Sorted!

As weeks go this has been better than the last few I have been experiencing. It’s been healthy, eventful, productive and I have still managed to laugh – normally at someone, but it keeps me occupied! The great thing is also that my boss has gone on holiday for 2 weeks, so we are all going to create mayhem, mess up her desk, move her stuff around, draw on things, hide her laptop (already done as draw found unlocked!), get into trouble with the business and generally make it pretty unpleasant for when she returns! Just kidding we will all be as good as gold…..!! Ha, we are gonna paaarrrrttttyyyyy!! Naturally she will be greatly missed, I guess I should say that really…

Well whilst JPR lives it up with the gorgeously tanned Greek firemen (I don’t normally make it past the body to see the face), we will be stuck in the interview rooms with only the rain to look forward to at the weekends. However I am going to Champneys on Sunday with a friend for some pampering and more laughing. I am sure some tales will come out of that!

We had a big desk move today too and the office looks completely different. There’s also a whole new level of decibels to get used to with no furniture to absorb it. Trust me, our department in comparison to the rest of the company has a very high volume level anyway (of course I don’t contribute to this!). I love it and there’s a great buzz, but with the new move it is going to seriously affect my introverted mojo! I’m very sensitive see. Due to this sensitivity next week is going to be a sad one. I do naturally get quite attached to people I like and I am going to have to say goodbye to more colleagues who are off to pastures new. I hate saying goodbye and whilst I know that it’s often for the best and I’m very happy for them, I still get quite emotional... but with someone leaving comes a leaving do! So it’s off to St Albans again for the next 2 Fridays to see them off in true style – I am going to have to start taking shares in these bars I think.

Speaking of parties my best friend is getting married in November and I am Matron of Honour, my second time at a friends wedding to hold this elitist position!! As a result I am in charge of hen night proceedings. She will be having two. One where we’ll share a limo to London with the stag party then separate into our groups, which is two days before the wedding. The stag do includes my husband as he’s an usher – damn, I’ll have to behave. However that said I would expect them to have some dodgy stripper or pay for personal lap dances in some God awful wank club before tying the groom to a traffic light, so I am sure I can have a bit of a pass for the night?!

The 2nd hen night will be our special one. Just me and Mounia, Woogers as I like to call her – long story, so will explain another time. We wanted to do something special as we haven’t been away together without the boys since New York in 2005 and we are well overdue. I now have to try and find a long weekend away before Ramadan starts in September because I am not Muslim – neither is she actually but her Dad is so she likes to respect him and do it too. I am not that disciplined and so eating and more importantly drinking will become an issue on our weekend and therefore the clash must be avoided!

The Ramadan timing means I’ve only got a couple of weeks to find a holiday, preferably somewhere hot for 4 days for us to go. How on earth do I find that and still be able to afford it? I am starting to stress about it slightly actually – I did however find a great hen night weekend in Brighton where you can record your own song in a studio and the best bit… train to be a pole dancer for the evening! I thought this was a great idea, good for your fitness, fun and if you become good at it, you could make some pocket money! She didn’t agree actually so the pole dancing thing is a no go. “Where’s your sense of adventure?!”

So I was thinking of maybe some 18-30’s cheapo tacky foam party end of season in Ibiza shag fest, but she didn’t fancy that. Well she did, she just thought with the looming wedding it may not be the best start and then she reminded me that I too was already married… hmm well…. No [thinking]… No that one is out!

Booze cruise? “No can’t go on boats I puke everywhere.” That one is out.

Amsterdam? “Deb do you remember the last time we were there and what happened.” Yeah she’s right, that one is out!

Disneyland Paris? Yep good idea. “Found one Deb.” Great I thought we were onto a winner, so I asked her details and how much she found it for. “£1200 for both of us, 5* hotel in Disneyland, Eurostar included, unlimited passes etc.” Sounds fabulous, but nothing more needed to say, that one is out!

God, we are not going to find anything we can agree on. There is a very limited budget mainly because I’m paying for everything and I’m skint and she is paying for her wedding and also skint. We both know we would like to go somewhere hot to top up our tans for the pics but finding it is tricky. We don’t need anything fancy as we will spend the entire time intoxicated and giggling like naughty brats so it doesn’t matter too much.

