30 November - Malaysians & Russians

I win! So there’s C. this girl who’s very fond of Toph and they met at yoga class. She’s tiny tiny Malaysian and he likes her because her speech is incongruous with her frame. She uses English colloquial expressions which are apt but sound funny coming out of her mouth, and she swears a lot and says things like ‘don’t mess with me, or I’ll kill you, I’m no China dolll’. She’s 30 and she’s tired of playing ‘China doll’ to men who are into the exotic, but by the same token she’s not into dating people from her own ethnic group. She’s s smart but she has a car decked out in furry fabric and soft toys which always spells immature to me. Yet she’s got a tough job, a traditional accountancy /actuary one. She’s friendly to me (she likes my style) and she lets me know Toph is not her type. Good to know, cause last time I looked he liked a bit of tits and ass on a frame. She’s had her heart broken by the silent, tall and mysterious Russian, S. who also goes to the same class. They went out a few times and then he dumped her and she’s making an illness of it. Granted, it’s kind of embarrassing to be mostly naked in the same class as your former lover who dumped you but… there are other classes and he clearly is not about stopping coming to this particular one… Toph is a very patient person and he does a lot of listening and advising. I kind of find it odd that he should give her that much time but it’s part of his curious nature to also live vicariously and she’s a fascinating creature (in my book for about half an hour as there really isn’t that much going on in her life and I’ve never heard her talk about a book) and all men like to play that part, the sympathetic friend and let’s face it, I never give him much occasion to console me, strong tree that I am.

I’m sure it’s crossed his mind what it would be like to shag her. He marvels how someone with such small and seemingly fragile bones, can do such a tough class. I remind him about the oriental tradition of kung fu fighting etc where you’d never think that such small men could despatch the big western baddies they fight in those films. Anyway…. As am now older and wiser, I let him be. I just occasionally call up if his post-yoga drinks are going on too long and I’m waiting hungry at home. Then it all blows up because after one particular class, a mancunian woman, says she’s not keen to go to the drinks as she doesn’t want to be in the company of the Russian because… they did it and now it’s over. Poor C. starts hyperventilating and crying and my solicitous boyfriend consoles her.

A couple of days later she calls him and I listen in as I read. There’s precious little talk on his part and the 45 mins are taken up by her essentially saying she can’t go to yoga anymore and she can’t be seeing my BF anymore and it’s all crap and blah blah. I hear him saying ‘Why don’t you just take a short break and maybe return when you’ll feel better’. After the call he’s a bit shaken by what I simply explain as ‘Now you know what women are like, and how they can go on forever and a day relieving /stirring up any upset and passing it on to friends who console them, only for their advice to go unheeded and before you know it she’ll sleep with the Russian again and then he’lll dump her again and the whole thing will go on and on’. He nods agreement, he’s clearly tired out by the ‘scene’.

And then the following Saturday she turns up at the class as usual (she probably just wants to tough it up and not be driven away from something she likes by her bad shagging choice) and as if her call had not happened. He comes home straight after it finishes, not having gone to the pub this time. He said he’s had it with her as he feels she’s just using him to dump on (after all, I doubt he tells her much about his own life/worries). Once again I say, ‘This is what girls do, they use up your time with silly thinking aloud for days and months abut something relatively small and you keep going through it with them and unless they’re grade A friends, then why bother?’ He agrees, but he seems sad about it. Oh well....

29 November - tbc

tbc

28 November - tbc

tbc

26 November - Multitasking

How much do I do in a morning before I leave the house? It just occurred to me, that I clean the shower head (oh yes, had put it in a bowl wiht some vinegar to descale it) I take things out of the washing machine (I set it on night before), I clean the mirror in the bathroom as I brush my teeth and I wipe the washbasin, I make him a cup of tea. I tidy up a bit, pick up stuff, re-arrange newspapers and mags, and am about to take the thrash out when I remember to just leave it well alone…

I don’t care. He has time to read the papers, read books, do anything he wants, but not hoover unless he's been told for a week and not polish his shoes unless he's been told for two weeks. My oh my, who would want to live together /get married and all those things then really become your chores instead of just doing them because, because, you just do. Why can't I just sit down, drink my tea and maybe read for five minutes before I go to work? Why am I wired this other stupid way that makes me the maid?

