The girly get-together

Last night we had a little dinner party where we had the following:

X 1 very drunk guest who passed out promptly after dinner and proceeded to sleep for 12 hours
X2 very opinionated guests who shouted at the drunken guest and talked over each other
X1 very poorly wheezing asthmatic but diplomatic guest with rosy cheeks
X1 slightly perplexed but very sleek and skinny guest

‘Guest’ is somewhat of a misnomer as 3 of the guests were in fact inmates. And the drunk guest was in fact drunk from the second she staggered in the front door with a man in tow (girly dinner party no-no). The man was soon despatched and we got down to the serious business of gobbling chinese and slurping wine.

I have to say that if any man had been a fly on the wall last night, or worst still had the misfortune to be a guest they would have been shocked to their very core. 5 normally fairly well behaved ladies when thrown together to discuss a contentious topic quickly became a shrieking, voice raised, me-me-me-ish cacophony each trying to get their VERY important point heard first. And of course there were no shortage of extremely well thought through opinions, it’s just that they were delivered somewhat haphazardly.

At one point Lindsey pleaded with us:

“Please can we all try and speak one at a time?”

Tricky. We did try, but of course it wasn’t possible and within seconds we were all screeching again with Lindsey resting her head in her hands.

And even when the victim of our well rounded advice finally passed out (or at least feigned passing out to escape) we turned our attentions to other important topics such as a health concern of one of the boyfriends- we helpfully diagnosed a likely inner eat infection and suggested treatment of a simple course of anti-biotics, a ‘how to’ guide for some of the most gruesome bedroom antics helpfully provided by Samantha which almost provoked a scene from ‘In bed with Madonna’ and also an in-depth examination of the nations sexual habits (based purely upon ours so extremely well rounded).

We were like a pack of Tasmanian devils, whizzing and whirling at dizzying speed between topics polishing them off and then swiftly onwards towards our next prey. When I went to bed I was utterly exhausted. We all need at least a fortnight to recover before another similar event, if nothing else but to hone the skills Sam taught us.

Gavin- you deviant.

The bravery award goes to...

Yesterday amongst my list of gripes with the world, I mentioned men masquerading as employees of BT and trying to burgle my granny.

And yes, this was one of the ones which did apply directly to me, and I feel it’s an awesome story to tell which may go some way to explaining how I’ve become the women I am today.

Yesterday morning my gran who lives up North (well, Skegby) let in two men who claimed to be working for some local branch of BT to check her telephone lines. They claimed there might have been some ‘issues’ with the line following some work they were undertaking in the area.

Whilst one of them kept her talking in the kitchen the other dashed through the lounge and into her bedroom to have a damn good rummage. My gran is pretty sharp and spotted the chap dashing out of site. She hot footed it after him and found him in her bedroom red-handed. I asked her what she said to him and she said ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing in my bedroom, get out now!’. Wicked!

In a stroke of pure and utter genius she ran and got her panic button (something we all ought to have whether we live in warden assisted accommodation or not) and she said to the guy, ‘If you and your friend don’t leave my flat in 3 seconds, I’m going to press this button and someone will be over in a flash’. A very brave step considering she was on her own, in her flat with 2 strange men with very bad intentions and she didn’t really know for sure whether the panic button would get her the kind of help she needed right away.

Thankfully, it seems the men in question were young and inexperienced and they decided to do a runner. Even more thankfully they didn’t lay a finger on her, and she was left shaken, but absolutely fine. She phoned the police who came fairly quickly and told her there had been a spate of these burglaries in elderly people’s homes over the past few weeks.

I spoke to her last night and she was in fine fettle, and I felt so damn proud. There she was at over 80 faced with a situation which would have reduced most people to gibbering wrecks and she had confronted the burglars head on, all 4ft 10 of her. I realised then that this was a side of my grandma I’d never before experienced. To hear her saying the word ‘bloody’ was shock enough, but to imagine her standing her ground in her little home made me well up. If I’m feisty and difficult this is in part testament to my grandma.

