So.

So. My sister told me about this cream that she read about in the Daily Mail. (I don't read the Daily Mail so I hadn't heard about it.) It reduces hair growth. It's called Adonia Hair Reducer and the reviews are good. She said it had sold out everywhere and that Harrods has a 10,000 long waiting list! TEN THOUSAND! So I googled it and found the official website (here) which boasts some official looking research papers but no actual pictures of the respondents. And I don't think there were that many respondents. In any case, there's not that much out there on the web but I did read a few independent reviews which said it works.

The website said it was in stock so I ordered it. I ordered 5 (yes, five) tubes because it was buy 3 and get 2 free. And I figured my sisters would want some. And my mum who had chemo last year and cannot use any thing harsh on her skin. (This Adonia stuff is made of plant oils.) The website says it will take 10 to 18 days to arrive at my door (depending on customs at this end - I mean Customs and Excise, not religious customs, or social customs!) Actually, will I have to pay duty or something?? I actually don't care. If it really does reduce hair by up to 40% in two weeks and up to 70 % in four weeks then it is worth it. And even if it reduces it by 25 %, that's something, right? I will keep this blog updated with my progress on the Adonia Hair Reducer front.

I've also been using the Boots Smooth Skin machine which I purchased in December. It's good. But  dreadfully laborious. Which is okay if you are a very organised, meticulous and methodical person. But if you are bloody lazy like me then it helps if your situation is loaded with a high degree of desperation to make you do it (which mine is). I was fairly meticulous up to the point where I went abroad with The Piton for 5 days and acquired a tan. (You can't use it if you are tanned- it is IPL laser type thing.) While I was out there, I hardly need de-foresting which was a wonderful, wonderful thing because I had more fun. But then when I came back with a tan, I did not continue with the zapping and stuff grew back. So I have started zapping again, in the last two weeks. It is working but it is a drudge to do large and hard to reach areas. And I cannot be arsed to do my arms. At the moment I would say I resemble a character from "Where the Wild Things Are." So bring on the cream!

When I told her that I had bought 5 tubes she shrieked "Five tubes!! But you don't know if it works!! And it's out of stock - you won't get it!!" She calmed down when I told her it was buy 3 get 2 free. And I don't care. One has to speculate to accumulate. Or to do the opposite of accumulate as regards to superfluous hair. If The Piton was here I would ask him what the opposite of accumulate is. But I won't disturb him with such trivial and idiotic questions while he is journalisticating in troubled territories. He's so clever and brave. And I'm so shallow and thick.

Now. I have loads of work to do. I also have to write my Families article by tomorrow. Which I will do. But I'm sitting here typing this, which sort of feels like work, even though it isn't. Is it stealing, if I take away from this session a feeling of undeserved personal well-done-ness in order to cushion my true sense of failing and uselessness and guilty lack of achievement?

Well

Well. Having just read all previous posts (last one being in FEBRUARY!) and noticed that I started the last two with "Ok" and "Right", I just made the decision to start this one with "Well". Hmm. what will it be next time. Ah: "So"! (I'm not racist - one of my best friends is Chinese... That was terrible).

Well. Again, I feel tempted to tell you that it's night time, Sunday the 5th (very nearly Monday 6th) June. But I won't because you will already know that. I'm just going to change the font.

There. That's better isn't it? The Piton (formerly and mistakenly known as MF) AKA Wikepeter is away in Tripoli playing NewsStud and not here to drive me mad, ergo is doing it remotely by not being here. No that's not fair or true. He doesn't actually drive me mad much any more. Quite the opposite. Keeps me sane and anchored to the rockface we call life.

So I promised him I would write. He agreed to let me read his near decade-old book proposal if I made an earnest promise to write. So I'm trying. I wrote a paragraph last week, or maybe it was the week before. And I wrote an email to my Saturday students yesterday. I know you're thinking (or you would if you, a reader, existed) "Email? Does that count as writing?"