A large consideration for this trip though is that she is the clumsiest, actually joint clumsiest person I know and if anything is going to go wrong, it would go wrong to her – and if I am with her, it will go wrong for me too! I have to find something safe and calming and ensure that all potential risks are eliminated before they become a calamity. We almost got arrested at the airport in New York then she managed to get us lost on a walk around the Bronx thinking she was taking us to the Greyhound tours bus terminus – not somewhere two girls want to be lost really! She also nearly got us banned from Rome on a Birthday trip there, so my job this time is to ensure we both get back in one piece with no dramas to report!

A hotel in St Albans is starting to sound quite appealing…

The last few weeks have been tough from a combination of personal difficulties to deal with, which are causing me some considerable pain and then having to go to the office to deal with lots of challenging stuff that in the grand scheme of things are just not worth worrying about. I have been grumpy, miserable, bored, de-motivated and just wanted to be at home. But then someone else in our team had a Birthday and another great excuse for drinking the sorrows away for a night of forgetting was born! Poor St Albans!

I am starting to wonder whether I should be contacting the AA (not the breakdown version) as the last couple of months has been so full of alcohol consumption what with loads of Birthdays, holidays, conferences, away days and personal stuff. With the amount of drinking I have been doing lately I am surprised how still a rumour can go around the office about me being pregnant. I can be irresponsible sometimes, but not to the extent where I would drink when pregnant! I got asked 3 times last week by different people saying they have heard. Obviously I told them I was 8 months pregnant with twins and the rumour is absolutely true and I am out on the lash tonight to celebrate the looming birth! I get a very worrying look but as they don’t know me particularly well they half believe me and are not sure what to say. Don’t worry I set them straight after I leave them feeling awkward for a few minutes! However this rumour has led to me now being incredibly paranoid that maybe I am getting really fat and this is their ‘polite’ way of telling me I am a lard arse and can do with losing a few pounds. Makes me feel much better.

So true to the tradition of drinking to celebrate the unnatural amount of Birthdays in our team (I am sure we have a few each they seem so frequent!) we clambered to St Albans in a little car. If the car journey itself didn’t wreak havoc it would go against tradition and this wouldn’t be right. By havoc I mean going over speed bumps at 50 mile an hour with the back seat full and no suspension which hurts a bit! Not slowing to go around corners with a car full, beeping anyone that steps only slightly out of line to see if it will make them jump and taking the piss out of everything and everyone on the way. When the streets become full in town with teeny boppers on their night out, the windows of the car open and odd sounds emanate from all of us very childishly to spark a reaction which will make us laugh hysterically until reaching our destination for the evening.

The night started in our usual St Albans haunt. We were recognised by staff as we always seem to be there and the bouncers were on red alert remembering all the other unfortunate incidents we have been involved in over the last few months! Especially the ‘American one that doesn’t stop talking about weird stuff’ and this is not my quote, it came from a bouncer that could barely get a word in edgeways and was getting earache! The cocktails came out immediately and after 4 rounds of this the Dom Perignon was ordered in and cleverly spilt by a colleague - that was £20 given to the table, aaahhhhhhrrrrggggg !! But I managed to get the barman to give us all free shots and an extra one for the Birthday girl to make it up for it. In hindsight however I think that was a really bad idea as the mixture of alcohol already consumed kick started massive drunkenness in the 4 of us!

Still the night was young and we had a very long way to go. After the shots I had no real control of my actions, sadly it was only about 8pm! We had such a fantastic time, definitely one of the best work evenings out this year. I haven’t laughed so much in ages, I just hope it helps with toning my fat pregnant looking stomach! The drinks continued to flow, I got a lot of cuddles which I needed and had the pee taken out of me all night. I think I held my own and we were pretty abusive to each other in a very loving way obviously… A lot of arm wresting was going on too, a sure sign of being ridiculously drunk. My fat butt and breasts were touched a lot by my colleagues– I am not sure why, they were well hidden and completely covered up, it made me laugh perhaps that was why they did it, or maybe the fact I ridiculed one of them for having his balls fondled earlier in the day – long story (and nothing to with me in case you’re wondering!). No idea why I was being picked on all night, not my Birthday, but no damage done except a text to my boss making a formal drunken complaint which I found on my phone this morning bringing back a horrible memory from the night before – so sorry I take it back and all the others ever sent, love you, I mean no harm, forgive me…!

Anyway the night continued, we went and got some food in a fairly civilised place that was probably hoping people like us didn’t turn up being loud and drunk. We filled ourselves up and made it back to the bar to re-join another colleague out for the evening on the world’s most boring hen night. If my hen night had consisted of going to St Albans and sitting with a face like a slapped arse whilst only one of 3 friends drinks with you, I would have been mortified. Seriously I feel sorry for the hen, what a crap night for her.

