really well, so well that I spend the night feeling like King Canute as I tried to stop them launching downstairs into their presents.

At 5.35am I gave up - and then, still in non-matching jim jams watched with as much joy as you can muster (a fair bit all things considered) as they whooped and yelled with glee at the new bikes, torches, spongebob money boxes and assorted paraphernalia (ie crap) that makes a little kid's birthday special.

Mr PR snuck back to bed at 7am (LIGHTWEIGHT) and I drove to work pondering as I always do that on October 24th
1. I have always had baby boys
2. At least I did in 2001 and 2004
3. That I'm so lucky to have them - Charlie arrived 7 weeks early, and Henry had the fight of his life when he arrived 12 weeks early weighing just 2 pounds
4. Then I pondered how lucky they are to never know the misery of watching a sibling have a birthday when you don't (like 99.9% of the population
5. I wondered if it will always be so much fun and decided it's my job to make sure it is
6. Then I thought about their 18th and 21st and said a little prayer that Mr PR and I will still be compos mentis enough to appreciate their fit mates and buxom girlfriends at the party I will insist on throwing.

A lovely day, marred only by them being at school and not squidging and kissing them all day. Probably a relief for them then.

Happy birthday Charlie and Henry - my wonderful boys.....

I think having a big gob is a hazardous thing, because people assume that you are happy to use your big gob at anytime and to order. This, I feel, is how the majority of air wasting slebs get by.

So I think my big gob may be the reason that it was me who got volunteered to be the PR voice/face of a new campaign at work. I can't go into too much detail here, but let's just say I was driven to a studio somewhere in London in a very big car at an ungodly hour on Wednesday. I had sort of read my briefing document....sort of....I hadn't quite grasped just quite how big a deal this 'launch' was. I faffed about chatting to the driver, played around with the many lights bells and whistels in his car, and laughed at his one man Rumanian revolution against google. Yes. All a bit surreal for 6am when my usual journey to work is a fight against stroppy kids, heavy traffic and a realisation that either odd shoes or no make-up will scare oncoming colleagues for the rest of the day.

So there I was. Looking like someone important (I'm not of course, so don't be impressed ever again when you see people in the back of gigantic cars reading papers)

We got to the studio and I started to feel a bit nervous. Hot coffee was required so I wandered off to get one, and decided to call a colleague for a chat reasoning that as a pregnant insomniac she'd probably be awake. This worked, nerves calmed down a bit, and then I realised I'd wandered off without actually noticing where i'd come from. And obviously as I'd had a driver I hadn't bothered to worry about things like addresses.

Blessed with the sensory skills of a an unripened blueberry, I was therefore slightly panicked. I managed to get out of the costa, but had literally no clue at all about where to go.

Luckily the PR guy called on the mobile so I was saved. Looked stupid but was at least saved.

By now the sleb had arrived. and I must say she was a delight. I don't know many slebs, (met John Noakes once and my Mum had tea with Morgan Freeman) but this lady was down to earth and charming. We hit if off so well that in no time at all I knew that she'd had her cocyx broken whilst giving birth to her first child. That was some baby I commented.

Being a true radio pro,. she had no problems with the earphones.I did. More on this later. She and I sat in our booth, (very swish it was too) and looked through the glass to the 5 or so people twiddling about and the people there making sure I didn't say something stupid. Being a true sleb pro, she was totally on the ball and utterly unphased by the prospect of live/recorded radio interviews one after the other for 2 hours. She also didn't have itchy ears. My ears itched like mnad under the sweaty earphones and one furtive scratch sent one sound engineer over the edge. Something about amplification.....

So the job seemed easy on paper. Talk to radio stations, be jolly be upbeat be real. But now my mouth was dry. And then I found I wanted to call the sleb Holly all the time. Which was a pity as her name was Honey. And then I realised I was tongue-tied. During the absolute silence when you wait for the station to dial in(sure it's more techie than that) I felt very very lonely. I couldn't hear anything, not even my own breathing. It was eery...I think it's the closest i'll ever be to being on the launchpad at cape canaveral while ground control make their final checks.

Yes. This was exactly what it must be like!! Mind was wandering..... then I heard....