My other grandma was neurotic and prone to massive amounts of over exaggeration, pathological lying, dramatisation and hypochondria so I’ve clearly inherited nothing from her.

Oh god.

Health test- the update

Quick health update:

I was made to sit through an hour of post-health-test-analysis in the pub on Friday night with Steve.

Frickin’ BUPA had thankfully printed out a 30 page report detailing precise statistics for lung capacity, cholesterol, white blood cell count, diabetes, weight, BMI blah blah blah, each page more painstaking than the last.

Working in insurance seems to have increased Steve’s boredom threshold so he took great delight in talking me through every page. Thank goodness, because if we hadn’t had the report to pore over, we would have had nothing to discuss. Ahem.

Turns out Steve’s been given the all clear and is spot on in terms of his health (ok, ok, his fitness is above average, but you’d expect that from a marathon runner) which is really lovely, BUT I could barely hide my disappointment at the lack of prostate examination. The doctor told Steve that this wasn’t checked in men until they are over 45 so I have to wait almost 16 years til he gets the probing.

As a result of the health report examination (and the resultant need to down wine) I ended up being slaughtered by the time we sat down for dinner at the new overpriced Gaucho Grill in Butlers Wharf. I had a £31 piece of fillet steak which I promptly puked up the second we walked in the door at Clapham. What a bloody waste….when will I ever learn? In the morning it crossed my mind that if I’d have made it to the back garden the small family of urban foxes would have had quite a treat.

The following day after just 2 hours of sleep I traipsed my sorry hungover arse down to Brighton for a dinner out at Murasaki and general frolics for Jonathan’s birthday. As ever, the food was perfect, and just kept coming and coming. Thankfully I managed to keep a lid on my behaviour and apart from the usual potty mouth I didn’t disgrace myself at all (I don’t recollect….well, apart from some hideous photos).

I met Anne So’s lovely other half Richard who was very impressive with his two-pea-chopstick-challenge, and the lovely Siobhan who I fell in love with the second she finished a glass of champagne and proceeded to smash her glass on the floor nonchalantly and with more than a hint of ‘russian’ness. Hurrah.

All in all the weekend was a booze fuelled social extravaganza (hence my addled brain and sub standard posting today…..I’ll be back on form tomorrow, honest).

Taking a LEEP of faith

Things have been a little slack around these parts of late, but maybe it’s just the case that I’ve been saving all my energy for my best ever yet blog posting (and of course waiting for the grand unveiling of my sparkly new design).

I guess I’ll have to let you be the judge of that.

So then, quick re-cap. Steve flies to Australia for just over 2 weeks this afternoon. Last night I headed over to his for a fancy night out at our favourite restaurant, Chez Bruce, but the day’s events had taken their toll.

Yesterday morning I was busily typing away at my desk when my mobile phone started singing to me. It was not, for a change, one of the many repeated mistake calls from Dan, but an intriguing ‘unknown’ number. A posh voice asked me to confirm my name and then he introduced himself as my consultant, Dr Disney (this name has not been changed for comedic effect, it really is his name). We spoke about my results and he told me that he wanted me to come in for some treatment and that this treatment would be LEEP- currently the most common for cervical changes of the sort I have, CIN 3, or cervical cancer stage 0 if you will (so barely even begun).

LEEP involves passing an electrically charged loop over the lesion and effectively cutting it clean from inside you. It takes place under a local anaesthetic. This piece of skin is then used diagnostically to check to see if the cells have got any worse or whether they are happy they got all the nastiness. LEEP is 85-90% effective and can be repeated once if it’s not. After that you’ll be pretty much void of any cervix, so if you fell pregnant you’d need to have a C section. And if that doesn’t work then its hysterectomy time, partial or total, depending on your situation. But on the bright side, that’s a 90% chance I’m going to be absolutely fine.

Being Ali and being hyper neurotic, I of course had to research every dubious and ill-formed article and US chatroom and I sat and read whilst my heart sank and I felt gradually more nauseous. Talk of miscarriages, infertility, horror stories about the agony of the treatment etc etc. At this point I started to think that perhaps I ought to have insisted on having a general anaesthetic.