With one colleague leaving us to get the train home, we made up the numbers by gate crashing this hen party and livening things up a bit. There were some guys sitting opposite the hen party that were nothing to do with them apparently so I made my move. Unfortunately 2 of them were twins and sorry to say pretty ugly, and in my drunken state and being encouraged by colleagues I started to tease them and pinch their arses when they walked past. Very childish, but it made them all smile especially their rather good looking friend who knew I was taking the piss whilst the twins thought I was serious – I didn’t know, I was drunk, just playing. I had to be stopped by my colleague having to pretend he was my husband to fend them off, which didn’t work because they then thought we were into swinging or threesomes or something which got them more excited! After about 30 minutes of teasing I think it was past their bedtime and they had to leave. One of the twins tried to snog me on his way out thinking I was up for it and ‘husband’ wouldn’t mind. If ‘husband’ wasn’t laughing so flipping uncontrollably maybe I could have been spared the horror of what was to follow!

By this point it was now 1pm and my real husband as the usual chauffeur for the evening was called to come and collect us. The walk back through the town to meet our transport is normally entertaining and it absolutely was. It is very typical that after a drink, everyone tries to leap frog all obstacles in the way, causing bodily harm – such as a post box and parking pillars. But the funniest part was when 2 policemen were walking towards us, we were just being drunk and laughing zig zagging our way along the street until the police were about to actually walk past. They said hello amusing themselves at what we must have looked like, so a colleague turned around to smile and fell flat on her arse, legs and arms spread wide like a beetle stuck on its back! We were laughing so much we couldn’t help her up and she continued wiggling about like an idiot! The police turned around to make sure we were OK, which of course we were and a massive queue of people from across the road started to take the piss and the police walked away laughing at our stupidity!

Continuing on our journey there was another queue of people outside Waterstones waiting to get in to buy the new Harry Potter book, so this was a source of great abuse for us to hurl at how sad they were and who dies in the book as revenge for Lucy’s unfortunately timed meeting with the concrete! Anyway, we made it to the taxi rank to see one colleague off after she peeled a woman off her boyfriend who didn’t see her coming… and the 3 of us made it back to Jeeves again without further incident.

With just over 4 hours sleep last night, I was feeling pretty worse for wear today and have been nursing a hangover headache which my husband finds hilarious; especially as he dragged me around more car showrooms this morning. However, I am pleased to say that we have now found the car he wishes to purchase with little agony taken to get there and with my head pounding the sales guys were spared of any arguments or harassment I may have otherwise caused – lucky for them!

Aaaaaahhhhhh, I hate car sales people. I think it is a general feeling that estate agents and car salesmen are possibly the worst in the industry and I am controversially going to agree. The estate agents we have encountered have all been absolutely useless. I think the problem is that they know if people want and like a house, they will buy it regardless of what the agent is like because it would be their home. Too much reliance on this has led to lazy, up their own a*ses failed sales people with no drive or ambition. This is a massive generalisation and I appreciate not all agents are like that, but in my experience I haven’t encountered anything else.

Car sales, well this is another one of my pet hates. I have recently ordered my new car. I knew exactly what I wanted as I have been thinking about it for ages and waiting for the version of the car I wanted to be released. Unfortunately it came with a 5 month wait direct from Japan but I can handle that as long as it arrives in one piece and is most of all, what I asked for. Knowing the car you want and the exact spec you want before going into the showroom is possibly the best thing you can do if you are lucky enough to see someone with ears! Fortunately, for the first time ever I was approached by a non pushy, intelligent and knowledgeable sales person in Mazda, but he really is a one off. My sale went without incident and he really was fabulous.

I have recently bought my parents a new car as my Dad as of last week is now registered disabled and he has been suffering badly over the 6 months. So I wanted to do something nice for him and I made him get rid of his gas guzzling top of the range estate that gave him hell because he had to change gear and instead I bought him a little automatic he liked. One which after 20 years I may also manage to get my mum to drive in case she ever needs to take him to hospital urgently if I’m not around. Buying this car really was a pain in the neck for me actually because of having to deal with the salesman, an event which was repeated on Saturday.