He's got his uses, I do send him to get the Vietnamese visas though… and that is something I'd have to take a morning off for. Still he'll have a coffee whilst he waits and read in the car. He still has an easier life than me.

24 November - Forgetfulness & Cars

These are officially worrisome times. I cannot tell you all the other various things I forgot this week (because I forgot them) but... when they end up costing you money, you sort of wish there was a quick pill to take to re-connect the failing synapses.

Last saturday afternoon I parked my car near where the BF lives, in a resident's bay, making the usual mental note that it will have to be moved by Sunday evening or Monday morning before 8.30am to its usual spot for which she has a proper parking permit.

On Monday night I return to the BF's house after a party in town and notice on his floor a bright yellow note usually associated with car clamping. 'Oh darling, you've been clamped !?!' I say as I enter the living room a bit tipsy from my do. 'Not me, you' he replies. 'Me???.... ' as I start to say it and trail off, the penny drops. I had totally forgot my car parked in forbidden spot. As in, not once in over 48 hours had my usually reliable mental notes dropped by my consciousness to warn me 'Remember to move the car'. Not at all. A £130 quid later with clamp removed and stil having to wake up at the crack of dawn to move the car (couldn't do it there and then as still... drunk) I have to consider this must the beginning of the end of super organised me as I know me. The brain is aging, the rot is settling in. Things will be forgotten. My younger sibling regularly leaves her car keys in the car door for hours at a time so you could say it runs in the family or that it's even worse that it should hit her so young (ish).

Ah, just remembered one of the other things... I had forgotten. I had sort of hidden my credit cards somewhere (well, I try to stick to only using one at a time and keep the others safe) and went looking for them because the current one had a temporary block on it. Too long a story but my provider deemed a train ticket bought on a European site a suspicious transaction. All £25 of it... And the other cards were not in the usual place. So I went to my other flat. Not there. So I panicked but didn't cancel them. A few days later they turned up falling out of a building society book that was temporarily and wrongly kept in a drawer at work. Oh joy, but I must stress that this was incidental. I wasn't even looking for the building society passbook, I was probably looking for a lipstick. Jason Bourne.... clearly I couldn't have handled his life for 5 seconds. Am still worried about old age. The territory where your son comes down in the morning from his bedroom (he's visiting 92year old mother), finds all the fire hobs burning, says 'Mother what are you doing!!!' when he eventually finds her sitting calmly on the sofa and she says it wasn't her who did it but him! At which point do I investigate which nursing home I wish to be retired to ???

22 November - Whinge & Bear It

A word I overuse, in my head at least, is “nightmare”. It runs as a refrain when I try to get on a train, when I stand on a train (and being small I’m wedged under people’s armpits and even now that smoking is banned indoors, people’s clothes stink of… I don’t know, bars, fried food, no regular dry-leaning, I don’t know. I say it when I step off a train at a tube station and see the throng trying to make it up the escalators, both standing and walking, no way to get past them. ‘Nightmare’ I say, ‘nightmare’ I repeat.

Well it’s not of course, the correct term is just ‘very frustrating’, not even ‘extremely frustrating’, all it’s doing is making me late for work. Big deal. Yes, I have a job, yes I have to struggle with public transport.
I’ve decided it’s a false sense of activity to a) wait and struggle (I hate teenagers and kids more than anything) to get on a bus that takes me to a faster tube line rather than b) sit on the rickety and spluttering slower line where trains get cancelled all the time because doing a) gives me double dose of frustration and leads to more ‘nightmares’.

