Fuzzy Logic

Over the past couple of weeks I've kept thinking that I ought to do a blog-birthday post as I Miss 1985 was a year old on the 19th December and the main subject-matter of this blog (my marriage splitting up) dates back to the 30th December 2007. But I haven't really got round to writing those posts because those dates don't have the resonance I thought they would.

Humans have an odd tendency to see patterns. Give us a load of random ink-blots and we'll see a Toulouse Lautrec painting forming in front of us. We have 'lucky' pants (well, I don't. No, really, I don't). We believe that things will go wrong on Friday 13th. For me, my random pattern belief is that how my New Year's Eve goes will predestine how the following year will be.

Last New Year's Eve was dreadful. I drove back from the south coast on the 30th and rang my ex from some services on the M1. Instead of a cheery hello I got told that he'd cancelled our plans because things were going to be 'horrible'. I had absolutely NO warning that this was about to occur. And, Lord, was it horrible. New Year's Eve 2007 was spent with me crying hysterically whilst he said the cruelest things. He then disappeared off to go out with 'friends' (read 'new girlfriend') whilst I sobbed myself to sleep to the backdrop of fireworks exploding and people cheering. It was appalling.

So, if my random pattern belief is true then 2008 should have been equally as horrendous. I do have to say January and February were. But then things changed. I sorted my house out and although feng shui is another human random pattern belief it is a much more pleasant place to live. I made new friends. I went on lots and lots of holidays (three to Portugal and two to France). I rediscovered the wonders of having a social life. I ate lots of curry. I finally organised a reunion with my University friends. I watched my son cope with the breakup of his parents' marriage with aplomb. I wrote this blog and am endlessly touched that on average one hundred people read it a week. It was, if I dare say it, a good year.

So, despite proving to myself that random patterns are just that, I'm still trying to be a Delphic oracle and discern what 2009 might have in store. 'Louise' told me that 2009 will be 'my year'. Yesterday I went to see 'Peter Pan' at the theatre and left thinking that 2009 might well be an 'awfully big adventure'. I've got plans for tonight which involve my best friend and food - always a good combo.

So, I'm wishing you, and myself, a happier new year. xxx

Tuesday Night is Curr-istmas night (the 25th)

Tonight Velouria and Rio have thrown caution and financial solvency to the wind and had not just a Christmas meal, but a Marks and Spencers Christmas meal. This involved remarkably posh nut roast, veggies, leeks in Gloucester cheese sauce and Yorkshire pud. For pudding we had Christmas mulled fruit crumble and Armagnac crean which was so good we did pseudo-sex noises throughout it.

Tonight's topic: Ree and Vee's 12 days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a frozen strawberry daiquiri
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two leather thongs
On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me three hot men
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me four brawling birds
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me five sore rings
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me six Gin and Tonics
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me seven muffs a-trimming
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me eight chavs a-blinging
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me nine boils a-lancing
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me ten lads a-leching
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me eleven arseholes parping
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me twelve armpits humming

Sadly this wasn't a podcast as Velouria just sang this modern classic beautifully and Rio howled through like a tone-deaf badger with the rhythmic ability of a drunk uncle at a wedding, dancing to Natasha Bedingfield.

Your turn: can you think of any alternative lines?

A Christmas (Ad) verse

Some of the very best things in life come through fire: gold is refined and melted by forge fire; chestnuts roast on an open fire; the Australian outback requires regular bush fires to regenerate and some of the best St Andrews beach parties ('89 - '93) were heated by stolen pallet fires. I've been through the fire this year and I've come out regenerated, stronger and ready to party.

On Friday night it was my school's Christmas do. Times have been hard in recent months and it was a great opportunity for the staff to enjoy some good cheer together. Instead, of over 170 staff there were a grand total of 32 revellers. For most, adversity had got the better of them and they couldn't be arsed to attend. Those of us who attended could have had a rubbish time and moaned about it afterwards. Instead we took the opportunity to have a better time. Wholly faked photos of us sliding down bannisters were taken to display in the staffroom. My friends and I took advantage of a yawningly empty dancefloor to express ourselves dramatically through the medium of Dance. Afterwards, we zoomed into town to dance and be merry even more - the dancefloor in the club was empty and so my friends and I did even more expressive dancing (particularly after the liberal application of Jagerbombs...). I discovered that wearing black fishnet tights and an LBD can result in random early-20s males pulling up their t-shirts to display their taut torsos. Hurrah. It was a bloody marvellous night.