I left work feeling wobbly and probably even a little bit wibbly and headed to Steve’s pondering on my way whether this treatment would provoke a similar response as the last, i.e fainting and seizure. I literally turned the corner of the street saw out of the corner of my eye a red flash and realised that there was a girl lying on the floor, frothing at the mouth and have an epileptic seizure. Irony of ironies. If there is a god, I don’t know if this was a warning, or a ‘stop being so f*king self indulgent you pathetic cow!’.

Being first at the scene I went into my now fairly finely honed ER routine (don’t want to make myself sound like a freak but this is the 3rd time this year I’ve been the first at the scene of an accident and had to call 999, I swear they are a friends and family number). I phoned the ambulance, I checked her pulse, I held her head as still as I could but didn’t restrict her fitting, I checked her heart beat and I did other very important things like stroking her hair and her hands softly in case somehow she could feel reassured by my presence. I knew from the research that I had done after my recent fit that people aren’t at risk from tongue swallowing, so I didn’t force her into the recovery position. I even checked her wallet for her name and kept saying her name over and over, ‘Philippa’ ‘Philippa’ as she lapsed in and out of consciousness, glassy eyed and fixed pupils.

Ambulance arrived in no more than 5 minutes time, by which point Philippa had quite a little crowd and had come too enough to tell me she suffered from epilepsy and had frequent seizures. In a verging no out of body experience, I told the ambulance driver, ‘This is Philippa, she suffers from epilepsy. She has had a seizure lasting 2-3 minutes with full body shaking and foaming at the mouth. She had fixed unresponsive pupils for at least 2 minutes after the seizure ended’. It was at that point I realised that I watch far too much bad hospital drama.

I saw her into the ambulance, wished her luck and went on my way, feeling more than slightly freaked out.

3 hours at home, pondering over the day and waiting for Steve to get back from work so we could go out for dinner. Waiting, waiting, worrying, pacing, waiting. Worrying, waiting. Steve gets home and I’ve managed to work myself up into such a pickle that he gives me a big hug and tells me everything will be fine and I can feel myself go all stiff inside. I’m angry, but I’m not sure why. I suppose I’m angry that this is all still dragging on and I can’t see an end in sight. I’m angry that he’s leaving for Australia tomorrow and I’m going to be left pondering this horrible treatment on my own. I’m angry that our lovely evening has been spoilt because I’m feeling too upset and wobbly to enjoy a fancy dinner, and I’m refusing point blank to just say those simple words. I’m terrified.

After several attempts at cuddles, reassuring words and eye contact Steve picks up the phone, calls the restaurant and cancels the booking whilst squeezing my hand firmly. My resolve crumbles and I start to have a damn good cry and it all floods out. I feel like if someone put a little camera inside me what they would see if something black, rotten and mouldy and worst of all, dead. I am scared that if things don’t go to plan, we might never get to have children together. I ask him how he’d feel if I couldn’t have his children. He tells me that we’d just get lots of dogs instead and I cry harder. He tells me I’m being silly (of course!) and not to assume the worst. This treatment will work and in 6 months I’ll be fine. I fall asleep in a snotty mess and when I wake up, Steve’s just coming home from Tescos with a big bunch of lovely flowers and all the ingredients for spaghetti bolognaise. He pours me a glass of white wine, gets me one of his cosy hoodies and sits me down whilst he cooks, yawning quietly all the while.

We eat and sit in silence and then we hold hands tightly.

And all the fanciest things in the world could never match the calm feeling I get sitting with my Steve in quiet contemplation.

It’ll be ok.

Trouble in Hackney.

Last night the true extent of my recent gluttony was exposed….I am nearing double figures of weight, which is pretty impressive going seeing as last year I was a mere slip of a thing at 8 ½ stone. Steve, like a true hero waded in with the shock news that he is close to 12 ½ stone. So between us in just over a year, we’ve managed to put on almost 3 stone. Impressive weight gain which falls squarely into the ‘comfortable couple’ category. Long may it continue!