Well, it was a long and detailed email. God, they must think I am nuts! It was all about how I had to change the dates a bit again so that I can spend a fun two-night weekend at a country house with Piton and our kids (his boy and my girl. Not "our" kids, if you see what I mean) for his friend's 40th birthday, along with uber-people invitees. Most people in my situation could have invented a perfectly plausible excuse for this thus maintaining a facade of sanity. Like: My Grandma died (which she actually did but I won't use that as an excuse to cancel a class). Or A Family Wedding. Or A Family Tragedy. Or more plausibly: The hall is not available that day due to a death/ wedding/ tragedy/ scheduled gas leak. But no. I had to tell the truth. In a way that quoted the need to take advantage of "stepping stones of happiness" and "rainbows over valleys" and the fact that sometimes, for many people, life is like "clinging to a dinghy by one's fingernails in a sea of misery". I'm using quotation marks even though I'm not sure if these were the actual words and I'm too embarrassed to go back and read what I wrote in order to copy and paste. Anyway. You get the picture. I'm supposed to be teaching them baby signing, not trying to play with their psyches. Jeez. I don't know how I'm going to face my Saturday class this week...

Maybe this is why I have to start writing properly. Otherwise it will come out in other, ever more mortifyingly shocking ways. Right. Now I'm supposed to be zapping but it's too late. Tomorrow is another day. Instead I will make a hot chocolate and read a bit more of The Pregnant Widow. I must finish that damn book and return it to the library. And renew it tomorrow. I'm so sick of seeing it lying around. And to write, you have to read. Those called "They" are said to say.

Goodnight. x

Mummy on the Edge - FamiliesNW Magazine May/June 2011

(Please pardon the dollar signs - this was written whilst on hosl in Texas and I can't be arsed to change it :))

Angelina and Mini-me enjoy high tea  not  at the Ritz.
 It seems nowadays you can't scroll down your inbox without 17 discount offers jumping out to tempt you. I have become virtual-coupon queen and signed up to several sites which promise to save me money and enhance my life. Let's see, at first look this morning I've come upon teeth whitening, hair straightening, wine tasting, Argentinian barbeque, laser hair removal, fish pedicure, country house weekend and race car driving. All suitable mother-daughter activities in ooh, about 10 years but nothing for right now.

BUT I did find what I was looking for a few months ago. It was Mini-Me's birthday and I wanted to take her somewhere special and memorable. We both love food and theatre and I thought I could combine the two with lunch at the Japanese restaurant Benihana, where they chuck knives and ingredients around and the food, magically prepared mid-air, lands on a grill in front of you where it is cooked to sizzling perfection. (Yes, I have been watching too many cartoons on Boomerang with Mini-Me). This was working out pricey however, and I wasn't sure that it would hit the spot, birthday wise. Perhaps, I thought, I could take her for a slap up lunch at the famous oyster bar at St Pancras. Then I remembered whose birthday it actually was. Aha, I thought! Afternoon tea at an uber-posh hotel in town (as in London Town, not Watford Town), somewhere achingly luxurious where we would never stay - at least not until after my oeuvre is completed and MGM buy the film rights (unlikely until at least the next decade as the opening paragraph is resting in a neurologically dormant corner of my brain - along with the closing sentence and all chapters in between). 

What could be better, I thought, than consuming teensy-weensy sandwiches and heavenly frou-frou cakes with our little fingers pointing skyward, in the company of ladies who lunch, caressed by the calming notes of muzak, sipping fragrant piney lapsang souchong grown and harvested on a romantic, misty mountain by singing angels.  I spent a few hours trawling the net for options and looked up The Ritz, The Wolsley and just about everywhere elsey. Everything was mondo pricey, in the region of $25 - $45 EACH. Hmmm, I sighed, if only there was a coupon for such a thing. Lo and behold, what should pop out of my inbox THAT VERY DAY (who says cosmic ordering doesn't work?) I bought a voucher from Livingsocial for champagne afternoon tea for two at Le Meridien, Piccadilly for the grand sum of $25. Okay, not the Ritz, but it would do. I conceded that the place would probably be filled, not by the ambient crystal titter of well-heeled ladies who shop but by clodhoppers like me, waving vouchers.