And then on Saturday night Alexandra Burke won X-Factor after being rejected three years' ago. More proof that great things can come from adversity. One of the things that chimed the most with me was Cheryl saying that they were more than mentor and act: they were friends. And that's what got me through this year: my friends. I never went to the staff Christmas do in years gone by because my ex inevitably had something planned and I had to stay home to look after our son. But there was another reason - I didn't feel like I had many friends because the problems in my marriage made me completely isolated from people and I avoided making friends as it was too difficult to maintain my two faces.

This year has been a time of making and relying on friends and I'd like to do some call outs and thanks on the pages of this blog, as I know that those friends read this:

1. First place has to go to Velouria. Curry night was the greatest invention of 2008. Throughout the year Velouria has been a steadfast trooper with a truly outstanding ability to come up with a finely crafted expletive. She rocks.
2. Next is 'anonymous', aka 'my little sister'. She combines a rare ability to care about people without being soppy. A fine trait.
3. Travelling together, as they always do, are the East Leeds Massive. One of the Leedz 15 Girlz (Louise to my Thelma) is following a similar path to me and has been a great support. They're both foul-mouthed in the most glorious manner possible. I've never been told to 'fuck off' in a more tender and caring manner...
4. Lpa, without whom my bunkbeds would be sadly empty after a night out. Without her many of the nights out would have been impossible and she's the reason why I feel like I'm in my mid-20s rather than my late 30s
5. Highwaylass, an inspirational blogger and late night Skype pal, her highway has run parallel to mine over the year and she's given me some excellent journey planning advice along the way
6. The friends I've been blessed with for years: the ones I saw in Ingleton in October. Most people don't stay in touch with University pals for 19 days after Graduation, I've known you all for nineteen years and I love you more now than I did when I was a self-obsessed twenty-year-old.
7. 'Exiled to Aidans' - she tells me off. A lot. And I always richly deserve and appreciate it.
8. The 'rents. They've stopped being parents and started being friends.
9. My son. He doesn't read this. Thank God.
10. My ex, if he hadn't dumped me I wouldn't have a life. He doesn't read this either. Thank God.

God bless you, one and all. xxx

A Tale of Two Birthdays

Quoting Dickens when discussing a child's birthday is really too pseuds-corner to be true, but that's not going to stop me. Yesterday it was my son's sixth birthday party and to quote Dickens 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. He had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed every second, I, meanwhile, was prostrate with exhaustion and noise overload about five minutes in. However, I discovered something that surprised me: my ex can behave.

Rewind to last year. My son's fifth birthday party was a joint enterprise with a friend. We hired a steam train for the afternoon and chugged merrily up and down. The carriage was packed with excitable five-year-olds but the biggest child was my ex (or husband as he was then). He spent the entire afternoon with his portable radio headphones glued firmly in his ears listening to Leeds United getting thrashed. He was also morose, uncommunicative and downright rude. The scowl on his face was indescribable. Within days he was to announce that he was (a) having an affair (b) sodding off on holiday to Berlin with her instead of being home for our son's birthday and Reception class Nativity play and (c) it was all my fault. Hmmmmmnnn.

Fast-forward to this year. I had organised a party at a local bowling alley (the sort of activity he would have griped about last year). He arrived a few minutes late but almost immediately got involved in trying to stop six-year-olds dropping bowling balls on their own and their friends' feet. He then stood at the end on the bowling alley and helped the kids bowl for the whole afternoon. There was no scowling. There was no petulance. He congratulated me on how well the afternoon went. Heck, there might even have been a smile lurking below the beard. The biggest shock was discovering that my staff do this Friday clashes with his friends' wedding and he was willing to forgo the wedding so I could go out. If I were a cynical sort I'd say that he'd come to realise that I'm really not going to divorce him any time soon and so the only option left would be to kill me via giving me a major shock. I was fairly startled that he was doing something - gulp - altruistic. What the Dickens?: he's stopped acting like a dick.