The reason why we get paid more as we get older and should get paid much, much more in fact, is not because we’ve accumulated more knowledge and experience that allows us to maximise profits for our firms, do our jobs better and be all around assets. No it’s simply a payment for the longer suffering we endure, years of it in fact, in order to get to said jobs. I don’t mean that I’d prefer working from home, that carries a different set of negatives, but I just want this stupid travesty of a leading western city to get its act together when it comes to transport. In New Delhi I expect to have a stressful journey, in London I do not.

21 November - Toes & Lovers

The BF was away for a few nights, so I emailed a friend to say it was nice to be alone and that I caught up with lots of stuff (not necessarily interesting, sometimes i just love to re-fold the scarves in my scarves box or try on the leather gloves I forget to wear outside, that kind of thing) and that I painted my toenails.

She emails back to say she had hers sucked by her gentleman lover who was visiting from abroad.

Ah well. My turn to be stunned into silence.

19 November - tbc

Guitars & Heart attacks

18 November - Dating Dos & Don'ts

This should really be part of my impending tome ‘100 Lessons You Really Should Have Learnt By Now (in your local bookshop self-help and comedy sections in 2008 perhaps), but here goes. If you’re about to meet for a first official date someone who you’ve thought was cute and you told your mutual friends as much and they egged you on to get together… then you should be in top form, best behaviour and so forth. I know this from … just plain sense but also because I get regular emails from this website I must have subscribed to once and you know, it’s good to be reminded. Her rule no. 1 with regards to dating is: Be fragrant and not tired, wound up etc. And my two gay friends (who should know better) just went and flaunted it. Granted, neither is a camp gay with high regard for fashion or cosmetic counters (unlike another I know who says he buys all Chanel face and body care products because he likes the packaging and especially the noise the little pump makes when dispensing the product. But I digress). So, a year ago they met briefly at a launch but didn’t vibe off each other and one went off with someone else that night. It was short lived.

Then a few weeks back R. (42) arrived and met a few of us after we’d been out for a v. long lunch and told me he rather liked J. (36) who was present and at this point very louchely slouched on a brown leather sofa at S. House. J. also told me he rather liked R. I was a bit surprised and pointed you ‘You met last year and didn’t vibe off each other ’ but had to concede that at least J. now looked very different as he sports a lumberjack style huge beard which didn’t exist last Summer.

So, emails were exchanged – we got very excited, they do have jobs that mean they understand each other’s world, visually at least and they’re similarly built and both are very manly looking, nothing sissy about them - and we left them to it. But I did know that on the day they met J. had been up most of the night and had imbibed lots alcohol by the time R arrived at 3pm. But I didn’t know that R. had also not gone to bed. So they probably had blurred vision, god knows what they saw in each other or maybe it was a case of ‘thank god there’s a gay man in this hetero gathering, I’ll have him’.

So…. They arranged to meet for breakfast on the day after J. returns from a trip to the USA (hence he’s a bit jetlagged) and R. turns up again after an all nighter so he’s a bit dishevelled. I get an email from J. to say ‘Nah, there’s no chemistry there’. But R. does like him and he’s a bit upset when he tries to arrange a further proper date and gets told ‘Better not’. You have to admire the level of frankness here displayed, no time wasters…. R. wonders if it was because he was out of it. I check with J. and he repeats not, just no chemistry. Oh well, my first attempt at gay matchmaking has failed. But I wonder, if they met in the queue to the coat-check whilst leaving the Vauxhall tavern, would they go for each other? J. told me he went home with someone from the coat-check queue a while ago and didn’t even bother to ask this guy’s name…. And it wasn't the first time either.

17 November - West or East?

Daydreams of third world slum landlord life are occupying me… My friend who lives and works in Cancun is in town with his boyfriend. We catch up…sadly this only happens once a year. He says a two bed flat could be mine for 15k. Marvellous. Wouldn't buy a car in London. A house would cost me a bit more but you know, start with the flat, or more than one, leave him to manage it /them for me and trade them up for a house when am ready to spend more time exploring Mexico which is so much more than its beaches.