By the time we took up the offer it was two months later; its purpose had mutated from "Mini-Me's birthday treat" to "Mini-Me's post-birthday and pre-mummy-going-to-Texas-for-a-wedding-without-Mini-Me-for-5-nights treat". I've never left her for longer than a night and there were some pre-departure nerves on both our parts.  "Wow!", she gasped as we entered the revolving doors into the lobby. "Shhh. Don't sound impressed. Just belong," I instructed in reply. The Terrace Restaurant was bright, sunshiney and empty; the well-heeled possibly giddy with delight in Liberty and the rest perhaps clodhopping elsewhere. After waiting quite a while, the waiter arrived with my Champagne, Mini-Me's milkshake and our two, 3-tiered serving thingies; at the bottom of each, six finger sandwiches of salmon, egg and cress and cheese and cucumber; the middle, 4 mini scones, each the size of my big toe (I'm a size 5, since you ask) and at the top, pretty little fancies, garnished with gold leaf and curled chocolate. It all looked doll-size, but by the time we had worked our way to the top we were both slighty green.

"What's an anarchist, mummy?" asked Mini-Me after, as we worked off high tea with a pleasant mosey up 

Regent Street

under an impossibly blue sky and egg yolk sun. It was the day after the central London cuts protest and although we avoided the broken windows of Piccadilly, subtle hints that something had occurred were dotted around. A touch of graffitti depicting the "A" sign had prompted a detailed explanation but I only made a brief one before ducking into The Gap sale where Mini-Me sat in the changing room hanging clothes back on hangers for me after I had tried them on. She’s a great gal, that Mini-Me. And I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for further exciting inbox adventures that we can enjoy together now – or in 10 years time...

Infobox:
I found my high tea deal on Livingsocial but there is also Groupon and Travelzoo – be prepared to receive offers daily.

Angelina Melwani runs Sing and Sign Baby Signing Classes in Harrow, Bushey, Stanmore and Ricky. More info at singandsign.com

Mummy on the Edge FamiliesNW Mag March April 2011

A few months ago, a random man knocked at my door and announced that he was Indaria Trimi-Trays which I thought was a nice name (if a little ethnically unusual for a stocky white bloke with a neck like a water butt). A few sentences later, I had deduced that he was “In the area, trimming trees” and was wondering if I would like mine seen to. It just so happened that in my back garden I had an Elder (the tree, not a grandparent) that had been growing adjacent and partly through my shed, probably thanks to some long-dead squirrel who decided it was a good idea to bury some berries, or seeds or whatever it is that begets a tree in the wrong place. I had been meaning to deal with it for ages but, what with general events of the past five years, it had never been a priority. Indaria had a look and announced that he would charge £150 to do what needed to be done. However, I had no intention of making such a generous contribution towards his sister's big fat light-up wedding so we settled on fifty squids to cut it down, treat the stump and take away the wood. I had saved the shed and allowed the adjacent apple tree more room to be happy and revel in its bountiful fruitfulness. Or something.

When Mini-Me came home from school, I was quite excited to show her the day's progress and ready to bask in her praise for being such a canny bargaineer. “Oh Mummy!” I imagined her saying, “You ARE clever to have have saved a hundred pounds while removing an eyesore and creating necessary breathing space in our sprawling wilderness.” Or words to that effect.

Well, how unpredictable and inconsistent my little cheerleader is. Far from being pleased and proud of me, her face shook with horror and disappointment (-as though I had just shown her pillowcase full of freshly drowned puppies, in fact) and said “Oh, no!! We must look after the trees mummy, PLEASE!”

I blame Blue Peter and school.

What could I do? I had to make practical reparation.

