Mummy on the Edge - Familes NW Jan/Feb 2013

I started writing Mummy on the Edge in 2006 when Mini-Me was 4. Over the past 7 years, I have borrowed (some might say, stolen) quite a selection of intimate vignettes from our upside down life to share within these pages. Some high points, some low points; some proud moments and very many embarrassing ones. When I wrote my first column, it was an experiment and I was not sure how it would be received. I was thankful when the then editor asked me to make it a regular thing. At that time, Mini-Me had just started learning to read. Admiring pictures of herself: that she could manage. However she had not yet discovered the thrill of deciphering the mad ramblings of her mother within the pages of a publicly available periodical. So, without an interested party to elicit guilt and thereby block my creative flow, everything was fair game. Never once did I consider that this would return to bite me in the bottom.

Fast forward 7 years and Mini-Me (whom I should actually call Midi-Me, she's nearly eleven!) is finding her own literary voice. And using it to plonk bits of our lives into her own stories. Nothing that bad has surfaced yet. Last week it was a story about a kid who had vomited on his mother's bed and been treated with love and care by his mother, instead of expected reprimand. So far, so complimentary. However I fear it's only a matter of time before I read something like: “Jimmy set up another game of chess to play with himself while his mother, wrapped in two layers of moth-eaten cashmere, wearing odd socks and surrounded by empty Ferrero Rocher wrappers sat motionless in front of another episode of Real Housewives of New York.”

***

This school year is Mini-Me's last at primary school. It's only a matter of time before I am reduced in her estimation from “Cool Mum - who runs her own business and writes for Families Magazine” to “Great Embarrassment - will you please stop writing about me, Mother”. So I figure I may as well go for broke here: The aforementioned puking incident occurred a couple of Saturdays ago while Northwest London was in the grip of a virulent puke-diarrhoea lurgy which had afflicted lots of people from school and caused several absences from my Sing and Sign classes. I was in abject fear of catching the lurgy for several reasons: 1) that my mum had had an operation and was in hospital with her defences particularly low; 2) that I would have to take time off from work which is difficult because I have no one that can teach my classes for me; 3) who would deal with Mini-me? 4) I just didn't want to catch the bug, okay?

 

I dropped Mini-Me off directly after her Saturday morning activity to the school fair, where her year were supposed to be running the games room. She was taking this responsibility quite seriously and had been going on about “My shift” for days. “I can't be late for my shift, Mum” and, “I'll be singing in the choir after my shift”. She was clearly quite anxious to be at her station at her allocated time so as not to let anyone down. Having taught my classes that morning, I was equally anxious to go home, put my feet up and eat lunch undisturbed in front of a recorded episode of Real Housewives of New York, Season 5, so I gave her some money and told her to buy herself something innocuous to eat, meaning chips or a sandwich or something, NOT as she chose, chicken curry and rice. I would be back by 2 to watch her in the choir and spend a silly amount of money on fruitless raffle tickets.

We came home in anticipation of a busy evening. Mini-Me had a sleepover to go to and I therefore, had arranged to go out for dinner with an old friend. And then it happened. All over my bed and duvet and suedette headboard and her fringe and eyebrows and self, generally. Terrified that it was The Lurgy, we battened down the hatches and I prepared for a further puke-storm. It turned out though, that it wasn't The Lurgy after all because she was totally fine after that. In any case, to her annoyance, I fed her very little rest of the weekend JUST IN CASE. I concluded that there must have been a secret ingredient in the school fair chicken curry that just hadn't agreed with her. Oh well, at least it provided inspiration for one of her scintillating and gripping compositions.

And that's what counts, right?

For more Life on the Edge with Angelina, visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.

Mummy on the Edge - Families Magazine Nov/ Dec 2012

“Mummy, look!” gasped Mini-Me as she pointed to the pavement outside our house. It was Thursday morning and we were about to say our goodbyes before she went to her friend's house to go to school. I was all packed and excited about my impending gourmet weekend away.

