electric picnic

Oh, I want to go, I want to go! I want to move the family there for the weekend! Or better yet, just go by myself!

My Bloody Valentine!!
The Breeders!
The Waterboys!
That Petrol Emotion!?

Franz Ferdinand, The Gossip, Sinead O Connor, Cathy Davey, Henry Rollins.

Oooooohhhhhhhhh crap I wish I had no baby and lots of money for one weekend.

babysitting circle?

Well, that unfolded pretty quickly. I was expecting to provide you with more drama, perhaps a love triangle or terminal illness, but no!

I was bemoaning my lot to my godmother, who said that when she lived in Liverpool in the 70s, there was a babysitting circle arrangement, made up of mothers presumably from the school, or surrounding area - they weren't necessarily friends. What they did was cirulate a list of their numbers. You called around, and whoever was free would babysit - they didn't pay eachother, but used curtain ring currency! You paid one ring per hour, double after midnight, or if you had only black an white telly :) You then used these rings to pay others in the circle when it was your turn. This way nobody owed anyone in particular hours, but you got back what you gave out. It has to be a pretty big cirlce so there'll always be someone free.

I think it's a brilliant idea (though I suppose you could cheat with counterfeit curtain rings pretty easily). I somehow can't see the mothers I know being up for it - those with would presumably pay cash and not have to go mind anyone else's children. However, we all talk all the time about the price of dinner/drinks/movie/taxi plus ten euro an hour on top.

watch my soap opera unfold...

Stay tuned to see what happens:

'Tis Midget Wrangler's birthday on Saturday, a night out for me that has been planned for some months.
Yet my husband has a gig in Scott's, as it is the opening of the upstairs venue, basically opened in their honour.

When asked to do the gig, the husband did not say 'I will check with my wife' or 'I can't do that night, could we do it the following week'. No.
Now I suspect my mother in law will not be available that night, as she goes up to babysit my nephew twice a month as his mum has gone back to work and they're stuck for a Saturday minder. I met a friend of the husband's who eagerly offered to babysit (for free!) recently, but as he no longer hangs round with her he is not comfortable with this idea. No. It would be far more comfortable for him if I sat at home and did not have my night out, while he went and played his gig. Oh yes.

He talks a lot about how much he wants me to get out, and have my own interests, and social life, and have something to tell him about the next day. Just as long as it's not on a weekend, presumably.

alcohol - part 2

Ok, this is what I was actually going to write, before I went off on an aggrieved rant.

I'm reading Smashed - Growing Up a Drunk Girl by Koren Zailckas. It's her account and effort to make sense of her teen drinking years. I'm only just into it but I really like the writing. And while the cultural experience is American, it's pretty easy to relate to all the same.

I liked this extract for what it says about why we drink, and drink so young: she's been talking about her social studies teacher says about coming of age rituals - they include a withdrawal (for her taking to her room and listening to 'Creep' etc, her clothes are confused, both childish, masculine, and girly/sexy: My closet looks like the place where girlhood comes to battle boyhood,youth comes to battle womanhood, virginity comes to battle sexuality, youth comes to battle womanhood.) After the seclusion period, the girl returns to friends and family a woman. She locates the sacred in the passing of the bottle from girlish hand to hand - much more so than in beginning her period, which is associated with shame, or losing her virginity, which is a triumph for boys but a fall for girls.

She says: I'm alone outside. The sky is dark... through it I can see gnats rising and falling in the porch lights. Crickets sing. Far off, a few girls are chasing each other through the spiny stretch of orchard that spreads off the backyard.
For once, I don't mind being all alone in public. Usually I'd be frightened about what solitude might say about me. I'd worry that someone would see me sitting in the crabgrass and assume no one likes me enough to want to sit with me. Tonight, though, I don't care what anyone thinks... I lie back and stare at the slab of gray sky.
I don't know what being drunk feels like but I don't think I am. I can walk straight. I can see straight. And for the first time in a long time I can think straight. I am not exerting mental energy, trying to decide whether my mother is lying when she tells me I'm pretty. I am not thinking about a conversation I had two days ago, and rolling my eyes because I said something stupid.
I am not thinking about anything. My knees are bent in such a way that I can make out patterns of freckles on my thighs. My hair is fanned out under me. The air has the smell that fabric softener companies are always trying to capture - the breeze smells like fruit trees.