It’s perfectly feasible at those sums I think. Heck, am sure that if i were to buy in Kenya or Nepal I could spend even less, the price of a few handbags. But will I have enough time to spend there if am also spending time in my, hypothetical, similar flats in Mumbai and other choice parts of India? Will the seasons work in my faviour? Can I do 3 months work in London a year and spend the remaining between East and West? Why dream when I can just go to the bank and get started?

15 November - TV I don't do

A friend writes that huge scaffolding has gone up around her building in south ken and all the lights is screened off and will be for weeks, major works (she’s in the basement as if that wasn’t bad enough) and not only that, but the scaffolding interferes with TV reception and she can’t watch anything. Doomed.

I say poor you as I know she does watch lots of TV (well, she manages a listing magazine for example) and consider that a similar situation would not affect me so badly. I seem to know about what’s on TV more from glancing at papers than actually watching. This past week for example I’ve only watched Heroes (back to back episodes to save ‘time’ so to speak), because something had to be found after the Sopranos ended. Have had the news on in small doses (I read the papers), and had Mr &Mrs Smith on in the background as I read. I had lost interest in the movie at the cinema halfway through (or I think I was on a plane actually) as the story gets progressively more ludicrous and if you get no kicks out of watching brangelina’s biceps, then it really loses you.. ), I did turn up the Culture Show as a friend rang to say some artist he's working with was on it...and… and that’s it I think.

I have never seen Ugly Betty, would like to but hasn’t happened, have not seen Prison Break (imagined it would annoy me by going on forever with no real end in sight), have not seen the ITV big dramas and not even Belle which I wanted to see but again I was never around when it was on and I simply don’t record off TV anymore, have not done for years. It was odd to throw away a while back some VHS with episodes of 30 Something on them or of Twin Peaks. Oh, just remembered was knackered and in on Sat. and so had the Come Dancing programme on in the background, followed by the X Factor. Can see how those would suck you in but … I wasn’t… How come am so impervious to TV? I do look at the TV supplements and even circle stuff I’d like to watch (movies, docus, some other TV series that get people talking, Scrubs, that other doctors' one, Grey's Anatomy) but then I miss it. Am I missing out?

14 November - Party & Paris

We’re invited to a party in Paris in early December. I have not been for… years, and last few times was due to work commitments. Usually have no desire to go… not my city, never fell for it big time. I’ve never been able to explain it but I like it grittier, as it is in London and in NYC. Am sort of looking forward it and wonder how the party will be. I speak French so no problems communicating there. The host is one of the most beautiful men you’d ever meet. In fact on the rare occasions I met him, I have found it impossible not to touch his arm, his shoulder, to physically reach for him.

I can’t say I fancy him and there’s no interest from him either. He’s just a calm, good natured, incredibly symmetrically beautiful man who happens to also be very fit – clearly visible through his thin layers of pure cashmere. And the thing that clinched it is the way his face took on this look when he mentioned Brazil, where he goes for business, and I just knew he was remembering the sex he had there with.. whoever. The thing with beautiful men is that you can see no demarcation between touching their elbow and … kissing them. He’s the same age of all my perfect young lovers (30 or looking 30 anyway) who are forever crystallised in the episodes they starred in. Wouldn’t go down very well with Toph, though am sure he has similar thoughts about beautiful girls he gets to meet, who hasn’t? Ah, why can’t we all just sleep with everyone we like and suffer no consequences?

13 November - Party & Monsters

Ohmygod the best g/friend who lives abroad and who’s married to a man ten years her senior and v. straight (likes wine… but don’t we all), is on a rare w/end visit to London. I/we stalwart friends get a joint email saying she’ll be here on the Friday and she feels like being BAD.