“#@$!” I exclaimed, recoiling in horror. It was a fox lying on the ground. Dead. Open eyed. I momentarily considered what the universe meant by this portent, before taking a picture of it on my gadget and zooming to the airport to get on a plane to Biarritz. My friend kindly volunteered to phone the council and get it taken care of so that I didn't have to face a rotting corpse upon my return.

This was our first 3 nights apart from each other since Mini-Me went away with the school earlier in the year for two nights and missed me very much. I'm thinking we need increased practice (more trips for me!) because she will be going away for a week with the school again next year. My weekend away was a food-themed celebration of the 40^th Birthday of Ani, one of my oldest friends whom I have known since we were 7 – three years younger than Mini-Me is now. It got me thinking about how wonderful it would be for her if she is able to keep in touch with her friends for the rest of her life too (-especially ones that will make her life glamorous by necessitating trips abroad and who run their own organic spice companies and will cook elaborate and mouthwatering meals for her too; ones that work in fashion and regularly drop bags of clothing on her coffee table; not to mention ones that will happily organise the removal of dead animals from outside her house when she is on glamorous trips abroad...) Strong friendships are so incredibly important in life and the older I get, the more I believe this to be true.

It is something I'm thinking about a lot now, when considering which schools to put down on Mini-Me's secondary school application. A lot of time during my break away was spent dissecting Mini-Me's secondary school prospects. I know I have been going on about it since the last issue of Families NW, but having finally received the results of the 11-plus test our munchkins were put through, and with the application deadline looming, the decision, whilst becoming a bit clearer, hasn't got much easier or less weighty.

Whilst getting into a good school that's a bit far away might be an achievement, what about the sacrifice of not having a network of friends living nearby? Does a social life matter less once you are in a school that is hardcore results-driven? And will it affect their self-esteem if your kid's background is a bit less, shall we say, conventional than her peers? I just don't know. One theory I have heard reapeated over the past month, from people who have been through the whole process and also from parents posting on the excellent elevenplusexams.co.uk forum is that your child will get into the school that is right for them and if they want to work hard they will do well wherever they are. This is very comforting. After all, we all want what is best for our children; personally, I want to give Mini-Me the chances that I never had. But I question whether my desires for her are motivated by my own vanity or by what's the best for her specific abilities and personality. Like many parents out there, I have some long hard thinking to do...

Gosh, when I was ten, there was none of this to think about. Me and Ani and Chanda (uber fashion friend) were busy planning seriously uninformative school assemblies and making up dances in the playground. My biggest anxiety was born of a Diwali assembly when the sari I had shambolically wrapped around me started to unfurl and entangle itself around the shrine about which we were dancing and I chose the moment when my big butt was facing the school to bend over and start unravelling it. I never lived it down but have embraced it now as a treasured memory. Anyway, my point is that it was a given that I would just go to the local high school and me and my friends did okay. I devoured Smash Hits fortnightly and that turned me into a writer. Sorta.

Mini-Me on the other hand has to think about secondary schools, not to mention about a rotting dead fox – which was STILL there when I came back on Sunday!

For more Life on the Edge with Angelina, visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.

Mummy on the Edge/ Families Magazine October 2012

Tiger and Sloth Mother go head to head in the battle of going out vs staying in and studying.

Last Sunday, Sensible Mum and Mummy on the Edge fought a battle. Sensible Mum thought she should stay at home with Mini-Me and take the opportunity of the last full, free day before her 11-Plus exam (which would determine her secondary school - and therefore her Path In Life) to do some last minute maths and verbal reasoning practice. Mummy on the Edge however, thought that she should grab the opportunity of probably the last, hottest and bluest sky of the summer to go out and enjoy the Thames Festival on the Southbank in the glorious, day-glo sunshine. The battle was long and it was hard. There was guilt, vacillation, recrimination and finally, resolution; I think that my alter egos may have discovered a new psychological model.