The word finally comes to me: I am comfortable.

That sentence resonated with me (apologies, I know that sounds terrible, but it's a good phrase nonetheless). I think that's really important. We talk a lot to young teenagers about saying no, about the dangers of drink, about rejecting peer pressure. Perhaps we'd be better off addressing what it feels like to be fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve. And finding a way to manage that feeling without needing drugs, or alcohol, to be comfortable with ourselves?

alcohol - part 1

I've been thinking about drinking a lot recently. Not doing it (well, a little) but the act of it. People I know recently espoused the worth of binge drinking, the value of cutting loose, going to far, letting go responsibilities and relaxing by getting out of it to to the point of blackout.

My own story with alcohol is conflicting. My father was pretty much an alcoholic when I was a child, I think, perhaps not in the typical sense but he would drink in an uncontrolled way. And he was hypoglycemic so it made him all the crazier.

I didn't really start drinking regularly or in pubs til I was about 17, though I'd certainly been drunk before that. Before and while I was meeting my husband, if you know what I mean, we all drank a lot. I was introduced to the joys of the naggin of vodka in a can of coke at sixteen and made a twat of myself at regular intervals. At worst was the night I was also drinking Guinness and ended up asleep on the roadside in an unsalubrious part of Bray - thankfully a nice lady woke me up, instead of selling me into the slave trade. I got sick in the hedge, then tottered into what was then Bad Bob's (and is now thankfully apartments so I don't have to relive my shame anymore each time I pass) and spent the night unconscious, hugging the toilet. When I emerged, everyone was outside, the club was dark and the cleaners were cleaning. Great night, that.
There've been a couple other pukey outcomes, but nothing too horrible, thankfully.

I got oddly tired by the end of college, and used to just give up and go home to bed early in my early twenties. Then I got pregnant, breastfed, had a child and never got out, and did it all again so that was pretty much it. I'm going to be a really cheap date once I stop breastfeeding again this time.

I have to admit, I had an experience that's really put me off excessive drunkenness - my wedding was not quite as fun as it could have been due to the exhaustion of organising all ourselves, and my mother dying at the time. Lots of people got messily drunk, largely as my father refused to accept that a glass of champagne each before dinner was enough. Shortly afterwards I found a receipt for extra cases in the basement. The waiters just kept pouring, everyone was standing out in the sun, they never stood a chance! We had several people fall casualty to it shortly after dinner. With wine on top, there were several little vignettes I could have done without. My father swaying, purple mouthed, pronouncing emotionally that my party had 'saved' our house. His girlfriend holding my hand and impressing on me how upset I must have been about my mother's non-attendance. My husband's friend accidentally headbutting him while professing his love for him. My alcoholic uncle getting shitfaced and having to be carried in for a lie down, then getting sick in the rental car my other uncle had to take him home in. My husband's (female) cousin getting so aggressive with the bus driver that my husband was AWOL for much of the evening trying to sort that out. His brother and best man wasn't there to help as his girlfriend had got so drunk he took her home early. His other cousins drunkenly and taking over the disco with pop tunes - fine for them, but not what I'd hoped for.
My bridesmaid's boyfriend went missing in action, crashed out in the garden, while she wandered the house and my father's guest's bedrooms looking for him! My brother's drunken friends arriving later on, babbling the same clichéd phrases at me over and over and over, my brother himself drank a bottle of whiskey and spent the next day (when he was supposed to be helping clean) wrapped around the toilet with alcohol poisoning. My father's girlfriend said of they hadn't been so hungover themselves they probably would have taken him to hospital.

All of this, and more, countless people mauling and groping at me, slurring blurred clichés over me, it really gave me a stomachful of drunkenness. It may have been a great day out for all of them, hey, an excuse to get fucked up, but it left me in tears, on my own, on my wedding day. My tolerance for it all is only starting to pick up again.