But that's a Tale of Two Birthdays: last year was the worst of times, this year is starting to feel like the best of times. Roll on the staff do, I'm ready for a bit of mountaineering.

Cutting down the Christmas list

Frequent flyers with Air I Miss 1985 will know that I like a band called My Life Story. A lot. If I had to recommend a song to introduce the uninitiated to the band it would be 'Penthouse in the Basement'. In fact, if I'd had the wit I might have named this blog after it too as it is about the ending of a relationship.

My favourite lyrics are: 'And in the wasteland of our bed / where you lay your head / on seven different stale perfumes / on my pillowcase'. This has nothing to do with the rest of this post, it's just I love those lines, even though they don't represent my current lack of love life at all (just in case my parents or my ex's solicitor is reading this...)

The lines that do chime are: 'I'm gone, do you hear? / I'm cutting down my Christmas list this year' because with the approach of the festive period I'm horribly aware of how limited my Christmas list has become. Firstly, my beloved Nan died last weekend and so I won't be visiting BHS to buy her traditional Christmas Cardi this year nor choosing cards with pictures of poinsettias on the front and long verses inside (because she liked the sentiments). I'm going to miss her at Christmas, a lot.

Furthermore, I don't know where I stand with my ex's son (my ex-step son?). I used to go out to buy his main present as my ex wasn't arsed with that job. Or at least he would buy it, as long as he could buy a Leeds United team shirt and hand it over, unwrapped, in a carrier bag. I have to say it hurt like hell the other week when my ex's son was taken out for his birthday meal by my ex and the new girlfriend. I've also idly toyed with being 'Bitchy by Kindness' with said new girlfriend. Maybe I could really, really embarrass and fluster her by sending a card or a present. What about a DVD of 'The First Wives Club' or maybe something more literary like, say, the play script of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore'?.

Also, I don't have a husband to buy for. It seems weird not to be thinking about him in terms of a Christmas present. He was always hard to buy for but I think I did OK (and significantly better than some of the random stuff he bought me. Like brown walking boots. I ask you). This also means I won't get a main present. I know it's better to give than to receive but the idea that, aged 37, pretty much every present I get will be from my Mum, irrespective of whose name is on the 'from' tag, makes me feel like a bit of a loser. Don't get me wrong - I love and appreciate my Mum and all the effort she puts in - but at my age there ought to be someone else in my life to buy my main Christmas present and there isn't.

What do I want for Christmas? Maybe not seven different stale perfumes on my pillowcase. But one new aftershave might be nice...

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - The Seventh Seal

After a difficult couple of days Rio was very lazy and ordered a veritable pile of Indian takeaway from the local emporium. It was yummy.

Tonight's blog is going to be a tribute and the topic is: The Best Things about Grandparents.

1. They take you shopping and you always come back with the same amount of money you went out with but loads of treats.
2. They bung you a hundred euros when you are going on holiday.
3. They have a special soap smell that nobody else has.
4. They send you food parcels even after you have left University and have famillies of your own.
5. They treat your parents like children.
6. They always take your side against your parents, even when they know that (a) this is something they shouldn't do (b) you are in the wrong.
7. Their cupboards are full of far better biscuits and cakes than anyone else's.
8. They can do 37 cards at once at bingo.
9. They know more about everything than anyone else and anyone who questions it is wrong.
10. They have fridge magnets about their grandchildren saying things like 'I love my grandchildren so much that I should have had them first'.
11. They go to jumble sales and even run stalls there.
12. Aprons and novelty tea trays.

RIP Nan. xxxxx

Tuesday Night is Curry night - the 6ixth

Tonight, Velouria and Rio have had jalfrezi and lentil makhani (that tasted like refried beans, but in a good way). Before the flatulence kicks in we wish to share tonight's topic:

Velouria and Rio's Literacy Hour

These are our favourite words in an A-Z styleeee:

1. Ampersand
2. Balderdash
3. Catharsis
4. Driech
5. Encapsulate
6. Flatulence
7. Gringo
8. Hirsute
9. Icthyosaur
10. Jaffa
11. Kindergarten
12. Luscious
13. Moribund
14. Nincompoop
15. Orifice
16. Priapic
17. Quim
18. Rebarbative
19. Shenanigans
20. Turgid
21. Ululate
22. Voluminous
23. Waggle
24. Xerox
25. Yiddish
26. Zanzibar

This is from 'The Glass Slipper' and is a good instruction manual on how to properly relish words that you like (at about 2 minutes in)

Your turn: which words do you absolutely love?