I'm actually not as freaked out by the whole Year 7 admissions thing as I thought I would be, instead managing to remain fairly Zen about the whole thing. It has been at the back of my mind for several years, ever since my attempts to plug my ears with my fingers and pretend I couldn't hear whilst party to the discussions on the subject by other parents at the Speech and Drama class that Mini-Me attended from Year 1. I eventually realised that self-delusion wouldn't make the prospect disappear. Last year, when the Year Sixes were taking their 11-Plus exams, I remember seeing the ashen faces of their normally cheerful parents, people whom I would ordinarily stop to chat to, now hurrying away at pick-up time, looking stressed out and bleary eyed, not wishing to make eye contact with each other or anyone. This time next year, that will be us, I sensed with oppressive dread.

Now the moment is here. There is not much more that Mini-Me can do in the final days before exam day. I've discovered that I harbour too much guilt to be the Tiger Mother I thought I should be, but also too much surrogate ambition to be the passive non-interventionist (Sloth Mother?) either.

At the start of the summer holidays, Mini-Me had attended a mock test day (at the same time frightening and enlightening) organised by Chuckra education followed by one week of Bright Stars Learning summer school. In need of a holiday, we flew to Lake Garda in Italy. Ryanair caused me no bother with my fishing vest, which I bought online a few days before travelling to carry all the extra stuff (passports, money, camera, phone, mixed nuts (brain food), paperbacks and, in a big pocket on the back, Mini-Me's four Susan Daughtrey Verbal Reasoning Technique and Practice books – just to keep the juices flowing) that I would normally put in my handbag, which one is not allowed to carry in addition to one's cabin bag. Luckily, Mini-Me has not yet reached the stage where everything is an embarrassment, so being in the care of a nutter wearing a green, oversized beer-bellied-man's fishing vest with loads of bulging pockets emblazoned with "ZEBCO Let's go fishing" on the front and across the back was not the trauma-inducing event I feared it might be (although, admittedly, it may come out later, in therapy).

In Italy, it was too hot to do nothing so we did lots of sightseeing, walking and eating (and just a little bit of Verbal Reasoning and Maths of course). We enjoyed tagliatelle, pizza, risotto, grilled fish not to mention papardelle with hare ragu and spinach dumplings - and litres of yummy gelato. By the time we came back to London, the ZEBCO fishing vest was a tight fit, due to my gelatover-indulgence and my brain was a spaghetti serving of boat, bus, train and aeroplane timetables. Hiring a car offers a lot more freedom in a place like that, but I haven't yet worked my way up to driving abroad.

Now back to reality; this is the busiest time I remember experiencing. I have resorted to a traditional pen and diary to help me keep up with all the important dates I have to remember, because the life-changing-phone-gaget-thingy and googlecalendar are simply not reliable enough. 11-Plus; music entry exams; open evenings; the start of my Sing and Sign term. I'm not complaining about having no time for an adult social life. Being the month of my 40^th birthday, I had pencilled out most of it anyway, to accommodate the time I will inevitably need to spend mourning the loss of my youth in a depressive stupor; Mini-Me's exams give me a socially acceptable reason not to celebrate. Yay.

In case you are wondering, it was Sensible Mum who won the battle between staying in and going out. Mummy-on-the-edge would have come home too late and Mini-Me needs her early nights in the run up to the exam. Good luck to those of you with children in Year 6.

For more Life on the Edge with Angelina, including her choice of 11-Plus websites, visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.

Mummy on the edge, Families NW Magazine September

Angelina Melwani and Mini-Me share their Olympic journey

By the age of about four, Mini-Me was displaying an early taste for schadenfreude and I think it was me who had inadvertently cultivated this bent by recounting tales from my childhood. I found that the stories she most appreciated invariably involved a degree of mild cruelty and peer-induced humiliation. And there could be no more fertile ground for such stories than school, specifically the sports field. Failing to learn to swim in late autumn in the freezing cold outdoor swimming pool which was peppered with dead daddy-long-legs. A failed javelin attempt which landed me on my bottom in a ditch covered in a chocolate coating of mud. And these are just the highlights. All in all, my collective PE attempts were a jaw-dropping display of physical ineptitude. If there had been yoga on the curriculum, I might have excelled at it. But by the time of the post A level boat dance (the dodgy uncle of today's high school prom, held on a non-travelling, rickety old vessel docked somewhere on the Thames), my need for sport had been sated only by hours wasted at the wonky pool table in the common room.