A flurry of emails ensues between some of us (some are slow on the uptake or just not in front of a computer) and me and the boys start plotting. In the space of a few minutes we come up with: an art opening at 6pm, dinner at Shoreditch house, a gay show at the Vauxhaull tavern, BT doing a rare gig at Turnmills, and then a remaining all-nighter at her old flat which will probably require me finding a copy of our favourite 90’s come down record, ie. Mr William Orbit. No doubt the others who haven’t communicated yet will throw in their ideas and we’ll have too many and suffer from thinking that 12 hours are not enough. Half are old party monsters. Though in current terms nobody is as bad as Winehouse or Moss probably.

She’s so excited, to leave husband behind in small provincial town where nothing happens but work and I’m so excited that the BF may be visiting his mother that w/end because he’s as straight as dye (and my friend’s husband) and he won’t ‘get it’. Not like us who go back soooo many years and er.. have even shared beds in some permutations. This feels totally naughty and as usual it’s the expectation that’s the most exciting part. On the night we’ll probably flake out but for now it’s full on, we’ll do everything, go everywhere and we may meet new friends on the way.

12 November - Throats & Slashing

I finally make it to a movie. How come this is so difficult for me? When do people go? I guess they mostly go at the w/end and I never feel that way. And of the remaining 5 days… as there’s always something to do after work and I also need the odd not doing anything at all night, the movies lose out. Must be the only person in London who’s not gone to see Atonement for example. But I did make it to Eastern Promise (having missed History of Violence though) and had asked for specific times where violence occurs so I could look away then. Don’t mind most things but throat cutting is a personal scary one. I can’t even say the words/think about it before feeling one of my hands go up to my throat to shield it. Had I been born a man back in the days when you had to go to the barber instead of doing it yourself at home, well, I’d have sported a beard. No way am I ever going to sit in that chair and just wait for any passing frenzied moment of madness to happen and have my head severed. In that instance I must have a lot in common with all those bearded men in the Muslim and Hindu worlds…

Mhhh. So yes, my source said first throat cutting would be 5 minutes in, but I reckon it was even less, more like 2 minutes. But I was prepared. She did however not mention the second one in the cemetery which I think has the camera lingering on it a little longer. And for good measure I avoided also seeing one of the vors (Russian mafia speak for thief) stabbed through the eye during the naked fight in the baths (Viggo, I prefer you fully clad in Aragorn mode btw) though that is somewhat more comical and not so scary.

But I have to wonder why I have a mild obsession with scarves. Can’t resist them, buy loads, in the past week alone I have acquired 5 (3 absolute bargains in cashmere) and several others I will foist upon the boy and friends ‘Here, I got you a scarf). Why have I fear of anything happening to throat but not of vampires biting my neck for example? Well, for a start it would be a smaller river of blood that gushes out… But in Freudian speak, what does the throat stand for? I can’t even say I’d be scared of not being able to speak again, given that I can type as fast as I talk and so could still bore you to tears with my ‘fluff’. Maybe it’s because the throat is so easy to cut and it would be instant death, no chance of any fixing it.

On another note one of the film producers (well bless she wasn’t directly involved in the film itself) didn’t recognise old Cronenberg himself at a small party in someone’s house recently when he was here for the premiere. And neither did she see Tony Blair sitting on the sofa at the same party (apparently he goes out a lot now he’s not stressed by the war in Iraq and some such). And yet they’re both pretty striking looking people.

11 November - Shoes, well Boots in fact

A lucky day is one where you visit an old friend who happens to have your same shoe size and who usually gives you nice hand me downs of clothes and in the past you have thought, wish she also gave me shoes and handbags but must not be greedy. Well this time she’s clearing out winter boots. Many. All seem hardly worn and that’s because she bought them but they weren’t quite right, maybe one hurt a little here, one hurt a little there and so she keeps buying them, the shapes are very similar, so is the heel height etc. But hey, even with my not so perfect feet as well documented here, the girl has bunions and wider feet than the rest of her justifies, (am not quite Frodo but you know, I’d have preferred Audrey Hepburn’s feet, am sure they were dainty or maybe not as she did ballet), my friend’s boots all fit perfectly.