Climb ev'ry mountain

Oddly, for someone who is completely terrified of heights, I am obsessed by mountaineering. I have an online repertoire which goes Facebook > personal email > here > work email > MountEverest.net. I know vast amounts of ridiculous knowledge about Everest and if allowed to could bore your bollocks off with rabbiting on about the Khumbu icefall, the Lhotse face, the Hillary steps, the South Col, the yellow band and theories about whether Mallory could have free climbed the Second Step or not. And I swear I typed all that without looking it up. I know Everest is variously called Sagarmatha and Chomolungma by the peoples surrounding it and that it's significantly easier to climb than K2. Indeed, my mountain geekiness extends to knowing the names of a lot of the other twelve 8000+ metre mountains (Annapurna, Gasherbrun I&II, Kangchenjunga, Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Nanga Parbat, Pumori). Ok, I'll stop now.

Why on earth am I fascinated by the fourteen 8000+ metre mountains? I will never actually be able to visit even the base of any of them because even the trek to Everest base camp is too frightening for someone who had screaming ab-dabs on Hadrian's Wall. No, really, I did. I'm fascinated by them because I'm frightened of them. Anyone who has the guts to take on an 8000+ is a brave soul, especially as the statistics aren't great. Over 200 people have died on Everest and the mortality rate is dreadfully high on K2 and Annapurna. But people still do it just, for a fleeting five minutes, to be the highest person stood on earth. To be able to see the curvature of the earth. To know that the coming back down is more fatal than the climbing up. It's fascinating.

I've climbed some mini-mountains this year. I've learnt to deal with being a single person; I've started going out and having a life; I've even ended up being better friends with my ex than I've been for many years. I'm not ready to be in a relationship yet and I don't really want a boyfriend.

Dud sparklers

This blog is my brave face. From it smiles out a happy, confident woman who can deal with every vagary of single motherhood with a finely polished pun. It suggests that my life revolves around nights out and eating curry.

Sometimes that's not true. Tonight is one of those times. I've had a wearisome couple of days and tonight I don't have my brave face on. Yesterday I ran at full pelt all day and was thoroughly exhausted by the time that I came home. That didn't stop me from trying to be RoboMum and organising a home fireworks display for my son and his friends. To cut a long story short:

1. As I don't have a garden we did the fireworks in the alley at the front of my house. It's very dark. I trod in a huge dog shit and then, brilliantly, walked it over the rugs in my hallway. Leading to me having to throw away my favourite trainers and two rugs.
2. The lighter fuel ran out before I could light the sparklers so three sobbing kids and I had to traipse round the neighbours asking for matches; then after I managed to borrow a lighter
3. inevitably, the sparklers were dud and wouldn't light. More crying from the kids.
4. After all the delays and disappointments I got home to find the dinner I had timed to be ready for the end of the fireworks now fairly comprehensively burnt.

So much for RoboMum. I went to see a band afterwards with Velouria but we hated the venue and felt unsafe so we came home early.

Today was more of the same. Frustrations at work. Complications to do with a house purchase. Finding out that a hen weekend I'm due to go on will cost me triple what I expected. Rain. Rude kids at school. Burning the dinner again for the second night running.

The only highlight was speaking to a lovely friend who is in a similar situation to me. Despite the fact that the conversation was about how it is hard to cope with a marriage splitting up and all the attendant emotions. Because it reminded me that it's ok to be down sometimes. It's ok to be angry and frustrated and bloody awkward. It's even ok to argue with your ex down the 'phone for three hours (as I've done tonight). Right now I feel that all my sparklers are duds and that there's a dog shit lurking on every pavement. But that might not be how I feel tomorrow and by Saturday night I might even outshine a thousand sparklers. And not one a dud.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - V

Last week Velouria and I had to disapppoint our avid fans, of whom we have none, as we were attempting to break Europe. Velouria was in Paris and Rio was in Portugal.

