flossing the cat

My partner excels at romantic gestures. This year he bought me a book, wrapped in the prettiest red paper, with the magical word ‘Love’ in the title.  I know what you’re thinking. Is it ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Is it ‘Love’ by Toni Morrison? Well no, it isn’t either of these. Great works of literary fiction only claim to change your life; my partner has bigger ambitions. His gift was a self-help book that will change my life for real. A book called ‘How to Get A Job You’ll Love’.  Thanks, baby.  You see, for a long time now, I’ve been worrying that all this pissing about raising my kids is below me. I’ve longed for a book that will help me get off my fat, lazy, stay-at-home-mummy ass (covered as it is in oozing bedsores from sitting down reading stories to my kids) into the world of REAL work.       Even as I write, there are tears of gratitude welling up in my eyes. So moved am I by his gesture that I feel compelled to share with you a list

Normally I’m a fun-loving kind of gal. I like playing mummies and daddies. I like doing the matrimonial polka. I like taking a turn on the hobbyhorse.  I say normally, because there are three exceptions to this rule. These are a) during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; b) during any episode of d&v but especially when it's that motherfucker Norovirus; c) when it’s cold. There is NO WAY I’m lifting up my petticoats and/or traditional cotton winceyette full-length long-sleeved nightdress* in this weather.   I like my body the way it is, thanks very much, not all blue and puffy and lifeless. As it happens, I think my partner feels the same way. Yesterday he bought a Dreamland luxury super-king-size heated mattress cover, which has five settings, including a super-fast pre-heat option, a dual control unit that allows each side of the bed to be set at different temperatures, an all-night timer, an elasticated skirt, and an extra foot warmth section. Which says it all.   Y

Today I have a dead ass. A bum so numb I might as well have a) scooped out a load of silicon gel from one of my baby daughter’s sodden nappies, blended it up with porridge, and PVA glue, and hairy chunks of Lego from under the sofa, and injected the whole bloody lot of it straight into my ass cleft, or b) tattoo’d a detailed Technicolor picture of a Stage 4 Bedsore on each of my ass cheeks with a spectacularly dirty needle and then waited for Life to mimic Art. That’s how fucked-up my bottom is. It’s all the fault of the school Christmas concert. Of course. I should have known something was up as soon as I saw one of the other mummies carrying a pair of PINK MATCHING CUSHIONS into the school hall a whole half an hour before the concert goddammit. But I was already misty-eyed at the thought of my little ones, singing their hearts out, solemnly saying their one line, looking for their mummy and their daddy in the audience, and I didn’t register. In fact, I didn’t really register unti

Operator: Hello, emergency services operator. Which service do you require? Caller: Something’s happened. I just got home. You’ve got to send someone. You need to send someone quick as you bloody can. Please. For fucksakes ... please... Operator: Please calm down sir. What service do you require? What is the nature of your emergency? Caller: I got home. Something’s happened. I think… maybe … there’s a body in the house. Maybe an animal ... I can’t walk in the house I’m telling you …dunno wot the fuck it is. I’m on the phone in the hallway and I can’t walk in the house … it’s too much …there’s this stench from hell … it’s on my clothes on my skin in my mouth in my fuckin throat I can’t breathe … it’s coming at me like this wall of pure shit you’ve got to believe me … you can almost see it… Operator: You need to calm down sir. Caller: Its like being tied to a fucking corpse I’m telling you … I feel like I’m gonna black out … you've got to send someone, got to send someone. Oh, no, h

Gosh darn it and bugger, dear readers! It seems I have quite forgotten to MAKE the children an Advent Calendar!!! In spite of weeks of trying to get myself into the Christmas spirit, including excessive and uncontrollable drooling over vintage baubles, clandestine hoarding of festive issues of 'Ideal Home' and 'Country Living' magazine, and to top it all, seeing troubling visions of Nigella just before I fall asleep every night (her face and head, but with the body of an Outdoor-Reared Organic Goose), I have once again failed to live up to expectations. Yes, FAILED. It was meant to be the perfect way to start the perfect Christmas. A homemade ‘eco’ advent calendar fashioned from recycled tin cans, decorated by the children as a wintry after-school activity, with naif squiggly dates crayoned on recycled cardboard discs. Just divine!!!! I imagined it sitting there - on the kitchen mantelpiece above the range - amidst sprigs of artfully arranged greenery (from Sunday af