'Ready? OK girls..here we go, this is talk radio in Edinburgh talk about Scotland somehow'

Wha?

I looked at Holly/Honey/Sleb person who wasn't panicking and gaped in awe as she smoothly charmed the DJ and let me join in so that I didn't look stoopid.

By the fourth interview I was getting rather cocky, suddenly I too was a pro.

Two interviews later I heard the sleb say 'easier for twiddling around with all your nobs' and had an internal eruption of mirth which almost caused an aneurysm in my head. Everything I had was straining to keep the laughter in. I sooo did not want to end my sleb radio career with a red card for laughing uproariously at the word nobs.

Recovered, I sailed through the next 2 interviews, getting bolder and cockier and then suddently it was over.

'We're letting you go' said the PR guy Greg.

'Oh' I said, crestfallen ' I was just starting to enjoy myself'

He gave me a look that suggested that may be the reason for me going home, but then someone else chipped in with 'You can get home in time for your interview with the Sunday Times this way'

ST??

Sunday Times???

Oh my lordy. Don't sweardon'tsweardont'sweardon'tswear was all the driver who took me home heard.

It might be in tomorrow.Might be.

Something to show the grandchildren

'Look, this was your grandma Julia when she thought she was very clever and important'

Just for the day though. Unlike many I come across....

Tonight I achieved the hitherto impossible. As a mother I have always wanted to dress one of my gorgeous boys up as a pumpkin (I don't know why so please don't speculate) and Charlie has resisted this with fists and farts since birth. Henry however was most compliant this evening, so along with the spooky (actually fecking terrifying pirate skeleton costume complete with blood dripped torso) attire that Charlie approved of and hurtled himself into (though secretly I know he's scared of his costume because he's put it in a VERY SAFE PLACE under my bed) I finally got to see a baby pumpkin. Henry was delighted to be a pumpkin, he wouldn't hear of any other costume. The stripey green and black tights were a bit much but he was thrilled with the stalk bit. Oh the joy of an unexpected stalk eh?

So, Halloween taken care of (yes I know it's only Oct 13th but the spiders and cobwebs disco has been in Charlie's diary for weeks) I have now progressed to actually trying to learn my lines for the play I'm in. Well, actually, it's more of a 2 people doing monologue stuff which is all well and good until you forget your lines and realise there's no chorus to shuffle into and hide till you remember them.

I've ordered a digital dictaphone. Yes, it's still called a dictaphone despite the side splitting hilarity of the word and nowadays you can get all clever and transfer it onto your ipod and bore the whole family rigid in the car with the script. Marvellous. So convinced am I that this 'effortless learning' is the answer to my increasing panic about opening night on December 9th that I have now lost the script altogether. Last week I carried it everywhere, no meeting with a lull in it was safe, there I was feverishly trying to learn another line. But now, one order to Amazon and I've become a bit, er blase.

So therefore I will look a berk in December and no dictaphone will be able to dig me out of it (so to speak)

Comedy aside, these last few weeks have seen major activity around preparing to move house. Mainly this involves me buying new things so our present home is now heaving with the sumptuous goodies that will adorn the new pad and as a result Mr PR thinks the removal estimate might be a 'bit totally wrong' His words not mine. What's an extra sofa or two for Lord's sake?? Tut....

Also I have taken up knitting again after finding out that my brother's unborn child is female. Somehow I think knitting in the correct colour may help me to finish the hat I started 2 days after the positive pregnancy test and we're now exactly halfway through gestation. Well, normal gestation, if she gives birth when I popped Henry out I've got just 8 weeks. That is a scary thought.

Charlie and Henry will celebrate their 7th and 4th birthdays a week on Friday. This of course means lots of presents, planning, and meticulous attention to the all important party bags.

Or not.

This year it means 2 new bikes, chosen and ordered, a party at a Hollywood bowl where they can go berserk on someone else's flooring, a sleepover at Grandma's and a massive cake each. At some point we will no doubt take them to their favourite dining experience (Frankie and Benny's) and explain that actually there are 2 cakes and please can we have 2 ear splitting renditions of the pre recorded Happy Birthday.

Another year...my little baby will be 4.

Am broody.
Am very hot actually so perhaps the menopause set in about two sentences into this post.