Unfortunately tonight's topic will have a macabre and scatalogical bent as Vee has unwisely poisoned herself with sodium nitrate. Or copper oxide. Either way science teachers should know better than to lick their fingers during chem practicals.

Tonight's topic: Too much information, frankly.

For reasons of anonymity we are not going to admit which of Velouria or Rio the following pieces of information relate to.

1. One of us followed through after eating a egg mayo sandwich. On her honeymoon. Then had to leg it across a train station to find the only public convenience was a nasty hole in the ground.
2. On being with a new chap for a mere matter of weeks one of us spent the whole night having explosive diarrhoea after consuming an entire punnet of cherries, one of strawberries and a full tub of Cherry Garcia ice cream.
3. One of us has just done a silent and deadly fart.
4. One of us had a very, very, very loud and prolonged fanny fart whilst doing a plough headstand during a yoga session. It was probably audible from space.
5. One is mortified that the other one has admitted to that online when clearly not drunk.
6. One of us habitually falls asleep in public conveniences when pissed.
7. One of us has done rude nasties in the same room as a major Hollywood film star (but not with said film star).
8. One of us has done nastiness in the top of a bunk bed whilst there was some other poor soul in the bunk below.
9. One of us went to see Bucks Fizz. Twice.
10. One of us went on a coach trip to Whitley Bay ice-rink to watch Torville and Dean.
11. One of us ate tonnes of curry and drank lots of red wine and then threw up in somebody else's shower cubicle. The chunks blocked the drain.
12. One of us passed out on the stairs at Uni with alcohol poisoning but was cleverly revived by a barrister chum who poured red wine down her.
13. One of us told a previous boss to shove his job up his arse. N.b. she did not call him a c u next Tuesday as the urban legend surrounding this incident relates.
14. One of us lost her nose ring on the floor next to her boss's desk when on the premises illicitly late at night on Easter weekend because she thought it would be really, really funny to get off with someone in his office. Two years later she was horrified to be put in the same team as the person who assisted in the losing of said nose ring.
15. One of us was bought a drink and chatted up by a random midlander in a club, only to have his sister to visit the staffroom on Monday morning to say 'hello', and then for him to turn out to be her new gym instructor a year later, starting the session by asking innocently: 'don't I know you from somewhere?'.

That was, as we are certain you will agree, FAR too much information.

Your turn: anonymously post something that really ought never to be disclosed.

In five years time...

Tonight I went to see a band, Noah and the Whale, at a venue called the Cockpit that I haven't been to for about eight years. But it was a place where I spent a lot of time in the past. In the mid 1990s I used to go to a club night there most weekends where I dressed up in little 60s dresses and lots of black eyeliner and danced to indie and brilliant 60s stuff like the Small Faces and the Yardbirds. I used to leave about 3:20 in the morning to catch the train back to York and would snigger loudly at Shed Seven (almost always on the same train) going on about their negotiations with Sony.

Some of my best 'ooh, I've met them' moments happened at the Cockpit. One night a friend and I went to see Super Furry Animals there and on the way along the street to get chips afterwards a tour bus screeched to a halt and the support band, The Diggers, invited us along to a party at the Marriott hotel. The details of the party are a bit sketchy now but I do remember running away from the police after the barman unwisely shut the bar without turning the pumps off...

The last time (before tonight) I was there was to see Pete Wylie, the Mighty Wah. It was round about the beginning of November 2000 and my ex and I had just come back from honeymoon. Pete signed the cd 'To _____ (me), not _____' (my ex) and thoroughly chatted me up. I lied and told Pete the song 'Sinful' had cured me from my Duran Duran fixation in the 80s. This is obviously untrue. At the time my ex was quite proud that Pete Wylie fancied his wife.