Most of us would probably reject the idea that over four drinks is binging. I understand that, there's a lot of different ways to drink four drinks, it wouldn't necessarily get most people that drunk, and most of us would drink so much more than that that even though it's a medical assessment, it's too low to let anyone take it seriously. But at the moment, not used to it, I know four drinks would have me on the floor. Which makes it worrying to think about the times I've drunk so much more.

confession

It's been a fairly chocolatey Easter - so much so that I'm finding it hard to give up. I've been insisting this is it, clean sweep, no more sugar, vegetables, weight loss, walking, blah blah blah.

Today in Tesco there were Eastery things on sale and I grabbed a little Lindt egg, half price at 44c! I did. Spitting in the face of my not so firm convictions.

And I just had it, and it was so fucking tasty, I'd recommend you rush out and do the same.



Does anyone else feel the urge to drink milk after eating chocolate? I often do, even though I don't particularly like it that much. I think the explanation is that chocolate inhibits the absorption of calcium. I've heard you can't actually absorb calcium from pasteurised milk, but I don't know if that's actually the case. If it is, is my body being fooled? Or am I wrong, and my body knows better than me. I don't get a craving for broccoli in the same way.

golden daffodils

One of the things I miss about living in the country, in my family home, is the hosts of golden daffodils surrounding the house. If I'm there my granny always exhorts me (is that transitive, can I say that?) to go and pick a bunch, but I feel a bit like I'm stealing.

So the other week I bought a couple bunches of unopened daffodils in Tesco, feeling likethis was not quite the done thing. But oh my! The beauty! FAR nicer than the ones we have at home - and so glowing and robust... I did pick a bunch at home recently but they were nothing in comparison to these ones - even my daughter remarked on how beautiful they were.

The only down side is that my godmother thinks she knows who growns them... and flies them to Holland, where Tesco buy them and fly them back here. Sigh.

attitudes to formula milk

Someone posted this video on Rollercoaster. The doctor's voice is fierce whiney! but her talk addresses the ideology that 'breast is best' and how people take that to mean that breastfeeding is best(unattainable, unrealistic, impossible?) but formula is grand. Promoting breast feeding is seen as a negative thing to do, as judgemental: women who try to disseminate breastfeeding and formula feeding information are called 'Nazis', which is not only an inaccurate and invalid comparison, but also deeply offensive. Promoting breastfeeding, however 'militantly', is not comparable to perpetuating genocide.

The problem in Ireland, with our pitiful breastfeeding rate, and the US where breastfeeding figures are falling due to formula marketing and the culture of medicalised birth birth, is that breastfeeding is seen as 'best', perhaps as an unattainable standard, while artificial milk feeding is the norm. What needs to change is that view - breastfeeding needs to be established as the norm, and formula feeding needs to be demoted to less good, rather than 'good enough'.

We're still faced with midwives who don't know how to give good breastfeeding support, those who consider artificial milk to be a fine alternative, and those who at worst, still push formula. Certainly, in my experience, nurses still do.

Yet the results of 'topping up' are pretty clear in this article, Marsha Walker's 'Just One Bottle' ,

The woman who posted this video got attacked, initially, for saying she'd like to post it on the bottle feeding board. My god, the concept of sharing information with those who bottle feed! Her response is clear and excellent, I think.

chocolate enthusiasm

I jsut watched the last episode of the chocolate family, the Harcourt-Coozes (he's half Irish, half Burmese!) I posted about earlier. They seem to be doing well, and I'm happy for them. I just read this interview that sums them up very well. Tania, the wife, is a descendant of Coleridge!

cigarettes and chocolate milk

I love the lyrics and the chorus of this. Great song. Does he say 'a little bit Irish' at one point??