Me and hubby went around looking at new cars as he has decided he too would like a new car to be delivered in September, but he has no idea about what he really wants and is oblivious to anything car-fied, so really it is up to me to find his next purchase. As I am getting the 2 seater sports car, he needs to have one which is a bit more 'family' with seats in the back (to take me and pals out) and a boot (for my shopping obviously), but we are somewhat limited for choice. Mercedes, BMW and Audi are the only places he will get a car he likes, that is affordable, good quality and looks half decent. BMW are out because he already has one and I hate them – sorry Mart, you’re out voted! Great so really it is either a Merc or an Audi, we have both been keen on Mercedes sporty compacts so we started there. Needless to say we also ended there…

Mercedes have the worst sales people I have ever encountered in car shopping. They have a total inability to listen and lack any knowledge at all about the cars they are supposed to be selling. So we went in as I was there anyway sorting my current car out, not one sales person approached, yet they were all in a room having a lovely little chat! That was the start on my anger-ometre as we had to ask to get someone to come out. This bird came out looking really lost, she was very timid and lacked confidence in what she was doing which didn’t impress me because when I am about to part with thousands of pounds, I expect to feel like it is a good thing to do. I didn’t get that feeling so that was another notch up on my anger scale. She sat us down and asked us what we are looking for. I was very straight and to the point with what we wanted to avoid confusion (I could sense she was easily confused). I told her the max price we were willing to spend, the engine size we wanted, the colour, leather seats and anything else is irrelevant really as it would need to be in the price quoted and to be honest we are not into anything flashy in a car. We aren’t in it long enough to warrant concern with all that and don’t have kids. It is merely a means to get to and from work and the odd night out. All I wanted her to do was tell us what we could get matching our minimum criteria, how much it would cost and when we can buy it. This was obviously too much for her to take in.

“So do you want manual or automatic” she asked. I told her that it didn’t matter because the biggest concern was that we could afford it and it fits our minimum criteria given.

“OK well I will cost up what you want with automatic first.” I said to her that I thought automatic cost more than manual and she said “yes it is about £1000 more,” so I asked whether she could cost with manual then as we are not fussed about the transmission we just want the minimum criteria we gave you to be included as a must and anything else would come down to the price. My anger metre was seriously rising as I had to then repeat this about another 4 times afterwards because she wasn’t getting it.

Anyway she took us outside to show us the differences between a sports version and an evolution version or something. Fine, but I really don’t give a s*hit about what the car is called or whether one has a sodding silver ring on the gear stick for an extra £500 of hard earned cash or whether the grill at the front has little tiny holes in the design and the other one doesn’t for an extra £700. Seriously, none of this matters. All we want is a car that fits our criteria, that is safe, will get us from A to B and that we can get in September. Is it too much to ask?!!!!!!!!!!!

My husband is the calmest person in the world I swear, but by this point even he was getting a little bit annoyed by this sales person’s lack of ability to sell. Then he kept annoying me by telling me to calm down! A good sales person should know that the first thing to do in order to sell is to listen and highlight the criteria the customer wants in each car and then when they are bought into that you can carefully introduce little extras staying around their budget and then at the end, give them options. But when the customer says they are not interested, listen, agree and then move onto something else. Well she will win no awards I can tell you that much. So she took us back into the showroom to her desk to finish off business she asked us AGAIN what we wanted. I repeated exactly what I had said 7 times already and she made a note – finally!! I told her I want the criteria costed, no extras just what it comes with and tell us how much that would be. When we know that we would then be in a position to add things on as we will know what budget is left.

She went away, spoke to her boss who is obviously up on the intelligence stakes as well and she came back with a quote which was out of our price range. I asked her what she based the quote on and she listed all the things that I never asked for – “well madam I have costed it with automatic transmission, sports edition which comes with aluminium finish (aka: a f-ing piece of silver plastic crap around the gear knob which quite frankly I can live without), heated leather seats, entertainment package (DVD player for the children I don’t have!), sun roof (we have a convertible don’t need it in this one and it comes with AC anyway) etc etc.” She reeled off this list of things of totally pointless rubbish that we just do not need in a car which is the exact opposite of the basic things I asked for. I was on the verge of hitting this woman now and if it wasn’t for the fact we had priced our own car on the internet before, I would have just walked out, but I knew I could have half those things she mentioned if she had priced it on a manual car and the right version of car in the first place!

I was so angry. I told her one last time what I wanted priced and she went back to her boss and came back with a decent quote. Great I thought, finally we are getting somewhere. I took the quote from her and whilst she was out the back my husband and I agreed that there was no way we were going to be giving her any commission from the crap work she has done on selling us a car, so we will now go to a different dealership and when we find the one possible sales person that is worthy of commission, we will purchase the car. I can see this could take a while though!