Am not broody am in fact barren stock.

Lock stock and smoking barren possibly.

Am going to bed it's been a very long day.....

I mentioned before that Charlie was an enthusiastic member of the cheerleading club at school. And that this had been a difficult message for burly Mr PR to digest. We've had a few conversations about it, and Mr PR was reassured that he is not raising Julian Clary when we both saw the bouncy busty teacher in front of the club display at the end of term concert. Charlie it seemed, was mainly interested in the hubba hubba lady doing the cheerleading lessons.

That was then

'Daddy? I want to go to rugby'

'Rugby? OK Charlie! OK!'

Mr PR made a poor job of hiding the fact that this statement must mean that Charlie is obviuosly all red blooded male, and I smiled to myself as I always do because unlike alpha males I can't get het up about a 6 yr old boy enjoying physical activity - even if it does involve pom poms'

But then over supper the rugby thing became clearer...

'So, Daddy, when we go to rugby I think I'll need proper pom poms'

I should state that we have never gone so far as to buy pom poms for Charlie, but this was a new development

'Why? Why do you need pom poms to play rugby Charlie?'

'No! I'm not playing rugby! We do the dancing before and there's THOUSANDS of people watching and I really want to go!!!'

Oh Lord. The cheerleading club (I dimly remembered) is run by the Saracen's cheerleading dollies and Charlie's sudden interest in rugby suddenly lost its shine for one of his parents.

'Yes OK' I said, tempted to kick Mr PR under the table 'We'll come and watch and get you some pom poms'

'How about a little skirt?' muttered Mr PR

And then Charlie jumped up and did a pretty spectacular if not entirely butch demo of his latest moves. Mainly it's about moving arms, and jumping, but he's now onto hip swivelling which had Mr PR reaching for the valium. Actually Charlie is the ONLY person I know who can keep a hula hoop whizzing round his waist for hours on end, so it was a pretty awesome hip wiggle.

'Oh dear GOD' said Mr PR 'Gay as a maypole'

I followed him into the kitchen to defend my little boy who is after all just a baby...

'Bloody hell - it's not as if he's singing 'I am what I am' or 'Somewhere over the rainbow' he's just a little boy!'

'Well why the hell is it suddenly OK for little boys to be cheerleaders? Eh? Why oh why has someone decided to make little boys prance about with fecking pom poms while the real men play the game???!!! CHEERLEADERS ARE SLUTS!!!!'

He has a point. About the sluts. But given the choice of streetdancing or cheerleading Charlie decided to be taught by a bouncing babe rather than a suspect hoody on a scheme from Watford Borough Council. And who can blame him?

So the cheerleading debate rages on - I think if he still wants to do it at 14 i may intervene but for the time being I get unbridled joy watching him count his moves fervently and smile with delight as he remembers another bit of what I call 'slagoreography'

We went to see the new school today , usual chilly slightly hostile and ever so slightly chip shouldered Head teacher - same as every other I've met. After that we went to check on the house. Well, actually I wanted closure on the whole kitchen island thing which has become something of an obsession.

I can confirm that there is an island.

Just call me Nigella. Really, I am domestic goddess with island. Somewhere to keep Charlie's pom poms if nothing else....

We got a letter inviting us to a 'demo' of my new house. Demo? Does it walk and talk then I wondered? Maybe you can drive it? Blimey. All we wanted was a new house.

So I called to fix the appointment

'Ooh Julia, the kitchen's in'

'Is it? That's exciting' And I really was excited because actually this whole house gestation is quite thrilling, one minute walls, then doors, next thing you know the kitchen's in and you're getting a demo. At this rate I might even get to live in it.

'Did you know it's got an island?'

'Er, no. Didn't know that. Sounds pretty cool though'

So at this point I am, in my head, wafting around in a plunging black dress a la nigella (as opposed to salmonella which is my default kitchen status) with hot red nails pointing helplessly to my over priced le creuset collection dangling over said island hoping Mr PR will reach it for me. Back to the real world

'Julia, it's amazing'

With that I felt I should share my lucky windfall kitchen island news with my team. Everyone was very excited. We don't know anyone with an island. One of them commented that her bathroom was probably the same size, and another one demanded whether the island had a hob or a sink in it. The island conversation took up a good half hour, we fantasised and ruminated about whether garlic would look good hanging over it, we agreed that any island was better than none, and all in all it was quite heady news (another quiet day in recruitment then)

'Have you told Doug? He'll be so excited!!'