Meeting with Steve’s mum last night provided us both with a real idea of exactly what’s going on in the house of ‘addiction’ trouble, over in Hackney. It seems the new other half (and husband to be) is having no joy at all in keeping big sis on the straight and narrow, and instead after having met his future mother in law for several minutes, told her how much he’s enjoying the pub culture over in the UK and seemed genuinely shocked that big sis wasn’t able to ‘keep it together’ after a couple of drinks, and expressed concern at ‘how bad she gets, she just seems to want to drink and drink….’ No sh*t. Don't you remember where you met her?! Tsk tsk. And as if this isn't bad enough, he's fessed up to Steve's mum to having a violent streak when he drinks. And, as coincidence would have it, she spent a night in hospital having her head glued after an 'altercation', or rather, a 'nasty fall'. Ahem. It's just too sad to really put into words. And too hopeless and too everything.

Nevertheless, in the few short weeks he has been here, he’s already put plans down to buy a nice car, buy a house boat, buy a des-res in Bromley (!), become a professional chef….shame he’s got no money….oh, no, hang on a minute, he has! Hundreds of thousands of pounds at his disposal in a current account. It’s not his of course, it’s his future wifes. Brilliant. I hate to say it, but my prior assertions that maybe he did love her, and maybe he would take care of her have gone right out of the window. What I now see is someone who is prying on a vulnerable, niave and extremely desperate girl who just wants someone to love her. Unfortunately, given her current condition, the only people she attracts are those like this scumbag, who clearly doesn’t give a shit about her wellbeing, and is only in it for one thing. Let’s hope she can see that before the wedding.

In the meanwhile, despite being an athiest, I just pray that she keeps safe from harm. xxx

Let's bowl, Let's bowl!

Last night, we bowled. And it was really fun, and I enjoyed myself. I took on my random ‘right handed bowling despite being a left hander’ and managed to get 3 strikes….yes 3! The rest ended up in the gutter, but who cares; let’s focus on the glory moments.

It has to be said, I have been slightly apprehensive about bowling in recent years and this is probably, well, certainly, down to a little incident I had with my ex boyfriend, affectionately known as Danny V.

One lovely weekend during our tumultuous relationship we visited Coventry to see some of his old university friends. In total 3 couples. The Sunday was rainy and overcast so we decided to go bowling to pass the time. Bowling, in our couples in a little competition seemed a light hearted and fun thing to do, so off we went. Me and Danny V against the world.

From then, my memories are a little fuzzy and clouded due to my extreme anger. Being a left hander, and a confused one at that, I was bowling with a different hand each time, just to mix it up a little. My first few bowls were pretty good, I knocked down a few pins and at one point even picked up a spare. Then it came to Dan’s turn. He whizzed up the erm ‘path’, and powered the ball down the alley with an expect flick of the wrist, completed by a gay and rather jaunty little flicked up leg, kind of crossed over the other one at the back. You’ve watched King Pin, you know what I’m on about.

Strike one! We’re in the lead. Jubilation, hi-fives and happy beaming smiles. It’s then that Danny V drops into conversation that he was in fact ‘Under Fifteens County Bowling Champion’ for East Sussex. No wonder he was keen to go bowling, bloody show off. I felt quite proud in a way, and it was nice to be on the winning team. The only slight problem being that the ‘winning’ part, depended partly on me, keeping our end up.

Unfortunately, it turned out my bowling was sporadic at best and the more under pressure I felt, the worse I became, until eventually I was sidling up the alley, red faced, slumped shoulders and dejectedly dumping my ball on the lane and watching it gradually mooch along to it’s inevitable conclusion, the gutter. I really wasn’t having any fun at all. And then, something happened. I turned around and saw Dan’s cheeks, flushed with anger, and all of a sudden he lost it. Big time.

He shouted at the top of his voice, in the megabowl, at around 2.35pm, surrounded by 11years old….