Myself and couple of colleagues had the pleasure this week of going to a conference in Wales to learn, contribute, network, see clients and err… drink!

It started with 3 of us on a 4 hour journey to Cardiff battling the rush hour traffic on the M4. Obviously on such a journey it will involve needing the loo when it is most inconvenient and having to stop at the marvellous luxury services to experience the horrors of public lavatories and to purchase totally overpriced unhealthy crap food just to keep us going for the next few hours. Services always amuse me with the types of people you find there, visitors and especially staff. Hey I know we all have to work but the services are not really put in the most convenient of locations to where people live, so the ones that work there not only get paid bugger all, but they also have a ridiculous commute not served by public transport when they could do the same job in a local supermarket. Luckily for me I ended up choosing the till with the biggest tit behind it that after 10 minutes of trying to run something through it, realises they have no change anyway involving a mammoth task of getting someone else to bring it and then count it out – one by f-ing one. I am not a patient person at the best of times so this was absolute torture.

We made up the lost time from services hell and got to the conference safe and sound. Everything was fine until we realised that we had to register and one of us shouldn’t have been there so it involved some clever smuggling through the double doors where the big ole bouncers were keeping crowd control over the exhibitors, but we managed to get her in unharmed. Once through the doors we were faced with the exhibition stands which I love because not only do you get to network and learn lots of information……whatever, but there are thousands of freebies!!! Yeah… sweets, Elton John glasses which later had a double act at the black tie dinner, chocolate fountain, pens, flowers, spa treatments it was great. Needless to say much of the time at the exhibition stands involved munching on something while marvelling at whether or not the person on the stand cares enough about their business to sell us what they offer. The majority of them couldn’t be arsed and instead just shoved a bag of information in your hand and pray you don’t ask questions. That’s not good enough for me however, I sniff out the weakness and for those that look slightly awkward and desperate to get away, well I’m gonna ask them questions, coz that’s what I do, I am annoying and that’s what they’re there for. Plus if I stay a bit longer they will try and bribe me with more goodies!

After a few hours of pondering over stands and consuming thousands of calories it was time to enter the conference for the key note speakers. As always some are good and others are slightly less so. I have to say my interest perked a little after 30 minutes of a monotone weirdo chatting about the agenda, when a nice confident voice shot on stage followed by a rather nice looking face. Now that’s what I want to see! I was totally switched on and in fact he had a lot of interesting things to say too once I got past the shock of a well dressed, well groomed attractive man speaking at such an event. “Mmm I wonder whether he’ll be at the black tie dinner tonight?!”

The evening came and as planned we were going to make an early start. One of our clients at the event promised us some champagne that we can drink whilst getting ready which we gladly collected and another client volunteered to escort us to the evening with the promise of more drinks coming our way – who are we to refuse that?! So by about 7pm the 3 of us were already pissed and staggering our way up to meet our clients for our table. A big mistake made by the conference organisers was to say that the tables were not allocated and was a free for all – wooo mutiny at the gates! With us and our trusty clients already being pissed we had to be first to the door ready to make a run for it when they open to get the best table near the front for the entertainment, best access to the dance floor with easy access to both the casino and smoking area. Bit of a tall order but after scrambling in we nabbed 2 tables and a couple of bottles of wine and took our places for the evening.

The evening plodded on, we polished off the last of the free wine on the table so our clients ordered us another 5 bottles – oh God, it was going to get very messy. One of the Directors at our clients spent most of the night with me and a colleague, laughing over great wine, dancing with us very embarrassingly which was great fun considering we had our Elton John star glasses on for most of the night and he kindly bought me a box of cigars. Naturally I then had to escort him and a colleague to the smoking area for some idle chit chat which ended with me and him walking away complaining about people talking about work all the time because some odd man butted into our conversation and started going on about something incredibly dull in his drunken stupor that we wanted no part of. OK, back to the table to see 4 Poofs and Piano and Shirley Bassey. Hey Posh and Becks were there too, obviously not the real ones but they collared my colleague into having her picture taken with them which was highly embarrassing so I had to pretend she was not with me!