I’m five pairs richer, and I left two or three behind. One was too sporty a pair and one had a zip that was a bit tight though now that I reflect on the fact they were nearly new Jill Sander I could kill myself. My friend doesn’t look at brands much but I always make the assumption that if it’s a ‘label’, then the designer had more of a duty of care towards me the consumer and there is a threshold of quality below which the item would simply not get made….. Though a pair is Costume Nationale and there’s nothing to denote superior quality or differentials from the pairs that are half the price. Oh and a pair is a sort of brown with a hint of purple that I particularly like.

The fact that on the same day I lost my spectacles left behind on a plane and I now have to fork out the usual £200/250 for the pleasure of another pair is somehow assuaged. Ie. am not crying hot tears of frustration.

10 November - Missed calls & Tedium

A colleague’s wife’s mobile dials his number. I answer and it’s a missed call sort of thing but am fascinated by what I hear and I listen for nearly 40 mins as she ferries the kids from some after school and there is another woman in the car so the talk is mother to kids and to friend and back. They drive to the pool. She’s very patient and then again her two boys are very well behaved but .. I’d rather slash my wrists than spend my afternoons ferrying kids to and fro their activities and having to be inquisitive and supportive about their schools and their goals and successes…. I notice from his diary that tomorrow the kids have football practice and some visit to the teacher. Oh dear god, thank you… I may have other whinges about life, but having to deal with kids for 15 years of my life would have killed me. I know of course colleague’s wife doesn’t do a stroke of paid work and lives in a huge house in a nice area, but nothing and nothing would compensate for the tedium of checking school work, relationships with their little friends and forced friendships with other mothers. Give me ‘me’ time any day of my life. And why don't I ever come to listen to some intriguing missed call instead? Some political plotting? Some planned heist? Because come to think of it, I also get regular missed calls complete with car and kids conversations from one of my friends in Bristol who takes them to church (would you believe) on Sunday mornings. Thank god it' s not the earliest service is all I can say.

9 November - Skirts & Nigeria

I’ve tried to get rid of this Kenzo suit from the 80s on various occasions but it’s just too corporate to interest any vintage shop or friend and so it’s survived in the wardrobe/trunk for all these years of un-usage. Clearly I’d never wear a suit, have no compulsion, even when I had jobs that welcomed them, the jacket always lived on the back of my chair. I admire suit wearing women, it makes life so simple. You just stick a thin top/shirt underneath, and you’re sorted. But I can’t do it. But neither can I see a good suit go to waste so today for the first time in probably ten years, I’m wearing the skirt. It’s a pencil skirt so it’s perfectly fine for every year but maybe last time I tried it, it was a bit tight. Not now. The zip goes up smoothly all the way to the (high) waist. So it’s with a certain satisfaction that I announce to the female colleagues that I’m wearing something that I bought in ’85 or ’86. To which one pipes up ‘I wasn’t even born then’. Sigh….

And I instantly remember a flight back from Cannes where a woman I worked with dropped some coffee on it and I had to dry-clean the jacket. What a fun working trip that was. TV stuff, great celebratory dinners, exciting new people and parties, firm friendships formed, that particular one lives in Toronto now, I went to her wedding 7 years ago and she’s divorced already.

I have been working for the entire life of my young colleague who wasn’t born yet in ‘86. It’s not right. I feel tired, I want to go home. I have worked for over 20 years non stop bar a sabbatical which I’m hankering to repeat, only double in length. We’re not meant to work this long and the female life expectancy in Nigeria is 43 years which means you do stop working earlier than I am/will. But it’s not on my list of favourite countries, no matter how vibrant its chaos and how friends from there point out that only people from Lagos are the Nigerians I can’t stand on account of … many things, mainly arrogance and overpowering body shapes. I digress. Mr Kenzo, where is he know? I bet he’s still selling skirts like this one…. Time for google.