Mini-Me however is destined for greater things. She can ride a bike (thanks to my wonderful friend who taught her while I was away on a trip), she can swim (thanks to years of swimming lessons, come summer and winter), she did a couple of terms of karate (before giving up because it was too stressful) and we have discovered that she has good aim (through a couple of goes at velcro archery on a school trip and at summer camp last year). I am very relieved that having a supremely mal-coordinated mummy-on-the-edge has merely dampened and not drowned her prospects of sporting prowess.

Mini-Me and I were in Harrow holding a banner for super-boy Jai Padhiar (son of my friend and colleague, Versha, Sing and Sign franchisee for Brent Cross, Edgware and Mill Hill) as he carried the Olympic torch - and a big grin. Together, over a greasy takeaway, we watched the rousing Olympic opening ceremony, feeling in our bones that this was the start of something we would never forget. Mini-Me stayed up very late to witness the relentless parade of participating countries, yanking me awake from post-biriani zonkage towards the end, screaming, “Mum, wake up! It's team GB!”

In the farce which was the Olympic ticket drama, I managed to claim possession of the hottest tickets of the games, (and if they weren't the hottest, we were darn well gonna pretend that they were) Beach Volleyball. Predictably, I had never attended a public sporting event other than Mini-Me's sports day and a baseball game while on holiday in New York. Whilst I anticipated some socio-anthropological enlightenment to be gained from attending the games and I was really looking forward to many years of smug reminiscence of how I took Mini-Me to the London 2012 Olympics, I simply was not prepared for how much PROPER ENJOYMENT would actually be had on the day! The night before the match, I went online to find out about whom we would be seeing and was absolutely delighted to realise that we were going to be watching MEN as well as women and the men's teams included Brazil and the potential hotness of Italy. Result! I had just assumed that the tickets were for Women's Beach Volleyball only.

Mini-Me and I were entranced with the festive atmosphere. The weather was fabulous, the tip of the London Eye was visible on one side and we couldn't help but get sucked into the sporting spirit, shouting and whooping all the way. We particularly enjoyed the swimwear-clad dancers shaking their male and female booties in a joyous conga (sadly not shown on telly) every ten minutes. It was major fun!

This previously alien enthusiasm for watching sports tightened its fist around the baton of our mini household and raced away with us throughout the first two weeks of August. We were overwhelmed with Olympic fever and fervour, glued to the telly watching diving, fencing, volleyball, pole vault, triathlon, synchronised swimming, running, unidentified flying object throwing and much, much more.

Like many parents, I'm wondering how to capitalise on this Olympic enthusiasm and encourage Mini-Me to get out there and “do it”. I'm guessing that the way forward is less stories of my epic failures and creating more opportunities to practice and excel together. I guess I'll be volunteering myself for target practice just as soon as the eleven plus is over...

For more Life on the Edge with Angelina including a trip to Lake Garda, visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.

Mummy on the Edge Families Magazine: July August 2012

Ah... What is the life of a single mother if she cannot torment her single daughter from time to time?

While performing the drudgery of clearing out her cupboards, after attiring Mini-Me in a pleated skirt, a ribbed polo-neck and my oldest, thickest pair of specs, I took a picture and posted it on facebook asking if anyone knew whom I had created. Of course it was Velma from Scoobie-Doo and the look of annoyed dissatisfaction on Mini-Me's face served only to authenticate the near-perfect rendition.

“Mummy! Why did you put that on facebook??” For a cheap laff, obviously, my little cherub. I think my childhood was too austere and I am having my playtime now, in middle age (nearly 40 if you must know). During her 10 years, poor Mini-Me has born the brunt of my regression with good-natured alacrity. She has tolerated my rusty scissors in her luscious locks and pretended to like the blunt bobs and unwanted fringes I have left her sporting. Now however, I fear the wind is changing. I recently took her for her first vaguely posh (well, paid for, anyway) haircut at Cedars of Bushey. Hmm... I need to re-exert my influence as much as possible now, before my living “Girls World” toy (remember? I always wanted one as a child) grows up and asserts her authority over her own appearance. And everything else.