Sai School of Harrow had joined the Woodland Trust Tree Planting initiative and asked parents to bring their kids to a specially organised tree planting day that would contribute to creating England's largest new native woodland. Of course, being a can-do, self -righteous, example-setting tree lover, I jumped at the chance to calm my and Mini-Me's karma. So, to her delight, we set off one Sunday after lunch and drove to Heartwood Forest up St Albans way. A shuttle bus picked us up from the car park at a local school and ferried us to the end of a lane at the bottom of a hill (very precise location) that was flowing with mud of the exact consistency of melted chocolate. Squelch, squelch, squelch went our wellies.

Onward, dodging cow pats, we trudged up the hill, now grassy but still very muddy; the sky waxing moodier and the wind whipping our faces harder with every step. We were so high up that I swear the air was thinner and at one point, I did wonder what on earth we were doing. After a mile , noses dribbling and thighs itchy with unexpected exercise, we reached the top. Hurrah! We were greeted by volunteers who demonstrated to us how to plant a tree before trusting us with our own spades and a pile of oaks and other varieties (Elders, possibly?) to choose from. It involved digging big holes and putting in trees straight, so that the roots were not squashed and the tree would not grow wonky. Have you ever planted a tree? It was difficult but very satisfying to locate a space marked with an orange spray-painted dot, dig into the hard cold ground, jump on the spade to ram it into the soil and lever out a big blob. Mini-Me had a constant smile of pride on her face throughout the job and we got through about 3 trees before giving up, laying down our spades and racing past the soup 'n' bacon buttie stall, back down the hill. As if planting a tree wasn't enough reward for itself, we further indulged ourselves with hot chocolate and cake at a coffee shop in St Albans. It tasted all the better.

Apparently the best time for planting trees is between November and March so, if we have inspired you with our exploits, (whether or not you have environmental sins to atone for) you have just enough time to join in Heartwood Forest's last tree planting event of the season on Saturday 19^th March between 10 am and 3 pm. Visit woodlandtrust.org.uk/heartwood for more details or call 01476 581111.

Angelina Melwani runs Sing and Sign baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey, Stanmore and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com

A new dawn a new day etc.

Okay. Here I go again. I'm tempted to write the date but I realise this is technology stuff and I don't have to because it does it for you. What's new? Loads and nothing. I'm about to take away 10p from my daughter's stash of 5p rewards (I will explain the reason for this stash later) due to the fact that it is a QUARTER PAST EIGHT!!!!! and she is not remotely ready for school having not even had her shower yet. I'm letting this blog entry do the shouting for me and will, having logged out and switched off, remain calm and collected. I will not mutter under my breath in a passive aggressive show of crossness. (I might, just a bit.)

Having written the above, I feel it is only fair in the spirit of full disclosure to confess that we are supposed to leave the house in 25 minutes and I'm sitting at the computer in my pyjamas having not even brushed my teeth or been to the loo since I woke up.

Bettergobye!

Mummy on the Edge FamiliesNW Mag Jan Feb 2011

So, it's January and Mini-Me is a third of the way through Year 4. Now, I'm not going to take you with me on my current introspective journey of wonderment at how I on earth I reached this point, where I have sole leadership of a whole person with their own thoughts and ideas (sometimes more complete and reasoned than mine) or how I can see in slow-mo-car-crash-vision that I am influencing this person in ways that are beyond my capacity to prevent. Suffice to say, kids learn from what they see, not what you tell them. And this is becoming more apparent with every passing day: After instructing Mini-Me to amuse a friend's much younger daughter in her bedroom after volunteering myself to look after her for the afternoon, my daughter came to me, obviously perturbed, with her head in her hands stuttering “She’s touching everything! And standing on my books! And... and... I... I... I can’t cope!”. Yes, children learn from what they observe in the adults around them. So I am well aware that in Mini-Me’s case I have no one to blame but myself therefore, from now on I'm going to make a concerted effort to prevent any non-copeage on my part from seeping out from under the closed door of the loo. It's the least I can do.