8 November - Dad & Babes

Spend a couple of hours with an ex lover and one of his babies. He’s of the school of ‘the mothers want them, then let them look after them’. I mean, he can deliver them and support them, think he does it more for the boy than for the girl because technically he’s only the sperm donor for the girl. But an entire day with one when he's back in the country from his various pursuits, is … boring, which is why I get the call on the off chance I’m available, (I am) and whilst he’s with me he’s lining up the rest of the afternoon aunties or uncles.

Ella is stunning because she seems otherworldly. I didn’t feel much of a connection when I saw pictures of Connor who’s a sort of angel looking boy of 3, but this one year old is like Samantha Morton in the pool in Minority Report, you can’t look away she’s so mesmerising. All huge blue eyes, dreamy eyelashes and wonderment. She’s very amenable and friendly and not whingeing or whining and has a way to say a little ‘ooooohhh’ regularly as if all things are just a big pleasant world out there. She bops to the music when I walk into shops and touches garments when I lean her over to do so. She does so without grabbing at the fabric and as if she was evaluating the quality. Clearly she’s not mine but she could be. I wonder if she would be this gorgeous if I’d put my half of genes in there, though he clearly input three quarters. Must ask ex lover to show me pics of the mother, though that did not occur to me to ask on the day. I suspect she’s the usual ten years younger than me at least.

Ella is now clad in a new gift I bought her. Blue, to get away from all the pink she’s already saddled with. Minutes earlier dad and I were in a lingerie shop where am trying to encourage him to buy the same frilly knickers for both the women in his life (well two of, there are more) as he still bonks at leas one of them, and then we’re buying kiddie clothes and then we’re in another underwear shop. Not my fault, the little arcade had them to offer. He makes some comments about how lucky my boyfriend is as I buy my own electric blue frilly thong for later (I feel in the mood for colour) and thankfully does not remind me of anything past. Though he’s thinking about it perhaps. Is it possible to be more handsome I think? This man is going seriously gray and losing some hair but the swagger is still there, that’s what did it. Those articles that say that confidence is what gets the girl are true but this is confidence backed by perfect teeth and perfect... lots of other stuff. And it’s so sweet he’s apologising for the not so good leather jacket he’s wearing, says it’s not his. Blimey, I am truly the fashion police to my friends. Have no idea how I’d feel if Toph didn’t exist and was waiting for lunch at home.

Am totally enjoying this little foray into strolling along with big daddy and doll in my arms, though arms are knackered within the hour – silly girl for insisting on carrying doll, he has sling ready to take her. Ex lover tell me he’s fascinated by how different the kids’ mothers are and Ella’s mum is very disorganised compared to Connor’s. Yet she's the lawyer and the other is the designer. I have no idea which one I’d be. Somewhere in the middle I think, organised but relaxed. I hate neurotic mothers, they make their kids a mess.

Anyway, time is up, we’re at the tube station. I suddenly remember that at a recent friend’s 50th, her younger sister, 46, was being congratulated on the bump that contains triplets. Yes, at 46. Way to go. Though surgeon ex lover says highly likely one won’t survive so that will sort out the problem of how to deal with so many. He’s surprised it’s not IVF but when I say it runs in the family and she’s got 3 grown ups already, one at Uni, such fun, he’s less awed.
Three kids, I find it sort of a mad enterprise. Then again, I always did. God I’m looking forward to my coffee and book back at home by the time I wave him and doll goodbye.But I hope to see her again

6 November - Sibelius & Fantasia

A recent evening spent at the Barbican listening enraptured to that rather handsome conductr Salonen 'play' Sibelius, leads me to searching more on either on Youtube (work would be extra dull if a discreet earphone could not be sported throughout the day) and a few clicks away I find Disney's Fantasia.

