Not waving but not quite drowning

I suffer from premature cracker-elation.

This is the second day in a row when I’ve found myself singing. Not songs from the dreaded ‘High School sodding Musical’ which plague my house to such a degree that I’m oft’ to be found singing them at work. No, worse, I was singing Christmas Songs.

This happens every year without fail in Autumn. I’ve improved on last year’s record of staring wistfully at Christmas stockings by mid September, but I’ve yet to reach my goal wait of mid November.

I mean it’s all very jolly at the moment. I’m working on two new advent calendars for Odd Middle Child and Baby K, which require sewing and binding and other such comforting activities. I’m humming the odd Christmas song and I’ve got a few Christmas presents stashed pleasingly in the secret present hiding cupboard. I am, in short, the very picture of the good ol’ spirit of Christmas.

The problem is that by the time the rest of the world catches up with my festive spirit and agrees that it really IS getting towards Christmas time, I’m a bit bored with the whole thing. I start ignoring the actual real life Christmas run up and I’m inevitably left saying things like ‘I can’t BELIEVE it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow… I don’t feel at all Christmassy’.

Oh, theeeeeeeeeee

….weather outside is frightfullllllllll, but the fire is so delightfulllllll….

Says the little loop of Christmas song in my head. Over and over and over until about the 10th of December when it will abruptly stop

Enough.

Enough 'scandals' where it transpires that some of the things that are on TV are (brace yourselves people) not completely as they seem!!!

For whom are these revelations? 

There is another one in the Mirror this morning announcing that one of Saint Ant and  his Holiness Dec's guests was, in fact, not really some pleb from the street but was the sound man, or some such, asked to step in at the last moment when the real pleb failed to turn up.

How, in the name of God, is that news?  What total edjit sits watching entertainment shows on ITV and actually expects 100% reality?  Even 'reality' shows aren't 100% reality, as I think even the stupidest of us know, so why on earth do we expect gospel from our cookery or quiz shows?

I can just about accept that it is newsworthy when the good folk in TV land to ask us to spend money on competitions that we’ve not got a faint hope of winning, but I hereby the declare the following recent ‘revelations’ to be non-revelatory bollocks:

 

1)      Nigella Lawson doesn’t use public transport.  That’s right, on her recent cookery show when she was shown catching a bus to a ‘meeting’, it was actually a bus hired by her production company and filled with extras.  But… it’s a cookery show so who the hell cares?  Who could find the time or effort to give even the faintest of craps about it?  It’s not filmed inside her real house either, for those that want to be completely mortified by her cheek.  The saucy minx…

 

2)      That jungle survival bloke (who’s name I have not bothered to remember) actually nicked off to a hotel of a night time and ate at McDonalds or similar while making a programme about how to live in the wild using only some chewing gum and a tic tac.  Good for him, I would have done the same.

 

3)      The Blue Peter kitten was given a different name to the one selected by the viewers.  Children across the country voted to call it ‘Cookie’ but the evil bastards at Blue Peter cast the name aside and named the cat ‘Socks’.  One can only suppose that they didn’t notice that both names are stupid.  The cat was unavailable for comment but one can only assume it was mortified at the arbitrary change in its name and does not welcome the press’ intrusion into its personal life.

 

It is NOT news when items are re-edited to give them an unrealistic slant, it’s just TV…  It’s not news when somebody on telly turns out to be an actor – isn’t that where they’re supposed to be?  I mean, fair enough if it turned out that the people staffing your local Abby National were actually only pretending to work there but aren’t we supposed to EXPECT things to be fiction on the telly?

Before I explain the events of last Friday night, I would like to make the following completely clear: 

1)     I had been drinking, but only two glasses of wine, which, frankly, wouldn’t have touched the sides.  My alcohol consumption is therefore dismissed as a contributing factor. 

2)     I was not under the influence of any drugs more interesting than my Prozac and birth control. 

Those facts firmly established, I would like suggestions on how the following might have happened… 

Please picture a scene of almost distressing normality.  It is about 11pm and, following a wild night of laying on the sofa drinking a civilised glass of wine and watching The Bourne Ultimatum, I head up to bed. 

My bed. 

I take out my lenses, wash off embarrassing amounts of make up, brush my teeth and go to bed.  I read for about 10 minutes before switching off the light and going to sleep. 

All so very normal that I’m sure you are wondering why I would share it with you. 

Because, my lovelies, I woke up in the baby’s cot.

I’ll assume that you’re saying the same things that people I’ve told face-to-face did so …
Yes, in her cot.  Her actual cot, with bars on the side and everything, yes.

Yes, she was in it too.

No, I didn’t crush her horribly, though she gave me hacky looks all through the next day

No, I’m not exactly sure how long I was asleep in there but best guess puts it at about 2 hours

No, I’m not tall enough to climb in without needing help.  I’m assuming that I used the chair next to the cot.  That’s certainly what I used to get out anyway.

Most importantly, no, I don’t remember getting in. I’ve managed over 30 years without anything like it happening before, except when I’ve been very very drunk.  I’ve never been a sleepwalker so I’ve no experience of it… do you think that could be what I did?

So, in a triumph of hope over experience, I took the two elder Kinsella Daughters to Disney on Ice last night.  Actually, it is known in our house as 'Disney on Crack' for reasons I forget now... probably the same reason we all call Guinnea Pigs 'Diggy Pigs' and nightwear 'Jimbles'.  Conversations long since past, the details of which evade me now. 