’"Ali, you’re a f**king sp*stic!!!!"

I don’t think I need to continue this posting, or comment, but all I need to say is that the relationship ground to a swift halt soon after. And I wasn’t the one in tears. Loser.

Goodness gracious me.

Yesterday I briefly outlined a small issue I had with a radio I’d ordered from Tesco’s online. Today, I realise that online shopping has not been my friend on several occasions in the last week.

As I’ve mentioned it’s my mum’s 60th this weekend, and being typically mum-like, she has been trickling through a steady list of birthday requests since about mid February. She doesn’t do it like a normal person; instead, she assigns gifts to people, based on the perceived value of the present she thinks they ought to buy.

So for example, the initial list was something like this:

Steve: Can Steve please buy me Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits (this was sent by text to me…..at the time he hadn’t even considered buying her a present!)
Alison and Stephen- I would like a light box for my SAD. Here’s a link on Amazon to a model I’m interested in (we subsequently got one from ebay for £20, as good as new, but she’s not to know that it didn’t cost £200 like the rip-off ones on Amazon)
Pete (my dad)- I would like a gold bracelet.

Then, following this list, I received additional requests such as a portable FM radio (the monster which arrived yesterday….not portable and no friend of mine- thankfully Steve can pick one up on his way back from Zurich this morning), and some ‘girly things’ like make up, clothes, etc etc. So do you see where I get it from now?

Wanting to maintain some dignity, Steve refused to go into a shop and buy Dolly Parton, so I pottered to HMV to find that it was £12.95. Seriously. Dolly Parton- premium rate. I tsk tsk’ed at this and promptly ordered it from CD-wow for £6.95. Saving me a fiver and my pride simultaneously- genius. Unfortunately, I fell at the first hurdle. I entered the wrong house number. I created a hybrid of all of my Brighton addresses and asked for it to be delivered to my old house number but my new street. Realising my error, I told the ‘help’ email, who said to me that my order had been dispatched and I’d have to knock at number 36 to ask for it. Which I’ve done, several times. I think it’s an empty flat, or they’ve seen me coming and are terrified after receiving the ‘hatemail’ (in the form of Dolly Parton) and have gone on high alert.

So now it’s going to be too late to give mum the CD and I think I’m going to have to write an excruciatingly embarrassing letter to no 36, telling them that they have received a delivery by mistake, and could they find it in their hearts to post it at no. 43.

I’m taking a break from online shopping, with the exception of ASOS which does lovely cheap shoes.

Last night I had an emotional evening at the Red Snapper. Emotional for many reasons. I was with my lovely friends (and Dave was being a chatterbox, which was awesome), I was in my spiritual home, and I was sitting back to back with a married man and his wife, with whom I happened to have a night of erm ‘passion’, well fumbling (and I know, I know, it’s despicable and disgusting and against everything I stand for and if I said he was, at the time, separated from his wife, you’d just raise your eyebrows). The worst of it was that he only bloody told his wife after it happened. So there we were, having a fab meal, and in the back of my mind I could visualise her marching over, picking me up by my ears and kneeing me in the groin. At one point I went to the toilet and once inside, heard the door open to the toilets and when I emerged, there he was. Very subtle, I’m sure his wife wasn’t paying attention and didn’t even notice him hot footing it after me. He grabbed me and gave me a hug, said I looked fabulous (in his best and most camp voice), I squirmed and blushed and excused myself. But that wasn’t the worst of it. When they left, he made a point of kissing me goodbye AND saying that my hair looked exactly like Kate (his wife who was hovering nearby)…..let the ground open up and swallow me whole.

That’s the downside of the local restaurants. The locals. Roll on the weekend. Dave can we please have more touching tales…how about one about Tina? Jonathan…I’m looking forward to seeing that gorgeous shot of me and Anita on your blog. That’ll get em’ flocking.

Romance is on cream.

What a strange quiet journey into work. The mass exodus for the Easter break is clearly upon us, and after having eaten my first Easter Egg already last night (thanks Shipley, or should that be Ifty)I am totally ‘feeling it.