The evening was very amusing all round. There were a lot of drunken text messages to my boss which I am sure she really appreciated though would probably never say as she’s too nice (sorry about that, it is to be expected, we won’t do it again!). There was some awkward PDA messaging going on with a man from SAS. Having stolen our other colleagues PDA we sent him a dodgy message. She then got a message back saying he was on table 27 and if she wants him she can go and get him!! She wasn’t too amused but it made us laugh immensely! There were some deep honest yet loving conversations taking place which I always find myself having with colleagues in these situations, a nasty clingy odd man that tried to pull us away with him to Cardiff for the night and lots of business cards being exchanged probably due to the great fashion sense we had with the ‘Elt’ glasses. To end the evening I think we woke up the entire floor trying to gain access to our bedroom as our colleague had the key and had fallen asleep in the room, rendered practically unconscious! Generally it was a fab night. I was very good and restrained which is not normal for me especially considering the alcohol consumed and I think it is fair to say that a good night was had by all - the relationship between us and our clients is more solidly fused!!!

I am coming to that age in my life where friends around me are starting to buy houses, get married and have children. I have done most things in my life pretty quickly and have achieved what I have wanted within the time scales I have wanted it in. I managed to get a degree somehow, I was engaged at 20, bought my first house at 22, got married at 23, started a career, got 5 cats, became very vaguely domesticated and now all that’s really left is to have kids isn’t it?!

I am the only child and with parents who had me a little later in life compared to my friend’s parents, I do feel the pressure of their desperation for grand children. I have no siblings to rely on to be doing this now and I certainly don’t want to be the one to stop my parents having the pleasure. I know they are not getting younger and are starting to age now, but I just don’t think I am ready for real responsibility. My mum had problems carrying children full term and I am terrified of having the same problems that I am just not emotionally strong enough to deal with. I have no maternal instinct, I can’t cook, I have no sympathy, I lack patience and am possibly the most intolerant person in the world to other people’s children misbehaving. Perhaps not the best combination to making a great parent.

My best friend from school will be getting married this year and I have the exciting task of being her Matron of Honour at the wedding. She then wants to have children and we have discussed many times that we need to have them at the same time so as they can grow up together and we can go and do things with the kids when leading our lives of luxury – coz I can really see that happening! Well it would be nice to have another mum to hang around with I suppose, without being forced to join some God awful mother and toddler group with the local chavs. But she has decided she would like kids in 2010. That means that whether or not I am ready, if she does actually go ahead and have them when planned, I will be feeling some immense peer pressure and some jealousy no doubt about what I could be missing out on. I don’t want my kid to be years behind really.

Holidays always make me feel broody and having been in Cuba recently I had seriously started to consider that maybe I would like to have children of my own after all despite having been uncertain for years whether I even want them at all. When you see the cute little babies in their all-in-one swimsuits and hats, holidays (and alcohol!) normally prompt me to have the conversation with my husband about please lets have children, we can start trying now. Fortunately he knows the broodiness will only last for 2 weeks and any accidents would lead to mammoth life time consequences. He doesn’t give in to my consistent harassment; he says he just prefers to practice for the really big day - whatever. But in the last month I did have a little scare and to find out finally that I wasn’t pregnant, was surprisingly disappointing and I thought I would never feel that way.

Some friends I used to work with have also just had a little boy that they are totally obsessed with and the mum was the most non-maternal person I had ever met in my life (after me). She would complain no end about her journey to work being held up by the “f-ing mothers taking their slimey snotty brats to school and blocking the road.” Then all of a sudden she was expecting her first baby after actually wanting one and trying for one. Maybe people do change their minds about this. I have a few more years before I really need to make a decision about whether or not to have one but it always seems years away and no need to worry. I am however creeping very worryingly close to 30 which I think sounds old and far too grown up for me. I am just a kid inside, I feel 18 and I still need desperate mothering both at home and at work. I can’t be responsible yet can I?!

I went to a close friend’s wedding yesterday that I grew up with. We were the best of friends as very young kids and we got into so much trouble it is untrue – enough to remind me that most children are like that and what the hell am I thinking to even consider having kids of my own. As children, Danielle and I were totally inseparable and very close. We share a lot of dirt on each other which will hopefully stay buried! Anyway she had a baby 18 months ago who was a ring bearer at her wedding. He looked absolutely gorgeous in his suit with his little waistcoat and tie. The dummy in his mouth reminded me of what a young and vulnerable little boy he still is and just how precious he is.

Then you hear the pregnancy and birth horror stories, see the tantrums, the fighting, smell the pooh, watch the nappy changing fiasco, get caught in the food fights (real evidence here!), find the damage to your furniture, witness the cats tail being pulled off and are put straight back into not having children land!