Now I knew better than that, to be fair 2 positive pregnancy tests only elicited the need for a lie down, but carried away with this unexpected bonus arrival I sent him a little text. He replied wanting to know what the 7 deadly sins are so that gave me some insight to his excitement levels about the whole island thing.

I got home, ready to pounce with my daily bulletin on how many days till the big move, but just had to mention the island first.

'What about the island then? Eh? I feel like I'm properly posh! Properly sarfistykated'

Mr PR immediately got his hose out (figuratively speaking) and dampened down my island frenzy.

'It's not an island. Chris just rang me'

Now. At this point I should introduce you to the house stalkers. No I hadn't heard of such a thing either. But they do exist. Trust me on this. It starts with 'Gosh! You're moving there?! Why, that's a few doors from us! Shall we keep an eye on the place for you? Give you updates?'

Innocent enough. But we've had a few bungles, like when Chris rang to say he'd been looking through the letter box and the kitchen was in. No it wasn't. And that the turf had been laid. No it hadn't. And then when we went to admire his new house, his evening dinner guests arrived early and after we'd gone they (total strangers to us) were taken on a tour of OUR new unfinished house.

A bit weird.

So yesterday, house stalker called Doug from inside MY kitchen (god knows how he's flannelling his way in there) and Doug asked him about the island.

'Island? No, there's no island. Just a random unit they've assembled for the utility room which they've left in the middle here mate. No island no sirree'

I'm not sure what piqued me the most. Having to tell my team that the boss-with-kitchen-island was bogus, or finding out from someone I've met once in my whole life who will probably have decorated it for us before we move so much as a teabag in there.

'He's just excited for us' said Mr PR

'Excited?? Excited?? Obsessed more like!!' I uncharitably said.

I haven't really got a problem (though writing it down is making it even more weird), I think I'm suffering with island envy. So near and yet so far.

Without an island I am nothing. An island I didn't ask for or really need admittedly, but how can I be Nigella now?? It's all gone wrong!!!

To bring me back to earth, I lugged home 3 tons of spongebob and lightning mcqueen bedding, chairs, rugs and cushions tonight.The boys were excited beyond belief (beyond breathing in Charlie's case), but the spongebob duvet was giving me a headache so I was keen to get it all upstairs and out of sight.
So I foolishly agreed to inflate the sodding lightning and spongebob chairs with a foot pump which was about as effective as an asthmatic gnat.

I have pump cramp in both hands. So to speak.

I dno't know who was more terrified when I opened the front door, me because without glasses on all I could see was thick fog and someone in luminous green at 7.30am - or the guy with the skip lorry who was confronted by me looking like I'd been caught in a hurricane half in and out of my bright green polka dot robe. Anyway - we both went 'AGGH! and ten minutes later the skip was waiting to be filled.

But thanks to some stupid night club catching fire in Hatfield 'let it fecking burn' was my advice, Mr PR had spent the entire night out (yeah I know - great story) So after one hour of sleep he didn't really feel like skip filling. I attacked the kitchen and pretty soon was on a real roll. I hadn't noticed that Charlie was also on a roll and was lobbing in perfectly nice and even new stuff so I had to clamber in and retrieve it.

However, paranoid about some tosser filling the still almost empty skip in the dead of night, I kept waking up to check on it. Rather like when I had babies and would leap out of bed for no reason convinced they'd stopped breathing and would then wake them up, relieved to hear a hearty 'why don't you just DO ONE nutter' scream and pad back to my bed.

Today however we cracked on with some energy. We even found time to cook a roast and plane the table. We weren't meant to be planing it, I had just sort of bodged about with some wire wool to get rid of the indelible marker pen and slapped some waxy stuff on it, but dismayed by my patchy effort Mr PR took a break from dangling from the loft and went to buy a new tool Any excuse.

