At last!

I'm watching a television show that seems to have been made to make me happy!

Oh, the joy...the joy.

Single
Married
Other


er no, that's...
Married
Single
Other

I love, love, love it.... love, love, love it.

It's ace, watch it.

Hmm think I may have met Dean Lennox Kelly (Dickie) at a recent party -- when I was very, very drunk... and I fell over, but the floor was wet honest... it wasn't that I couldn't stand up. Perhaps it wasn't him, hmmmm, said man told me he worked in a call centre and hated it.

To do list

It's a sunny Sunday.

My list for today's activities contains the following.

*Get through heaps of laundry. BIG HEAPS
*Clean the house. BIG CLEAN.
*Collect and carry two sofas to our house, and somehow squeeze them into a living room with three sofas already in it. This means we will now have five sofas in there. Yesterday, with a hangover, or maybe still tipsy, I purchased two sofas at a knock down bargain price. They'll fit nicely into the house we're moving into in three weeks.... they just won't fit nicely into our present abode. Also, eventually, they'll be perfect for the house in Manchester. Because I was a bit miffed when I had my house valued to be told, 'Well, none of the furniture matches, which doesn't make it as appealing as some of the other houses we've sold here.'
Lulu, my former housemate will be helping me. She called at 8am this morning, and we chatted for an hour.
How she actually rises happily out of bed at that time on a Sunday morning, I cannot comprehend.

*Tackle mummy admin:
accepting school places, and rejecting school place
arranging social things for said child
trying to get up to speed on birthday cards

*Tackling moving house admin.

Ooooooooo now my list is too long and I just know that I won't get any of it done. At some point, I must also sit down to write my novel.

Ashley and Cheryl United?

I'm usually not one to judge celebrities' love lives (yeah right) but in the case of Cheryl Cole, I can't help myself. Cheryl is a gorgeous young woman, she hails from a tricky childhood, she is a grafter, and she's been in trouble for (apparently) slapping someone... Now, hopefully, she has put being a wally behind her... or not when it comes to husband Twashley Cole because if you believe everything in the Star (I do.... not ever read it) the bets are in that she is going to give him another shot. (Of freaking sedatives to dampen his libido one hopes.)

And actually, I've always kind of valued mothers who forgive cheating men for the sake of family, home and kids because women are capable of making such tremendous sacrifices, which often means having strength rather than being weak. And also, those philandering MPs and co. had probably been married a trillion years, someone got itchy feet, had an accident between the sheets and repented and regretted it. So I do believe that marriage is for life and understand that fidelity for life might be difficult. I've never (really) wanted to marry anyone I've been with so far, because I knew I wouldn't commit to the 'life' business of it. OK, I had silly dreams, like the one about the Toga character in my book, though in my defence I was in my twenties and a bit of a fantasist. Now I'm a grown-up, I'm a bit more sensible about things like...

Anyways... Cheryl love, what is your excuse? You have no one to protect here but yourself. Thank the Lord you didn't have babies with the donkey. You married young, big mistake. You are a successful, rich, beautiful independent woman and your career is on the up - at least it was. If you tried hard enough, you could become a role model for young women (providing they don't look into your brawling past) but, and I'm sorry to say it - those millions you have sitting in the bank, the peachy glow you smile upon contestants, the nice frocks - it comes with a price, Hunny. That price is, to quote Spiderman, a fabulous philosopher and similarly hot in tights: 'With great power comes great responsibility.'

Cheryl has no excuse, if she reunites with Twashley the world will be topsy because she will be setting such a low benchmark to other women: She may as well stand in Hyde Park and command that women can aim to have it all, but feel so worthless about it that they deserve to be treated like shit.

What kind of famous prat would be so idiotic as to send pictures of himself in his boxer shorts, when his wife is one of the most idolised women in the county? A Twashley that's who. There could be a host of shows off the back of this: You've Been Twashlied, The Stupidest Twashley in Britain, The Twashley Factor.

Twashley has shown himself to be the kind of weeble that blames others for his actions. He tells people to fuck off because his life has been ruined. What he should have said was: 'I am a prize twat for wrecking my marriage. I hereby change my name to Twashley.'

Cheryl sweetheart, you are worth so much - why then do you value yourself so little?