cream liquer

I'm turning into an old lady. It's this century's Snowball. I was rushing through Tesco today, buying chocolate for my godparents' lunch, I never bring them anything and they're so good to me. Just me and the kids, as usual. And a lady in a promo hat offered me some mint chocolate Baileys. Oh god, like a Mint Choc-ice smoothie with whisky! Damn! So what I needed, except I spilled it on my new skirt, then got the net hem caught in the little security wire on the basket. But made for 12 year old drinkers, and more power to them. I was in Superquinn on Thursday, and came across some new chocolatey Irish cream, mmmmmmmmm. Turned out I knew the girl promoting it, so after chatting to her, acknowledging I'd never actually buy a bottle at €25.99, I had another. And then I found they did have the right cute toy dogs on special that the lady had given me loads of free stamps for other day. And when I brought the husband's Storm watch to Dundrum to get it fixed finally (he kept grimply insisting I shouldn't because he had no money), the lady was going to charge me a fiver, but then because I had to put it on my creditcard, she did it for free. God bless people who do these little things.

But since then things haven't been going so well. I didn't get paid this week, I don't know why. It keeps happening, and it's not like I haven't spent it already. Stress. Stress. My husband's been in his new job 2 weeks, but they haven't got it together to pay them yet either. Fucking employers.
Apparently I didn't put away the Lindt chocolate bunny (€5.99) I bought for my daughter as I found gold foil and a bell on a collar in the dog bed... I seem to have come home from Avoca the other day without the little baby food bowl (€4.35) I bought. I hate when I start throwing money away. And today my husband was too exhausted to come to Easter lunch with my godparents. As always. Though he managed his gig last night. And tonight.

I'm going to do something I don't usually do. I'm not going to go to his mother's for dinner tomorrow. I'm going to sit home in my pyjamas and be too tired. And be ungracious about it. And let the kids and his mother be disappointed and let him explain. I don't want to, it's not a good thing to do. But I am sick to the back teeth of every thing that's important to me being rudely shoved to one side while I look after the kids, all the time, and the only place we ever go is his mother's house, so I can make conversation with her while he goes and has a smoke or falls asleep on the sofa.

I suppose I either just live like a single mother and stop expecting to have any significant family time, or start living like he does.

full moon in a garden

I went to a gig in a garden last night. My husband's band surrounded by their best friends and family. The people that they love.

It was a good night, the music was great, the moon was full. There were some beautiful people there last night, a Libyan, a member of the Wicklow aristocracy, a red-haired sweetheart that me and everyone else loves like their own son, a girl who's so kind, and dances so fluidly, she moves her hips so beautifully, joyfully, a sweet little guy who just came out at Christmas and told me the band blog I write is the highlight of his day. The moon shone on it all but I had mixed feelings - I'll admit, I got melancholy, kind of like I used to do when I was young, actually, and my loneliness would hit me in the middle of all the fun. That sense of helplessness, of no way out of this. I'd forgotten how many nights I found myself staring off into space, wishing for something more, watching my frustrated dreams and projected future. And here I am again. It's partly being surrounded by the youngsters - flowing drinks and some fairly committed spliff rolling. Perhaps that's why I felt so keenly the lack of arms round me, of someone to kiss me, why I wanted to walk up to someone while they stood in the dark, , take the joint from their hand and drag on it, locking eyes with them ... I don't know if it's worse being lonely and loveless in a relationship or out of one.

` I got buttonholed earlier by the drummer's mum, whose garden it was. She has three children in their twenties and thirties, living at home. She's not a happy mammy. Her husband left her out of the blue a few years ago. Her kids don't give her any money for their keep, and she won't ask. But she expects a bottle of wine, a few packs of cigarettes on payday, they know that would make her happy. She wants them to show her they care, to look after her a little. All she ever wanted was love, and she never got it.

I wonder. I don't know what kind of wife she was, or mother she is. There's two sides to every story. I can't comment on the kids, I wasn't born, but raised with a silver spoon, my parents looked after me, not the other way round. But still. Will that be me, an old and broken version of my daughter, standing there telling my kids' friends all I ever wanted was love, and I never got it?