***

I used to be the one to plug fingers in my state school ears and shout “I’m not listening I’m not listening!” when all the Speech and Drama mummies would gather around the table talking about prep schools and private schools and grammar schools and all other manner of Uber-Schools not aforementioned and homework and verbal reasoning and eleven plus blah blah blah! It ACTUALLY made me want to vomit with anxiety to the point where my brain rebelled and I decided that I would simply let nature take its course and Mini-Me would do well enough wherever she went and whatever happened. But last summer I had a life changing moment. My friend who has moved to Dubai was here for the summer and we had arranged for her little girl to have a sleepover with Mini-Me. She had enrolled her daughter in a Leaders are Readers summer school, so while Mini-Me was at the council-run Music and Art Camp banging drums, pouring rice into rain-makers and painting t-shirts, my friend's daughter was intensively studying Maths and English so as to prevent the stagnation of her brain while away from her posh and competitive school in Dubai.

So I went to pick her daughter up from North London Collegiate (the venue for the summer school) to bring her home. When I entered their hallowed grounds I felt myself gasp involuntarily. There was some kind of “aura” about the place. It was lovely. I don't even know why I thought it was lovely but it just was. I could feel myself starting to float as my body and mind became possessed by the absolute knowledge and surety that my Mini-Me was MEANT to study there (with a 100% bursary/ scholarship for there could be no other way) or in a place like it (i.e. Watford Grammar) . I made my way through the corridors of the artsy-fartsy wing which housed (I think) theatre studios and my mind pasted Mini-Me's head on to the pictures of the high-achieving acting types in black leotards and high achieving music types with flutes at their lips and harps at their hips (but I was in such a state I might even have conjured them in my head to begin with). Reader, I physically ached with longing for the opportunities I never had to be bestowed upon my child.

Well, after a term of inaction I have come to the late realisation that happy thoughts, lighting candles and cosmic ordering are, none of them going, to help Mini get into Uber-School. We are going to have to go down the extra-curricular route. This is before I've even established whether Uber-School is the right place for her. It might too intense. Thankfully, we still have time to figure that out. But after quizzing parents of Year 4s and 5s and 6s on subjects such as tutors and school choices and admissions (I've become that woman), I've come to the conclusion that it's wise to start preparing in some way for the possibility. I've been told that tutors are able to steer children in the direction of the specific school they are trying for. So I'm thinking I might actually give up lunch and central heating in favour of paying one! Before I do that, however, at risk of mutual strangulation, I suppose I could have a go myself. My sister passed down to me a lot of old books and papers from her kids who are now teenagers. Its all in a box ready for me to take it out and stare gormlessly at it. I've also found this nifty website called parentsintouch.co.uk which contains lots of worksheets and activities. Not forgetting superkids.com/aweb/tools where you can find a maths worksheet creator.

With a little luck and a lot of patience, I might postpone a nervous breakdown long enough to see Mini-Me attain 13 A*s in her GCSEs at Uber-School (please, Universe!)

Progress

Right. Here is where I list further progress in novel writing via tv programmes I have watched. I have not watched a further episode of Mariella (don't worry they are all recorded on the oojamaflip and I will get to them soon). But I did just watch JK Rowling on Oprah. Inspired? You bloody betcha. She said that being at rock bottom provided her with a solid foundation. I am lucky enough to have been - or at least felt - at rock bottom in my life. It was long enough ago for me to honestly state that I have totally surmounted it and few enough years ago to be able to remember it well, if I try hard enough. So I'm already at an advantage, right? I have also purchased a much-needed laptop. This will enable me to work in front of the television whilst imbibing further inspirational ideas. See? More progress.

What else? Well. I had intended when I started this blogette, to explain my bag theory. It has helped many people whom I have explained it to, freeing them up to look at the big picture, so much so that they soon started to quote my bags back at me. Sadly, I have forgotten what's in my own bags. I need to work hard to maintain my title of Bag Lady of Bushey. Once I have sorted them out I will post on here and you too can benefit from lightening the load of your own bag by returning superflous property to its rightful owners.