Last night I hurriedly packed my bags before preparing Dan a hearty dinner of erm, pre-packaged goods from M&S quickly heated in the oven and settling down to watch another fabulous episode of The Apprentice.

What to take to Scotland is a bit of a dilemma truth be told, it’s difficult to hit the correct balance of glamour and functionality. Why glamour in Scotland? Well, why not. And of course, there’s the fact that we’re bound to have a ‘lets all dress up and have a fancy dinner’ evening and I’m not about to be outdone by any of Steve’s other friends….ohhhhh no I’m not. Petty? Yes. But absolutely imperative.

Anyway, the topic of today’s blog is romance. Steve asked me the other day what romance was (slightly worrying maybe), or rather what my definition of romance was, and you know, it stumped me slightly. He also asked me if I thought he was romantic (to which I answered no) and what the most romantic thing he’d ever done for me was.

It got me ’a pondering.

Girls always harp on about wanting their men to be romantic, but what does this actually mean and if they got romance, would they actually like it, or would they feel a giddy mix of nausea and distrust most of the time (why the flowers? Why the dinner? What’s he done this time).

When I think of the truly cliché forms of romance, I think of things like coming home to find the bed sprinkled with rose petals and covered in sickly sweet scented candles, or having a fine dinner cooked and a table laid with crystal glasses and fancy napkins and the room gently lit by candle light , or maybe even being told to pack and whisked away to some undisclosed European city break, a bunch of roses/lilies/tulips delivered with the details of a restaurant booking for that evening, or the ultimate, being bought an outfit by your other half for a glam night out.

And honestly, when you read that list, didn’t you think…oh GOD….no?

We all desire the occasional romantic treat, but if someone insisted on sprinkling the bed linen with petals all the time, can you imagine how annoying that would be? All that cleaning and hovering and petal stains. You can keep it. And surprise trips away….no thanks. You’d miss out on all the exciting pre-planning of top places to visit and the lovely build up of anticipation.

So the answer to Steve’s question, what is the most romantic thing he’s ever done for me? Well. You know it was the letter he wrote me when we weren’t together, telling me how his life was incomplete without me. And you know what, it worked. It took a while, but it sunk in deeply and it worked. Sometimes a heartfelt expression of emotion is the most romantic thing. I’m not talking about a cheesy poem, but something someone has planned, and executed with excruciating levels of heartfeltness.

Funny, as perhaps I ought to have said taking me to Kenya, or The Maldives. But that doesn’t even come close in terms of romanticism which really gets to you.

Yesterday he announced that he’s taking me to Paris, well, he’s in Paris on business and did I want to come and meet him for 3 days afterwards which is a really lovely idea and yes, of course I bl**dy do. So I guess I ought to eat my words and I think I owe him an apology.

On the flip-side, what can us girls do to romance our men, or prospective men? I know Dan would be won over by a great folk music compilation with a natty homemade front cover, Jonathan would be bowled by the choice of an exceptionally good book, Dave would love a good new release of some video game and an extra ‘control’ for a night of intense passionate dual-gaming, Sam, well you’d just have to take him to an all you can eat place, but a good one, Tom, you’d get him a signed Man U shirt, Chequers, a year’s subscription to Casablancas, Stev/Gavin a life’s supply of weed. It would be so easy.

But none of these are ‘romantic’ per say.

So I guess what it boils down to, is that ‘romance’ is whatever someone you love does for you, which leaves a significant positive emotional impact, or if you like ‘La Fuzzy Feeling’.

From this I can deduce that if I had to put myself in Steve’s shoes and pick one thing I’d done which really hit the spot, it would be the PVC nurses outfit every time. Who says romance is dead?

Relationships with my ex-tended family

As those of you who know me will know, I had a childhood sweetheart by the name of Andy, who I was with for the entire duration of university and two years afterwards...he was, well, he was lovely and generous and gentle and I have nothing but the fondest of memories of our time together.