The recent Diamond Jubilee of her Maj provided the perfect opportunity for my favourite brand of sad, pathetic fun. Naturally, the merciless weather prevented our trudge to Central London to witness first hand the pomp and ceremony. However, some patriotic and kind individuals down our street had organised a “Jubilee Picnic” featuring a special fancy dress competition with a prince and princess theme. That was all I read on the pink flyer that came through our letterbox before I ran upstairs to dig out my old wedding tiara (lucky I didn't burn it after all), pearls and anything else I could dredge up from the bottom of my dusty costume jewellery box.  The promise of cake and roast chicken and thyme flavoured Walkers Sensations crisps was enough to draw Mini-Me out of the house and into the street wearing my fakery and her dressing gown which has “princess” embroidered on it. Of course she won first prize. (Let's ignore the fact that she was the only princess to have ventured out in the rain.) This was not the first time I had worked Jubilee magic on my unwitting child-victim. When she was a baby I fashioned a crown out of my bangles and tissue paper for the Queens's Golden Jubilee. What will I do in 10 year's time? She will be twenty and I will be nearing 50. Gulp. Will they still be selling Girls Worlds?

Anyway, it will be retribution time by then. Mini-Me is already telling me what looks good and what looks funny. Last Friday when the bin men were out, she told me I looked like I had nothing on under my trench coat because I was wearing shorts. I actually had to go and put leggings on to appease her!

Yesterday, when my gorgeous 19 year old niece made me put her bandage dress on (“For jokes, Auntie” (- Oh! I suddenly can see now how this will all backfire on me - )) I  found out how much fun it actually is to play make-believe. I was instantly transmogrified into “Lisa”, the oldest hag from Real Housewives of Beverley Hills (don't look at me like that, I do also watch Newsnight, and The Book Show...) using an old cuddly toy as Giggie, the permanently attached chihuahua. Of course, although Mini-Me hadn't a clue who I was (as probably no one reading this does either, but you can IMAGINE, right?) tottering around in my sister's stilettos, and posing in front of her huge, ornate mirror, spouting hackneyed platitudes from the show, she did enjoy hanging dangly sparkles on me and laughing at my impression. “Mummy, you look BEAUTIFUL!” What fun we had together; she, lavishing me with compliments and me, pretending to be a filthy-rich, botoxed, egotist. Is this not what experts mean when they say you should make time for imaginative play with your children?

For more Life on the Edge with Angelina, including details of her latest life-changing gadget visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth and Sing and Sign has just won the Netmums awards for the best pre-school classes in Harrow and in Brent! More info at www.singandsign.com.

The aim? To blog often enough to not have to look up the password to said blog, every time I feel compelled to type something of note or no note.

The reality? Motivating myself to write in order to fill in time before the start of real Housewives of Beverley Hills. See, the thing is, real writers don't watch trash TV. Do they? No, they do not. They are busy reading. And writing. And living. And loving. Whereas I am wishing. And washing.

I am sitting on my tidy sofa in my tidy living room. This is a novelty for me since I have struggled to maintain some sort of order in my humble home for many years. I seemed to have turned a corner, after a mammoth chucking session over a week ago, spurred on not by Flylady.net whom I discovered around 10 years ago, but by these brief, sage words of advice from a friend: "Throw it away". That and the visit of an estate agent.

Floordrobe no longer, my clothes are hanging neatly in the cupboard. My dressing table, bedside table and desk are deserts, gleaming surfaces challenging me to blot their landscapes with any random piece of crap. But I will not do it. The house is a miracle to behold. It is something I have never experienced before, without shoving everything in a cupboard before visitors' arrival. I mean, really, it's so tidy and cozy and warm that I almost want to stay and not move.

I have discovered that messinesss was not my impediment to writing.