I Remember going to see it at the cinema with my mother. Must have been 5/6? Of course I could have sworn it was out that year but in fact was released a few decades before my birth and uh ho, must have been a regular at the cinema at Xmas. To this day it’s probably the pieces of music I recognise most instantly. The whole sequence with the brooms and the buckets drowning Mickey. Love it to bits. It didn’t scare me… how unbelieveable to hear that at that age. Bit like going to the Imax the week before (was Halloween, we had a ten year old in tow and not many ideas between 3 adults) and watching Haunted Castle which uses various bits of opera most notably 'La donna e’ mobile'. Wonder if as a kid that's your first exposure to classical music and what you make of it, if you have words to describe it or if it's just sounds. Er, must ask the ten year old of course, why did I not think about it at the time...

4 November - Down & Below

Am out with an old colleague I don’t know very well. She’s drinking only water and tells me she’s on a diet that allows very little for 3 months as her doctor/homeopath is trying to flush out the candida from her system though she doesn’t think this is the main cause of her problems ‘down below’. She proceeds to tell me what they are, but basically sex is unpleasant and painful and one ends up not bothering which clearly is not a great state of affairs. She’s not dating right now but it contributed to the demise of her last one. Sounds awful. I’d rather er… die. Hope it’s not something one develops though she says this goes back to 2/3 years ago and she’s 37 so Christ, yes, it could be like eczema or diabetes or any of those things that just happen to you. Jeez, no wonder she’s tried it all, acupuncture, omeopathy, reiki, the works.

She’s also doing a hypnotherapy course and will have hypno herself and again she hopes this may help with the problem. She says there may be something that her subconscious has stored which gave rise to the problem. I can’t ask, and just wait to be told, but I have to wonder that if you call your sexual organs mostly ‘down below’ instead of using the actual words which are not that scary, trust me, then maybe you don’t have the easiest of relationships with them to start with. Am I wrong?
I did struggle a bit to listen. This is a woman who goes into great details when telling you a story so it took a long time to catch up. I was also annoyed that originally we were meant to be joined by another ex colleague who cried out on the day as too stressed, too overworked, headaches and so on. I don’t mind but had been hoping to kill the two birds with one stone and now of course her no show leaves it all open to rescheduling etc etc. I guess I do have options of being too busy till next year myself. Is that bad?

3 November - Time flies

Too fast and I have several posts to add to this blog but they do all require a little fine tuning and I'd not want you to read worse grammar than am already using. So if you're a regular, just keep patient a little longer. This will all be updated on 19 November. Just letting you know.

1 November - To do list

I don't make them... I occasionally print daypages (at the w/end usually) of my Outlook diary with various notes/reminders. Then stick the pages in my handbag and promptly never look at them till ... the day has passed and I conduct a sort of useless post mortem of 'look, was meant to call Susie on Saturday. Oh look, had planned to go see Exhbition x,y,z on Sunday... ah well, didn't. Life's too short, there will be other times'.
I prefer to rely on memory kicking in the reminder umprompted by reading it. This works with some time delay. I am very good however at sending lists to the BF, because he's a bloke and if I remind him to print it and to cross out what he's done, he may well do it. This is more satisfying than me doing anything. Actually making someone else do something. Wow, this must be how parents feel with their kids when they've cleaned their room etc.
Anway, Toph has rather marvellously done 6 out of 10 items on his list from yesterday. I had to take the day off to make sure but it was important to do so. His dinner parties don't come round that often, ok call it two years since the last one, and that venue had to be spic & span as I say (old 60's foreign advert in case no one gets the reference). You'd think I go out with a hermit with no friends but he's just not socialising at home. Could not believe one of his good friends of say ... 4 years perhaps?, had never been to his house. Wow. And never invited herself either. And she's American so you'd think she doesn't toe the Brit line of my house is my castle and no one shall get in unless there's a good reason.
Ok this is not a very interesting post but let me just remind you that had Serge Gainsbourg lived a little longer he'd be 80 next year. Well, it means something to me.