Weird

Facebook friend comparison thingy is throwing odd opinions my way:

Here is what your friends think about...
... your strengths:
best singer
most absentee
best listener

... your weaknesses:
toughest
bravest

What? Anyone who knows me will know that I can in no way sing, and should never try, even though I can't help it sometimes. Make a joyful noise and all that.

I am fucking absentee alright. I've been too pissed off to post (bitch'n'moan) about my lost weekend - started, then didn't have the stomach for it. Martyred mothers.com!
And my weaknesses? Toughest and bravest? Well, they're job interview weaknesses, not real ones, in my opinion - I only wish it was true! I'm as tough and brave and a blancmange.

I did overheat the oil when I was frying tofu the other day, and automatically stood between it and the baby when it started to spit. I wonder does that count as tough and brave?

great ideas

Does anyone out there have girls? I got two really lovely ideas from Mothering magazine, one of which I've just put into practice.

The first is for when she's a little older - you get a group of mothers and girls and organise a kids' book club. You pick a book, obviously, and you have discussion about it - everyone has to put an opinion in the hat, maybe. But as it's kids, there's far more you can do - book related art, pick a venue related to the story, activities - anything from tree climbing to a museum visit? Beautiful idea. The group in the book had been meeting for years.

The other is Saturday Spa Night - originally phrased as Sacred Saturday Spa Night but I found the language a bit cringy (the kids were 'unschooled' for example), though it has its place. This woman and her eight year old daughter would lock themselves in the bathroom with candles and an assortment of fancy smelly stuff - lip gloss, creams, nail stuff etc - they created a little ritual along with lighting the candles, pamper themselves, cleanse and beautify and really talk, honestly. It became a place for big talks like for introducing topics like sex, and also just getting closer. When they finished, they'd blow out the last candle and officially end Spa Night.

She found it brought them much closer together and reminded them during the week of how much they love eachother basically - they just say 'remember the principles of Spa night' and it helps keep things even.

I've just had the first effort (well, no, we tried on Saturday but there was no-one here to put the baby to bed, he was sick and didn't settle, my daughter was gung ho and jumped into all of it while I was trying to settle him, I got stressed and narky and we decided it was Sad Night, not Spa Night and we drew a line under it!) tonight, we had a rose scented bath with candles and little massage - she's still young enough that she wanted to play rather than have deep and meaningfuls, but that's fine for now (although rather against the grain, she wanted to play 'emenies' with plastic animals at war on each side of the tub!). We got hot, got out, brushed our teeth and let the boys come bathe in our still hot water (I'm glad my husband got a chance to be in the bath with the baby, he'll never do it - the downside is, the baby still had stinky ears afterwards, his Dad really is just useless at certain things) while we sat on her bed and used decolletage cream, Mama Bees belly cream (!) foot cream, and I did her nails.
Nice!

Now if she'd just go to sleep, I'd be laughing - two interruptions in one post so far, but I suppose you can't have everything.

if I could ask for just one thing

It would be please, please let me see my children into adulthood. http://www.grannymar.com/blog/2008/03/16/the-important-things-in-life/
http://forninepounds.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-mothers-book.html

blogging like a boy

Wow, Sabrina.

She's given me a lot to, erm, worry about. Do I have to give up my ellipses? And the pink?

So my journalist friend tells me I could write a column, and then I find this, which all feels a little significant.

I'm torn. On one level, I just want my blog to be my own little blog, though I do like the idea that it's read, and if people commented more, it would bring me endless joy. On another level, the idea of writing professionally is a lifelong dream, albeit one I've never done anything about.

I suppose that leaves me with the necessity of two blogs. How many blogs can this disorganised mother handle? I've already got one in the pipeline I'm tremendously excited about, I was thinking about a little business venture this summer that would go well with a blog. There's forninepounds for fun.

I was planning on doing a massage course this year. I also feel I have to try to get a couple days of proper teaching work and try and make some real money again. Will I ever get my house clean? How will all this fit in with the impending world domination my husband is to embark upon?