Mummy on the Edge Families NW Mag Nov/ Dec 2010

How Mini-Me gets her toot after Angelina’s fluteless mission.

Gosh, it’s been a while since we’ve met. What’s happened since then? Me? Well, the little person my life revolves around aka Mini-Me has started Year 4, acquired a stepmother (I know! - But no good can come from writing about that…) and has nearly finished reading Harry Potter 6 - The Sickly Mallows; He casts a spell to force the Deatheaters to eat 127 packets of Tunnocks Teacakes each and they all throw up and die at the end – okay he probably doesn’t, but whatever. I’m not sure it’s suitable for her but she insists it’s fine and isn’t giving her nightmares and she has read and watched numbers 1 -5 innumerable times, so I’m going to save a neurosis for something more worthy.

She has also somehow coerced me into allowing her to take up the flute at school. In the mistaken assumption that instructions would be issued as to what to get and where from, I didn’t realise that I was supposed to find a flute from somewhere before she started lessons until it was toot late (Ha! Geddit?) So, I sent her to her first flute lesson sans flute. But I promised her that I would work on getting one toot suite (Ha! Never mind…) Having borrowed the teachers flute for the lesson, Mini-Me came back with absolutely no knowledge of what I was supposed to provide. However, I had done a bit of research that day so I knew what to ask.

“Do you need a straight flute or a curved flute, hmm?”

“Um... I don’t know mummy.”

I went on recommendation and discovered it was possible to rent a flute for Mini-Me from Prozone Music, based in a little kiosk inside Clarendon Muse at Watford Grammar Boys School. I promised her I would try to get one before her next lesson, with the absolute intention of doing so (but with also the absolute anticipation of my probable failure).

The evening before her second lesson, I drove to Prozone to collect the instrument I had arranged to hire at a cost of £60 for 3 months. I was instructed to bring proof of address and two forms of identification and my credit card. Hmm, I wondered, am I hiring a flute or a Kalashnikov? I got there to find that the instrument had not arrived yet. I was forced to while away an hour and a half in TK Maxx down the road and this increased the hire price to £100 by way of a powder blue cashmere cardigan at £39.99.

Meanwhile, I pondered my friend’s email containing a link to a website that offered a curved flute (for her little arms) to buy for £99. But I needed this instrument by tomorrow’s second lesson, or I would acquire a reputation! (Of what? Don’t ask.) When I went back to complete the deal I was confronted with a wadge of paperwork with caveats about Insurance and Responsibility (read Disaster, Blame and More Money). I was unable to process this probably straightforward and sensible documentation due to the swift and final activation of my anxiety reflex (doesn’t take much, really) and I caved and went home without the instrument. Yes, I felt very guilty when I arrived home from this fluteless mission. I put my hands on Mini-Me’s shoulders and explained thus: “I regret I was unable to procure you a flute in time for tomorrow’s lesson. However, I will try again and I’m almost sure you will have one by your third lesson” This elicited a look of slight disappointment but mostly pity. The look said: “My poor, pathetic, neurotic mother. How I love her.”

Anyway, the long and the short and the curve of it, is that I ended up ordering the toot from Student Music Supplies. They made a note of my precise delivery instructions (If I’m not at home, please deliver to any random flippin’ house on my street except for my immediate next door neighbour because I’d rather use Encona as eye drops than knock on her door) and it arrived just in time, the day before her third flute lesson.

Of course, the next morning I forgot to give it to her, so after I returned at lunch time from teaching my Sing and Sign class in Stanmore, it was with slow motion horror that I realised that my poor child may have had her third fluteless lesson. I ran up to the school desperately clutching the black case, begging the universe for a break. “I forgot to give this to her! Am I too late for her lesson?” I panted at the school secretary. “No”, she said, “it’s at toot-thirty!”