I found the whole 'massive clear out' very cathartic. As Watford council gives us bin large enough to hold one used straw we do seem to have accumulated some clutter. Junk even. Mainly old toys, broken slides rammed in the garage, old trampolines that seemed so indestructible 5 years ago, and a plethora of, well, stuff.

So it was cathartic. And the house feels as though we've let its waistband out a bit. We're moving because we want a bigger house, but this one has done us proud and I almost felt sad about ripping out the cosy contents of its loft. Yep. This time we really are clearing out for good we were saying.

Anyway, not being the sentimental type I then almost broke down when confronted with a bag of baby clothes. Precious tiny things that the 2 hooligan boys I now have cheekily jumping up and down on the skip as it got ever higher would never need again.

'Did I wear that Mummy?' Henry demanded

'Yes you did, when you were my little baby...'

'Well he isn't now - nor am I - we're big boys - cor Henry did you smell that fart?!'

I pored over my memories, and was back in early motherhood and wishing I could go back. And then another box appeared. Now I was back in 1986 - 'JULES UPPER 6' tippexed all over a navy ring binder. I think it was A'Level history, but my main preoccupation seems to have been a certain young man called Graham and frankly I think he's the reason I failed the bloody thing. I read the old essays, yellow now and still crap, and wondered what 'JULES' would make of the 40 yr old woman weeping over a tiny babygrow. 'GET A LIFE' probably knowing me back then.

Then there was a torrent of baby stuff, old car seat, old baby bouncer thingy, it was all going. Really going.

'We're not going to mull over every old bit of tat are we Julia?' asked mr PR.

'No! Course not!'

Half an hour later I found him picking through the remnants of his daughter's school books, and a card he'd been sent 25 years ago when she was born. Noone is immune to a quick glance over the past.

Finding his mother's gigantic underwear bag (as in gigantic knickers) was emotional for a different reason. As I produced bra after bra Mr PR looked anxious, sweaty even, but then as the huge pants and fake china bric a brac emerged we realised it was some of the stuff she didn't take to Spain when she moved there 8 years ago. She splashed her possessions over each of her 5 kids and has been hunting them down ever since she came back. Well the pants have gone, seeing Charlie with them on his head was quite disturbing.

So there we have it. The skip is full - crammed with memories we no longer want the physical evidence of - I know the boys were babies once it doesn't mean I have to keep their clothes!

But....I couldn't resist a few bits....just a few...honestly hardly any...I didn't like to think of them under a salvage sheet on my drive facing oblivion.

Like I said - nothing sentimental about this house moving business. Nothing at all. God help everyone the day we actually go...I didn't realise how much this house has soaked into me and me into it - the place has seen it all.

Even Margaret's pants.

(High pitched northern accent for this please) Hi!!! I'm hammy the hamster!!! I'm a bit chubby and looking for love!!! I want to find someone I can
.,..

(shout this bit_'GRAB BY THE EARS AND ** HER UP THE AND WIPE MY ALL OVER HER FACE AS I STICK MY CLAWS UP HER *'!!!!

Choice. And a lesson learnt in this house this evening is that when you recycle a mobile kindly given by a dear friend you may wish to delete the more adult comedy from it before your 7 yr old son finds it deep in the media memory, plays it and almost asphyxiates himself and his young brother from laughing. I wasn't at home when this happened - Mr PR was in charge.

I have been in rehearsal all week for the play I've signed up to. Not much to report other than a real struggle to stay awake and a pressing need to learn lines all bloody week. However, I have learned that the cockney accent is alot harder than it seems and am now glued to eastenders so that I can convincingly bawl 'git outta myyyy pab' or something....

This week also saw my second conference speech to a para military organisation called the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. Nope I'm not a member - I haven't bothered with their poxy exams - so I felt I should confess this and am now being pursued by someone wanting to offer some kind of dodgy membership. Fab.

This week I also went to teach some young offenders how to write a CV. This isn't the first time I've been dozing when the corporate social responsibility chuggers have come calling, so I had to schlep off and sit with some borderline scary blokes who would cheerfully kill an old bird with a nice car who has no clue about crystal meth.

This meant meeting Jonny - a kid I bonded with well. It also meant meeting Kaylen (see previous entry about boys' names..) and having an unseemly row about basic manners.