I look Woof

I'm getting used to work... but by Lordy it's making me look rough. I was speaking on Skype to my mother and stepfather this evening - this whole video chatting fashion is highly odd - They sat on their sofa, I sat on my bed in my dressing gown, and we chatted. They got to see me sipping wine and looking a horror, meanwhile my mother looked pretty good. Actually, she looked better than me and she'd also worked a full day, and she has twenty years on me.

Sweet, I think...

Jack finally gets it - why I was an utterly draconian mother these past ten months. Today when we arrived home from school a motorcycle courier was standing on our garden path holding a box of cupcakes - sent to Jack by our friends in Manchester as a gift for passing his exams. Emmeline and her beau had been witness to my collapsed, drunk and despairing state of 'What if he doesn't get into a good school?' only a week ago.

Oh my, these past ten months I did not even have a career as such -- I was quite simply a career mum.

Career Mums by my definition are mums who, 'having honed various talents in the workplace, then apply these to the task of raising children.'

I'm a goal orientated person - I can't help it, I'm a capricorn - we're all the bloody same.

I swear to the heavens, I will never be this pushy again - until GCSE, A-Level, University, Postgraduate, who am I kidding?

OK, I promise, I hereby promise never to be pushy again... oh, who am I kidding? I won't be able to help myself. It's not just him I'm concerned for, it's a future generation of Robertses - we're not from the landed gentry, nor the chattering classes and co.

Opportunities don't just happen, we have to work for them. That is why we are working middle class. I keep pretending to be working class, I'm probably not now.

Alright, I hope I will never be this pushy again because maintaining the smiling, laughing, stern, podium of pedagogy was exhausting! I had mini breakdowns every five hours. I bank on the school picking up where I left off and so Jack will learn from them the importance of hard work.

My task is complete and I'm handing over the baton. (If only.)

I'm not even one of those people who values money and hard work above anything else. In my opinion hard work for nothing is an absolute complete waste of time. Being able to work towards something you love is a gift.

Pushy Mummy Olympics

I probably wrote elsewhere about my entry as a contestant into the Pushy Mummy Olympics. It's been a thrilling week, a new job - quite delightful, we'll be moving into a new house soon... and everyday this week we've been waiting for an envelope to come through the door. Jack's eleven and we're in that 'what secondary school will he go to?' phase. Those close to me will have witnessed my manic state in preparation for Pushy Mummy Olympics - a sport entered by mums who set themselves the task of getting that impossible chair in the classroom of a great school.

OK, it's gross, I know it is. And this type of education perpetuates the gap between a good education and a poor one; as far as I'm concerned there is a small strata of people like me, and hopefully like my son, for whom education is a lottery ticket to life... because quite frankly there isn't a history to piggyback on...anyway.

The envelope landed with a school logo on the front: I could tell instantly that it was good news because it was a big fat envelope. All the others have been small thin ones and began with, 'Dear Miss Roberts, I am sorry to inform you.' And my heart sank and sank with each one - but then Jack hadn't really, really wanted to go to any of those other schools. I'd wanted him to go as a reserve against the one he really wanted.

There was this one we visited, which he loved. A little part of me thought, 'he can do it' but realistically, 'it's a hell of a difficult school to get into, he just hasn't had the privileges other kids have had, I really think there's no way.'

When I dropped him off for his entrance exam, parents were pulling up in flash cars with their kids in prep school blazers. A lump settled in my throat. I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, we do not stand a chance against this lot.' When the exam was over, I battled my way through hundreds, probably more than a thousand people. Good Lord, millions of pushy parents. I asked Jack how he thought he had done: 'I fell asleep and woke up with my foot in my mouth,' he said. Hmm, I thought, good grief - we're out of the running.

This morning, I hopped and screamed through the hallway, Jack passed his exam and has been offered a place at the school. His own dream has come true. I'm thanking my lucky stars, truly I am.

Working Girl

Can't stop to chat...I begin a JOB today in an OFFICE, that hasn't happened since...ooo 2007.


I have had my bicycle serviced, it now rides beautifully and so I shall ride to work, I have also purchased some new lucky knickers... and surprisingly found my old pair (they were on the landing, beneath the coat rack - oddly). Crikey, it's like going back in time.

Must dash... how exciting, somebody else is going to pay me a wage! I've been paying myself a wage for the past two and a half years and I'm a really mean boss to work for: no lunch, no holiday pay, no holidays, no sickness, no pay rises...

I'm going, going gone....