I have a lot to think about. dot dot dot

Praise and validation

I've just been given a compliment on my writing, which is possibly the nicest thing anyone can say to me. I was looking back over the last few pages of old posts to see what all my opinions are, and I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again to keep my blog happy and well adjusted: I love my blog! It's me, it's my space, its pinkness makes me happy. It's a little room inside me. Welcome in.

oh dear

I just realised that I've completely forgotten about the two women's erotica writers' blogs I read. Even though I usually check them regularly, I'd literally forgotten about them. And I went to have a look. And I'm defeated. I'm just.Not.Interested. in sex yet. I'm far more interested in baking.

Ah well. I'm sure this will pass.

more pics

lookee!

Remember I said I'd sent the husband out on a grumpy Sunday, to plant our bulb collection?

Well, instant result! He's thrilled with himself - the pride!

Magic Pixie Newton Faulkner

We went to Newton Faulkner on Monday. I love going to the Olympia, it still feels like such a theatre – I really think it’s the best venue in Dublin still. Last time we saw NF he was playing in the Village, which wasn’t such a nice venue. This time he had a band with him, and an extremelly original support band. I went with my husband and his two band mates. The support was already on when we came in, as we’d stuffed our faces in Subway first – my other half is a fan of the foot-long Meatball...

Angus and Julia Stone were great. It’s such a treat to come across a good support band. Added value. When I came in first, a barefoot girl in a floaty dress was piping into the mic, while her girly brother swayed beside her – and I thought, oh no, weirdy weirdy. But it was good-weirdy. She plays guitar, keyboards, trumpet and god knows what else – he sings in a soft girly but lovely voice and plays guitar and a wonderful wooden slide guitar that was atmospsheric and evocative. Her voice is all husky candy, and gets scary and intense when appropriate. My singer friend was transfixed – ‘She’s like a fairy!’ She was, really. They announced themselves as brother and sister but I would have guessed anyway – they made me think of a pair of genius twins, incredibly close, but she can deal with the world far better than her shy retiring brother, who’s a little eccentric, better with maths and music than people. He needs her more than she needs him but she’s very loyal. They might possibly have a slightly incestuous relationship... I’m just making soap opera up here, but I could see it all...

Hah! I just went to check out their website and while Angus may talk like Michael Jackson, he's actually gorgeous. I take it all back about the incest! You'll haveto excuse me, we were very far away! Check out their myspace.

wasted video clip


Anyway, they were great. Newton was the business as well – My husband liked him better without the band, didn’t think they were that good, thought the bass was too much – I’m not that discerning, I just thought it was great for dancing to. And the really exciting bit was that rather than being up in the gods where I’d got tickets for, Midget Wrangler kindly invited me down to her box, right at the side of the stage! Magic! In the Village I could see the top of his head if I craned, on Monday I could see that he’s getting quite cuddly from all the touring fast food, presumably, he has a little pot belly you’d love to rub up against . Watching his fingers on the guitar was awe-inspiring, it reminded me of acupuncturists checking for pressure points. Again, I have to admit it just made me think of how good he’d be in bed!

But maybe I’m wrong – he was getting drunken horny heckling from a couple girls in the front, ‘You’re coming home with us! You’re coming home with us!’ And he went bright red and ummed and err-ed, and had absolutely no rejoinders, god bless him. Midge wonders if he went to public school. He’d clearly be far better off coming home with us mammies, we’d look after him. Midge thinks he’s a magic pixie.
I thought the songs were beautiful, especially ‘For God’s Sake’, that’s going to be on the next album, beautiful lyrics. And he played some new, astonishingly difficult music that was just gorgeous. He’s noticed that the audiences don’t actually mind when he messes up, we like the humour of it – I’m always trying to get this across to my husband when he’s grumpy after a gig he’s deemed below par. Last time Newton had to stop and rearrange his pants, this time his mobile rang and caused feedback – such a modern phenomenon, while I imagined the pants problem is as old as, well, underwear. They had an actual hovering UFO for the UFO song. I WANT one! As always, he was funny, and sweet, and genius and entertaining. Great job.