Once the Miss Jean Brodie act was done, I went back to work to deal with the mounting turds that land in my email and on my desk everytime I step away. And to think people wonder what I do all day!! Why, I clear up poop. I am an HR pooper scooper!!

So today is our 5th wedding anniversary. And we got married on a day like today, a sunny Friday in September when all those I loved were near and nothing seemed impossible. 5 years on, we've covered some ground. Another son, a lost mum. That's about it. Take away the new house new cars and the general noise of material gain and that's what the past 5 years have meant. The important thing is we've done it together.And to my shame I am wearing a stunning new bracelet and I didn't even get round to buying a card. Shame on you Mrs PR (I could list my extenuating circumstances but you won't believe me..)

Speaking of which, First Choice wrote back about our holiday fiasco.

'Dear Mrs PR

FUCK OFF

Thanks again for contacting First Choice

So that's another meeting with another lawyer.

Tomorrow our 6 yard skip arrives! Aha! Phase one of the 'big clear out' prior to the BIG MOVE on November 28th. I'm looking forward to this....oh yes...

'No Mummy, we can't throw THAT away'

And so on. I'll probably end up keeping the bloody skip because the boys will get attached to it.

I decided to heap another big dollop of mashed potato on it. And more gravy, and sausages, so that now my large enough plate (or platter perhaps) is spilling all over my lap and so high is what's on my plate I can't see round it to find my cutlery...

Ooh I could go on for hours with this weak analogy but I haven't got time.

And that's the thing. I am a one woman continuum stretcher - I do things with my 24 hours that no particle accelerator could ever manage. I squeeze about a fortnight of activity into every waking day (that's how it feels - work with me on this)

So, Q3 performance reviews are on the horizon. Another sign from the great HR clock running my life that another 12 weeks has ticked by and it's time to appraise performance. It also means I am twelve weeks nearer the grave and I think I've mentioned before how this whole quarterly review business makes me uneasy. 12 weeks? What did I do in them?

1. I spent 9k on a holiday to Kefalonia thanks to a deceitful bitch slut of a first choice travel agent.
2. I wrote a long complaint letter and am now being corporately ignored.
3. We bought a new house
4. We sold our house to pay for it.
5. I scuffed my alloy wheels (badly)
6. Then someone bodged a stilletto into the side of my car

I should say that all of this unagreed objectives have in their own right each ticked away more hours of my rapidly decreasing life span in the knock-on SHIT they lead to.

7. I sourced new schools for the boys
8. I got them places (do NOT understimate this as a time chomping challenge)
9. I managed to totally cock up sending back signed contracts on the new house. Twice.
10. When someone said 'Hey Jules how about being in a play? Which opens on December 9th?' I said 'OK! GREAT!'
11. I agreed to speak at a CIPD militia meeting this week and still have no recollection of doing so.
12. I agreed to give career coaching advice (not time management you will notice) to trainee landscape gardeners to a) help and b) not sure but it's something to do with our corporate social responsibility agenda
13 So yes on the subject of CSR am also going a day of career coaching to neets - neets are like sheets only they aren't as useful (Not in Education, Employment or Training ie ne'er do wells as my nan would have said)
14. I have 25 rehearsals between now and December 9th - a four HEFTYYYYY monologues to learn
15. I said my sister in law could come and stay for the weekend
16. I' ve agreed to go to a wedding that really and honestly I don't have time to go to.
17. I'm looking for loving childcare for my boys in our new village

Speaking of which, I went to work...and did 85 lengths of the house each day tracking laundry and missing school dinner lists and 'show and tell' items.

18. I talked Charlie out of having a tarantula only to be told he now wants a cobra (and he doesn't mean beer)
19. I have learnt how to re wad and reset the rockets (previously was only allowed to re wad and fold the parachute have been promoted to loading the depth charge or whatever the hell it is)
20. Then there's the writing project I really want to get stuck into...

So that's my 12 weeks. I think some coaching and feedback is needed around saying no, possibly over-committing, agreeing to too much and then still finding time to document it like an obsessive can't-relax-at 9.12pm-when-everyone-else-is.

Anyway, time's a bit precious at the moment but if anyone needs anything just shout - always happy to help...