Info box
I ordered Mini-Me’s flute from SMS, studentmusicsupplies.com They were really helpful over the phone and delivery was super-speedy: 01256 350 282

Prozone Music have a little kiosk at Clarendon Muse, at Watford Boys School. It’s advisable to phone the main shop in Chesham first. They were also very helpful and knowledgable: 01494 776 262. Prozonemusic.com

I have begun to fail by failing to begin.

So I started this thing how many weeks ago? And I've posted how many entries? Exactly. But well, y'know, I've sorta been writing them in my head. I write a lot that way. Especially in the shower. Or when I'm cooking. Someone needs to invent a showerproof and greaseproof laptop. I don't know why I am unable to write. Yesterday - or the day before, I wrote a very long and rambling email to my clients re the work I do for them. It was silly and probably defeated it's purpose being as it was to get people to decide what merchandise to purchase and to re-book my classes for January and being that they had to scroll down acres of my mindless regurgitation before getting to the salient points. But some of them liked it. Should I post it??

You see, now I'm writing this, with precisely no one in mind to read it. Maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe just write for myself as if no one's going to read it. Maybe that will allow me the freedom I need. But as I write this, I am experiencing self-loathing, disgust at the ugly vanity displayed by my ego at even considering that anyone would want to read anything I have to say. Especially as, right now, it appears I have nothing to say.  

I can see that I'm going to drive myself mad in this vein fairly regularly. I need to keep at this though. I actually thought of a plot yesterday (of the novel variety). I talked it over briefly with MF (for whom I need to think of another pseudonym because MF sounds like something very very rude which did not occur to me when I first came up with it but which made me cry with laughter after he pointed it out to me).

Anyway, actually I'm not reporting all progress. I am upstairs now having kissed Mini-Me (8) goodnight after watching half an hour of Mariella Frostrup on Sky Arts' The Book Show. I have to watch that programme regularly. Maybe it will be the catalyst (read rocket up arse) that I need to start writing my oevre. Also, Mariella Frostrup is so clever and attractive, with her nail file voice, and silky tan blouse, her golden light shines over drab plebs in the audience at whichever literary festival she's at. She interviews Salman, taking care to stress the correct syllable of his name and playfully chides gap toothed whassername who writes all the horsey romps about having a romantic lead who is nearing 70 and should be looking after her grandchildren. See, I've just seen it and I can't remember whom I'm talking about. Thats the problem. No memory. No tenacity. Just laziness. I mean, who else is going to attempt to pass off watching half a tv programme as progress in novel writing. Especially when attention wanders to what I would look like if I cut my hair in a bob like Mariella. And whether I could get away with wearing a bow fronted blouse like Mariella. Instead of concentrating on useful stuff like what Jilly Cooper (THAT'S IT) has to say about the perfect male romantic character.

Y'know those slot machines where you stick coins in and they fall onto a shelf which moves back and forth against an arm seemingly pushing the coins off the end of the shelf? I am one of those coins. Ostensibly being pushed by external forces and environmental shape changes... gradually... slowly... towards... the... cliff, where it will ultimately have to slip...
...off (not leap bravely) into writerdom. Ostensibly. But not actually. In truth, it is stationary. Pressured, pushed, yet going nowhere.

Hurrah!

With motivation from kindly and supportive MF (manfriend), I have now posted my first ever blog. It was easy. I sneakily inserted my last article for Families NW, to see if it would work. And it did. Now all I have to do is be witty and insightful a few times a week and avoid going all introspective and bloody boring and depressing. I also have to strike a balance between being funny and truthful about life etc and not revealing too much which would alienate friends, family and customers - but not MF who has said I may write anything about him and he won't mind. I think he'll just be relieved that I will have somewhere else to post my mad ramblings rather than on blackberry messenger to him.

Hmm. I also have permission from BFUF (Best Friend Uber Fashionista) to write anything I please about her. However, I'm not sure she's thought this one through. Because inevitably people we both know may (note: I'm not flattering myself by saying "will") read this and find out stuff that she may wish she never told me. Anyway. Who says it's all going to be true? Creative license and all...