Next entry: A study of contemporary hocus pocus.

A friend posted this on facebook:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-better-than-you-normally-do

It's really funny.

Mummy on the Edge

May June 2012

It was a long school holiday, after everyone had gone bonkers and the telly said that the petrol pumps had run dry, and I had got into the dangerously comfortable habit of not leaving the house. You may struggle to believe this, but I am exceedingly lazy and have, shall we say, reclusive tendencies. Mini-Me had her bike and the nearby park, not to mention a copious supply of brain-pokeage from maths work printed from the interweb. Although I hadn't been shopping for a week and had a date-sensitive £5 Tesco coupon that was burning a hole somewhere in the footwell of my car, I decided not to venture out into the apocalypse but instead to stay home and make do. Luckily, I am gifted with a special talent (no, not THAT). I am able to produce comestible slop using items from my fridge that others may politely regard as half dead. Listen: a pepper past its prime is no impediment to a perfectly palatable pasta.

By the time I had worked my way through risotto al fridge bottom, frozen pastry, and various shades of lentil, I thought that Mini-Me must be fed up of me and my slop. I was certainly fed up of myself... So it was time to venture out into the open world. I'd been meaning to take Mini-Me to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden for a few years. And now, I thought it would be a fun and educational break from homework and from my mad “it's-a-jungle-out-there” type behaviour. Plus, I thought, it was just up the road from Mill End where I teach Sing and Sign on a Tuesday so it wouldn't take that long to get there. I performed the usual day-out ritual of wasting a silly amount of the day trawling Tastecard.co.uk for some sort of exciting lunch/ dinner place near the museum that would offer 50% off or two-for-one on production of my special card. The wonderful thing and paradoxically, also the very, very worst thing about yielding to the magical promise of the Tastecard is that once you are sick to death of Pizza Express, one ends up trying eating places that one wouldn't otherwise try. It's like restaurant Russian roulette. Plus, one is lulled into a false sense of bargainousness – like when we used it for desert at Café Rouge, when it would have been better value to opt for the in-house offer of dessert and coffee for £3.95.

Of course, the museum was a bit further away than I thought, and because of the 4 way single alternate lane traffic light situation at the junction of the M25 it took ages to get there. But never mind, because Mini-Me amused herself by having a really good slow-mo nose at all the huge and beautiful mansions on Chorleywood Road. Which one would we buy when we'd sold as many books as Roald Dahl?

The museum comprises three galleries, a craft room, “Miss Honey's Classroom” for story telling and Café Twit, all arranged around a central courtyard. The “Boy” gallery, based on his book of the same name which Mini-Me had recently read, looked at Dahl's childhood. Mini-Me's said it was her favourite because of the chocolate entrance; details about his mischief with a dead mouse and sweetshop whilst at boarding school; reading Dahl's handwrittten childhood letters to his mother and, heartbreakingly how he used to sleep facing the direction of home in Llandaff, Wales. My favourite was the new “Solo” gallery because they have transported Dahl's actual writing hut with its tobacco stained interior; drawings on the walls; bizarre objets of inspiration and broken anglepoise lamp fixed by a towel and a suspended golf ball, all faithfully reconstructed for posterity.

We enjoyed a free storytelling of Cinderella from Revolting Rhymes with audience participation, (bumping into a Sing and Sign family I taught 7 years ago!) Lucky for Mini-Me I didn't volunteer myself as an ugly sister. The thing we didn't do, which we should have and would have, had I not been worried about getting stuck in traffic on the way back, was stop in at Café Twit for a slice of Bogtrotter cake and cup of Whizpopper hot chocolate.

We came home and Mini-Me explained how she was inspired by the advice of Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, and J. K. Rowling, that appeared around the museum; whilst I prepared end-of-the-world slopperdooperoney, with a side of whizzcracking flangdroppers... Mmm, dewishus!

For more Life on the Edge and Angelina's recipe for slopperdooperoney, visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs award winning Sing and Sign baby signing classes. More info at www.singandsign.com

I found another email hidden away on my facebook page under the mysterious heading of "other" from a fan of this, here, blog. Well, I say a fan. It was January when she sent the email but I don't think I've contributed much since then, so she may not be a fan any more. But anyway. It was really nice to know that someone enjoys it.