I felt bad being in the box without the Husband. But part of me just thought, what difference does it make? He tends to watch gigs with is arms crossed manfully, listening intently – not so much dancing or cuddling or chat. His drummer asked if I wanted to move back beside him after he came back from having a smoke, and laughingly suggested we could have a cuddle. I always feel like such a fraud when people say that sort of thing, because it just doesn’t happen anymore. And it’s embarrassing, because I want it so much, I mind so much. I would so love to be at a gig, and be able to hold my lover’s hand, or kiss him during a song I love or that has meaning for me. But what can you do? He asked me what if he can’t give me what I want (I’m assuming this is the sort of thing he means). I suppose the answer is I just go through my life feeling like a lonely fraud.

Anyhoo, I had a disposable camera Midge got during the blog awards so I took loads of photos – but I won’t wait to get them developed as that may take rather a long time. I have to say, being old now, often by the end of a gig I’m hopping to get home – but I could have sat through another one on top this time. I can’t wait to see him again. Hopefully The Juice will get to play Oxygen and will befriend him!

sleeeeeeep

Yaaawn. 3 1/2 hours sleep, correcting for two days straight, thank god for Newton Faulkner in the middle , I was buzzing from it, and able to stay up til three, then finished this morning, drove into town and back to drop off work, picked up more. I just had a gorgeous Indian takeaway from Indian Spice in Greystones, mmmmmm. And now I'm going to bed, to sleep the sleep of the dead til the baby wakes up. This pictue is like porn to me right now!

Boo!

I read in the IT magazine yesterday, that Burt's Bees has been bought out by Clorox. Clorox!

So now if you want to buy yummy, sweet smelling, non-chemical bath and body and baby products, you're paying a gigantic bleach company money. CRAP!

Bastard, bee-keeping sellouts!

I should probably research this more carefully, but I'll rant first. Nope, I've had a read, the rant stands :(

opinions please

If I could ask for your opinion: these are little Fimo ornaments I used to make years ago when I had more time on my hands - they're dirty and faded etc but you can see the idea. The mermaid was really pretty colours, all swirly. What I want to know is whether you think they'd be saleable, I was thinking of giving them a go online. They'd be little gifts I suppose. Would you buy them if you were looking or that sort of thing? What would you pay for them? God knows how much the Fimo costs these days... I'd really appreciate any opinions, positive or negative! Thanks.

the truth of late night baking

I don't know about you, but I always end up trying to do my occasion-baking late at night. Too late. And things go wrong - I forget to put in raising agent. I undercook or over cook things, cakes are always still soggy when they're meant to be done, and I end up taking them out and putting them in a thousand times til they're overdone. And all the excessive effort and a crappy result results in a pissed off baker the next day. So I really relate to the sentiments of this cake, even though it must have made for a crappy birthday for whatever happless husband it was destined for!

I'm amazed at the cake topper industry these days - how's this for an amusing divorce-cake?

wherefore art thou Nedrun?

How gratuitous is this?

A little funny thing - when I was looking for baby names, I looked through a stupid American baby name book that had lots of names that were not real names, more capitalised words, like 'Komic' - humorous person' - no, that's not a name, that's a job with a K instead of C. But my favourite was 'Nedrun - 'difficult'. Imagine for a second that for some reason you were actually moved to name your child Nedrun. Would you go through with it knowing it meant 'difficult'?

How do you feel about going out with someone who has the same name as your parent? Parents? I had a dalliance with a guy once, whose father's name was Joe. I couldn't deal with that personally - it bothers me that my husband shares the same initial as my father - when I write it in lists etc, I can see my mother writing the same, it's uncomfortable.

However, my father in law was named, shall we say for the purposes of this post, Donald, but known to all as Don. My mother in law also has a brother Don. My husband, the oldest son, has Donald as a middle name. His brother is named Donald, and was always known as such, except by his school friends, who called him, shall we say, Dosh, which is what I met him as.

When he went to college and work, he also became Don because that's what people called him. I find that weird - that's his Dad, not him. I wouldn't have that, personally. I panic when people insist on leaving the a off the end of my name. So he met his wife, and she joined in the gang of those who call him Don - imagine my surprise at finding out her father is also called Don. And it's now their son's middle name.