In total we had a 5 1/2 year relationship which was spent on the whole living and breathing each other to the point of practical inseperability. We were in essence bestest mates and not a great deal more as time went by, but we were bloody good mates. We adored each other in a way I felt could never be surpassed...I hadn't taken into account our mums. The love my mum felt for Andy and Andy's mum felt for me in hindsight was more intense and has lived on well after the demise of our relationship.

Andy and I split amicably around 4 years ago, and to this day, even as recently as 2 days ago, our mums still communicate by email, telling each other how very sad they are that things couldn't have worked out and how great we were for each other. They had, it turned out, pinned their very 'grandparental' hopes on us. And these are hopes that don't fade over night, or even over 1200 nights, and counting. My mum cried as much as me, if not more when it happened and those kind of emotional scars run deep you know!

I am convinced his mum (and quite possibly mine at some level) still harbours real desires for us to get back together, and I sometimes wonder whether she she realises what a 'no-go' it is to even mention my name, or whether she waxes lyrical about what 'could have been' not realising that I have been intentionally wiped from Andy's memory of ever having existing.

So, our mums continue to exchange texts, Christmas cards and e-mails, swapping family news and having fond, sentimental thoughts of the past. And no-one can stop them, and do you know what? I wouldn't want to.

But this isn't the most extreme case of maternal-post-seperation-boyfriend-family-trauma experienced by a member of my family. My aunt befriended my cousins boyfriend's mum to the extent that they became actual best friends. They went on 'girly' holidays together, the two sets of parents, they went shopping, had coffee afternoons and were all as happy as larry. Until my cousin broke up with Richard and then disaster struck. My cousin was understandably distressed at the prospect of her ex-boyfriend's mum being on the scene to witness any future relationships and be able to 'report back'. So the friendship came to a natural end.

Like f**k it did. Infact, the ex's parents attended my cousin's wedding as guests of my aunt and uncle. Oh yes they did.

Is mine the only family that suffers from this kind of affliction? I think perhaps it's merely a symptom of having a very big heart, so perhaps for me, it's inevitable.

Tescosterone

I forget to tell you all yesterday about Tesco-gate which occured on Sunday afternoon, during a very dull, humdrum, and uneventful shopping trip.

S and I were at the checkout, loading our 'wares' onto the little conveyor belt, when I heard an almighty slamming noise and looked behind me to see Steve had slammed down the 'shopping divider thingy' (technical term) between our shopping and the shopper behind and was giving the shopper behind some seriously filthy looks.

Apparently what had happened was that very rude shopper 'b' had demanded that S put the divider inbetween our shopping in an aggressive manner, so S had just reacted in exactly the same way....aggressively. So then they started squaring up to each other, saying things like (in a South London accent, if you will) 'if you're gonna maff off, then do it to my face you f**king stupid w**ker' blah blah. I felt like an audience member of Springer/Lake, or even 'Vanessa'.

Having not heard shopper b being rude to S, I thought S's behaviour was bizarre, terrible, and was humiliated infront of this big Q of shoppers (c,d,e and others). They were tutting at us like we were pikeys and I was casting my eyes to heaven in Steve's direction as if to disown myself.

Later on after we'd left Tesco's without any black eyes, I was accused of humiliating S by 'not being on his side'. And he said 'surely if I reacted like that, you must have realised something had been done to warrant such a reaction?'. Well, erm, I'm not sure. Does aggression need to be met with more aggression? Can I say the word aggression any more in one blog?

Could the situation have been diffused and less awful for all if S had just 'risen above it'. But maybe he was right I ought to have taken a default stance of being on his side and assuming he must have been 'wronged' to react...I would have expected this from him if the situation was reversed

Testosterone ladies and gentlemen. Please raise your glasses.

On a happier note, last night I made cards with Laura and Jacqui, the gorgeous Compton Ave ladies and it was pure bliss. Really good therapy. And so I'm discovering the best type of therapy for me is writing and making. Cards in particular. With glitter. It's good for the soul.