Anyway, Disney on Crack   Ice awaited. We ditched baby K and Mr K at home and slipped out into the night at, as Odd Middle Child said gleefully at the time, ‘our bedtime’.

 

I was prepared for Disney’s attempts to sell us shit that glowed and span round or glooped at a mere £19.99 a piece and it posed no problem. 

 

‘NO’, I said to Little Madam Kinsella as she drew breath to ask on the way past the first stall.

 

I knew that a bag of popcorn would be expensive (though I must confess that the £6.50 price-tag drew faint gasps of horror from me as well as everyone else walking past).

 

‘NO.  We’ve just had dinner’ I say to Odd Middle Child, before she is able to articulate her need for sweet crap, and we sweep past; my hands determinedly gripping their little wrists to keep them moving. 

 

‘Well you will have to get us something’ they say one after the other, tag-team-style.

 

It is a particular bugbear of mine when the children say ‘will you buy me something?’ 

 

‘What is you’re after?’ I always say sweetly, knowing the answer.

 

‘Dunno… Just something’, they reply, as though it were patently obvious.  Not the urge for something specific… just something. It’s most galling and their stoic refusal to understand why it fucks me off annoys me too.

 

But I digress…

 

Their repeated whines for the purchase of ‘something’ eventually grate my last nerve clean away and I spend £10 on two drinks for them.  Actually, I must confess it wasn’t quite the shocking purchase that it might appear… they were iced drinks, which took them the whole of the first half of the show to drink AND they came in re-usable princess goblets AND with a ‘Mrs Incredible’ straw/spoon hybrid.   They even had their cup of tea out of them this morning (I know… I KNOW, but they like tea and they’re English, dammit all) so I’ve nearly managed to convince myself that I wasn’t ripped off horribly.

 

However, once we got through the dangerous foyer and into the auditorium it all became rather wonderful really.  Say what you like about Disney (no, really, go on… no one will mind, I’m sure) but they know how to put on a show don’t they?  Every set, every costume, every sound and lighting cue was just perfect.  Only  two people fell over during the entire ice show, which I was pleased about because I always feel so very sorry for ice skaters when they fall over.  It leaves me in tatters by the end of the show if I have been concerned about the skills of the skaters.  The stress!

 

Which brings me messily to my plans for tonight.  Mr K and I are venturing out without the brood (!) to a proper theatre to watch 'Puppetry of the Penis'.  I have been assured by people old enough to know better that it is v.funny and not at all just an excuse to look at willies for 90 minutes.  Actually, the ticket price was worth it just to hear the conversation Mr K had with his mum about it.

 

‘Of course I’ll babysit’, she says.  ‘Are you going anywhere nice?’

‘erm, the theatre’, he mumbles.

‘Luvly!  What are you going to see?’

‘Puppetry of the Penis’’

‘What?’

‘Puppetry of the Penis’

There is a small pause.

‘Luvly!’ she says.

I see from the ticking counter of joy in the bottom right hand side of my screen that it is nearly lunchtime

Huzzah.

With the realisation that I can legitimately start calling it 'nearly lunchtime' (everything beyond 11am is, in my opinion 'nearly lunchtime') comes the daily decision on what to do for lunch.

Fatty lardy lunch from the canteen downstairs, or nip to the gym then have a lovely (pah) salad?

Either way, I'm going to fall asleep at my desk this afternoon. The choice really is in which way I pass out. Will it be because I've eaten my own (not inconsiderable) body weight in chips or because I've coaxed my wobbly bits into slouching along on a running machine for a few minutes?

The chips are nearer, and will probably come with gravy.

...but if I go to the gym at lunchtime I can drift happily into a laziness induced coma tonight, eating biscuits and watching 'Skins' with self righteous impunity.

Hobson's choice. Or Hobnob's choice, if you wish to continue the biscuit theme.

I, the undersigned (Samantha Kinsella) do completely, and without reservation, accept that 9 months is probably too long to go without updating my blog

BUT, yer'honour, there have been what you might call circumstances.

Actually, most of them are far too tedious to expect you good folks to have to endure but the following is a sort of highlighted list. A 'list-ette', if you like.

1) Following on from the blog of worky discontent below, I took the redundancy offer from BT like a hand snatching money grabbing creature possessed. Marvellous. Credit card bills and overdraft simply gone overnight. Poof.

2) March and April disappeared completely in a haze of job hunting and interviewing, the horrors of which have now abated some six months later and I no longer wake screaming in the night.

Much

3)I secured three job offers within the same 2 days and, after much soul wrenching uncertainty, I took the reasonably safe option of a job with British Airways. It's a mark of how long I've let my poor baby blog slide that I've been with BA for 6 months now... Anyhoo, that bit at the start of a job where you have to be all keen and above reproach has finished so I feel able to pick up the reins of fromheretomaternity again. Hurrah (or 'boo...' depending on your opinions on my gibberings, I suppose).

4) On a much more sombre note, my lovely lovely mum, Gladys, was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. I'm sure I'll blog at more length about that though, so I'll leave it at that for now. She's still very much with us for now though so don't feel I need too much sympathy yet!

Anyways, the point is I'm here and sitting up looking all eager like one of those rabbits that is trying to decide whether to run or not. Or a meercat... all twitchy nosed and keen with paws poised above the keyboard. Ready to bloggy blog the days away in the manner of a woman (meercat/rabbit) gently posessed.

Good to see you all again.
xx