I do understand the point of keeping a family name in the family, and I understand the sentiment behind keeping your parents and grandparents honoured in your child's name. Personally now, it's not for me. I've worked at finding names for my children that are different, hopefully there won't be two others in their class in school - though despite the alarm my son's name has engendered, a friend stated that he's met THREE babies with the same name this year. Oops! I hope that's not because I asked for opinions about it on Rollercoaster. I'd like to share it with you, but I think I'll restrain myself and stick to my rule of non-disclosure of my kids' details, hard as it is. But I will say this: my mother in law declared that it was a 'gay cowboy name', like Brokeback mountain (I hope she never watches that, I'd hate for her to see the spitting on the hand scene!). But she should count her self lucky, I wanted to call him Jed.

the irony

It's world book day - and I've just wasted 23 minutes of working time reading about that and other things on the Sigla blog when I don't have time to read a book, I should be reading mock exams. The same essays over and over, written with varying degrees of literacy. As my English teacher colleague reports, she's been told, 'You're not here to educate us'. No, indeed. You can guess where I'm working for...

hot chocolate

I am struggling, friends, struggling not to make cupcakes, for which I have spare icing in the fridge. I want to make a batch of twelve and eat most of them while watching Lost - it's that or have hot, chocolate sex with the Hot upper-class chocolate stud-chef I was watching on Channel Four last night. I'm all confused, sex and chocolate, chocolate and sex... He's like a Mr Darcy who makes 100% chocolate from his own plantation, where he has far more interesting tasting beans than your normal run of the mill chocolate we're used to. He's dark haired and tall, and posh. And his lovely wife looks like she might well ride over the plains bareback, wielding a whip, or some such sexy weapon. She's patrician and throaty voiced, and handsome, they have three gorgeous children who look just like them and they've sold their house and devoted their lives to chocolate. It's great tv!

friendly strangers

People who aren't online find the idea of meeting people online weird. Well I'm all for it. I love the freedom and inhibition that comes from chatting through blogs or boards. And I've met several lovely and fabulous people that way. Last night at the Blog Awards/Ladies' Tea party I had three very personal conversation ranging across birth, death, babies, breastfeeding and fertility, as is my wont, having never met two of the three people before. For me, this is normal, as you'll find I tend to go there whether I'm online or face to face anyway - this blog should be called Compulsive Divulgent. Beware, you may not want to hear about my labours or relationship, but chances are you will anyway... But I think online meeting definitely lends itself to a greater level of openness and perhaps trust - or perhaps that's just me.

As a group, the bloggers seemed really to be lovely people - genuine, creative, interested people. There was a friendly atmosphere, a relaxedness - I love that everyone felt united by their commitment to putting words on a screen, to expression, to communication (and no excessive drunkenness, which is a big plus for me). Perhaps we're making a storm in a teacup about the value of what we do ( I think I'll just go ahead and include myself in the 'we' - I don't know that there's much wide value in what I do here, but at least I'm part of a movement of sorts, I think) but what I've taken away fro the evening was the sense of a resourcefulness, an energy and creativity. Of people pursuing interests, finding ways to either make profit or just create, in inventive and communicative media.

I feel full of inspiration, and positivity, I want to have an Etsy shop. I want to get the blog my cousin and I have planned started. I want to find out about children's writing agents. I want to sell baked goods. I want to do my massage course.
I don't want to teach an exam course so much, and definitely don't want to do any more TEFL, though it's looking like I'll have to again this summer :( Someone offer me a job so I don't have to go back to that! My husband and I were just discussing the dream of living in Italy, and of course the obvious thing for me to do there would be teach English. And the thought totally makes me want to stay here! Bleh! Sorry, digression.

I'm all for talking to strangers. Meeting new people, making new friends without taking years to do it. I like talking to people on the street, but it happens less these days. I think the Internet community, such as it is, and the blogging community, is a way to talk to people on the street all round the world.