So I have joined another website called Red Room (http://redroom.com/member/angelina-melwani/blog). It is a site for writers of anything and readers of books. I found it when I was "asking the google" as my parents put it, if Amy Tan has a blog. To join Red Room as a writer, (which I was sufficiently wannabe enough to want to do, that late stormy night after I had stayed up watching Dorian Grey on the telly while the rose thorns screeched and scraped against the window) one has to upload a picture, so I uploaded the one picture I have of me looking vaguely presentable and smiling demurely, taken on a happy evening out. That was my facebook picture recently, but I couldn't stand looking at it everytime I was on fb so I doodled it with black moustache and glasses and eyebrows on top to make it more realistic. Some friends found it offensive and I didn't care because it made me happy. But after a few months I yielded to pressure. Now my facebook picture is one of "Daria" which I recently found they are re-showing on MTV. I think I might be grown-up Daria in a parallel cartooniverse...  If Daria divorced a psychopath and became a neurotic single mother. No, she's probably a neurologist. Anyway, see how I digress? I've started another blog on Red Room but they have to moderate everything; whatever dross I wrote when I was feeling the vague frisson of motivation that caused me to type my first blogpost there has not been approved yet. My guess (as I cannot actually remember what I wrote) is it's too introspective and too crap.

***

I am on a break at the moment in between terms of doing what I do for a living which I was adamant that I didn't want to talk about on here but I might as well bloody say because it is getting tedious dancing around it all the time. So I teach a successful (!) baby signing class to parents. Except if you are reading this, you already know it because that's probably how you ended up reading this. Well, I say on a break but it's not really a break actually because there is lots of admin to catch up on and classes to fill. Also, I am trying to do extra work with Mini-Me in the run up to the 11 plus exams this September. The school does nothing. I really must not complain about the school. Someone might read this and she still goes there. Actually she might read this and be really cross because she LOVES her school. I really must go and write some horribly rude swearwords in the intro to the blog so that her firewall or whatever it's called does a parental block on it.

I really wish I had started working with her earlier - like actually years earlier, but as my dad always says, if wishes were horses, then beggars something something. Y'know I never understood what he was talking about with that one and I don't remember how he finished the expression. I'm going to ask the google now and find out what it's meant to be....
...

"If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

What? I have no idea. I'm sure I could eke out some sort of analysis if I could be arsed but I cannot (because it is now after 1AM and I'm typing while being asphixiated by a fog of dread wondering how I'm going to scrape myself out of bed in the morning to see Mini-Me across the road to A who takes her to school). I don't think that's what he said and if he did, I still wouldn't have understood it. My dad has his own understanding of the world and you cannot argue with him because he will obstinately refuse to budge from his obviously skewed and, some might argue, mentalist point of view. Or, he will tell you that he doesn't want to argue and that "Alright darling, don't get upset. You are right." Either way, you can NEVER win.

I know this from experience. From the time I could talk I was begging him to stop smoking because it was dangerous and carcinogenic. His carefully constructed, near-scientific ripost?

"Aah, that's all bullshit."

I tell you what is bullshit. This blog. There was a point, honestly, but it got lost along the sideroads and now I must bross les dents and go to bed to suffer more nightmares about driving uphill in a car that rolls backwards. 

Newsnight was funny tonight, with whassisname (not Paxman) interviewing EL thingumybob who has become the latest literary sensation after writing those saucy novels, 50 Shades of Grey etc. Maybe I should write a saucy novel. No, I've led a sheltered life and know nothing of these things. I can only write about how to deal with despicable narcissists. I have met a few of those along the way.

The next entry will be better. Or maybe it won't. You'll have to check in to find out.

Goodnight.

p.s. I'm too tired to spell check. Sorry.

Beautiful article on writing memoirs - or anything.
http://www.mindful.org/in-your-life/arts-and-creativity/write-your-life