But, as this blog shows I didn't go out much after my marriage and I've not been to the Cockpit for a very long time. So it was great to go out on a school night, have a drink and see a band. A lot of the gig I spent thinking about times past until Noah and the Whale's Big Song 'Five years time' came on. And that made me think about my future. If you'd asked me this time last year what I'd be doing in five years time I would have said more of the same: working, sleeping, staying in and arguing with my ex. But now? Now, I'm interested to know, because whatever I am doing in five years time it will be very different.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - episode 4

Tonight's blog is sponsored by Sainsbury's Tadka Dhal, Saag Paneer, Bombay potatoes and pilau, accompanied by mini-naan. It is faintly gaseous in this abode.

10 things that make us happy

Velouria is made happy by:

1. Paris - every single last thing about it, even the bad bits.
2. Cocktails, especially daiquiries
3. City lights at night
4. Stained glass windows with sun shining through
5. Stationery - much and varied
6. Big funky Orla Kiely patterns, especially on handbags.
7. Sunshine
8. Finding a pound in your pocket
9. Strictly Come Dancing
10. Having nothing to do but lie still, eat chocolate and listen to my ipod.

Rio is made happy by:

1. Inventing long and witty conversations in my head and often letting the associated thoughts show on my face, to the confusion of passers-by.
2. Putting my feet into the cold corners of the duvet
3. Staring out of the window on trains (especially in tunnels)
4. The sound of rain falling on the outside of tents in the middle of the night
5. Sudden hail storms on bright days
6. Writing, especially if I can crack out a quality pun.
7. When my son gets words wrong
8. Cheese and onion pasties
9. The smell of my own skin on warm days
10. Adventures late at night in big cities

Spot the linguist, spot the scientist.

Your turn: what makes you happy?

Tears before lunchtime

I've always considered 8 to be my lucky number. My Mum and Dad were engaged on the 8th, married on the 8th, I was born on the 8th and I started University on the 8th (not the same 8th, though). So why have I just been in tears about the 8th? Especially when today is the 19th? Because tomorrow is the 20th October 2008, and I would have been married 8 years tomorrow. In fact, I have been married 8 years tomorrow, it's just I'm not with my husband any more.

So, why - when the entire point of this blog is 'getting dumped and then getting a life' - would I be in tears at lunchtime? I'm relieved I'm not with my ex any more, our life together was really unpleasant and destructive for everyone around us, particularly our son. I am much happier than I've been for years. But, I can't help thinking back to my wedding day and thinking about how happy we were and the potential our marriage had that day. He admits that it was pretty much him who ruined it and that we could be celebrating our wedding anniversary together if he'd been able to control his demons. I was at fault, but as the hugely annoying Angel Clare once said, I was 'more sinned against than sinning'.

He's just collected our son to take him out for the afternoon and it gives me time to use the ever-cathartic power of blogging to apply some perspective to the situation. I think back to our last wedding anniversary and how dreadful that was. We went to Venice and he made the entirety of the first day phenomenally unpleasant until I was so desperate that I tried to book a flight home to get away from him. The idea of me leaving him was enough to make him behave and for the rest of the time there was peace with an underlying feeling of uneasy truce about it all. Shortly afterwards he met his new girlfriend and started making plans to leave me permanently. It wasn't a good way to be. And so, when mourning our wedding day I need to look full-square at our final anniversary together and see that being apart is for the best.

These anniversaries will fade with time and I'll cope better each year - but - and this is a big but - I realise that I need to put something fantabulous in place for New Year's Eve as that was the night he dumped me, and I'm not 'celebrating' that one with tears before bedtime.

Friends Reunited

These days the idea of not 'Social Networking' is anathema to most. Kids who absolutely loathe me whilst being taught by me seem to feel no sense of irony in requesting to be my 'friend' via Facebook. Similarly, I feel no sense of irony when I ignore their request. Facebook, in particular, has brought me closer to old friends with whom I had lost touch. Through my Facebook addiction I can keep up with their partners, their children and whether or not they are good at WordTwist. Facebook also lost me my marriage, as it was via Facebook that my ex got together with his new girlfriend. I knew something was up when my own husband (at the time) refused my friend request and kept shutting the laptop screen down quickly whenever I came in the room.

However, when I was at University in the years 1989 to 1993, our social networking was limited to writing notes on each others' doors and bumping into each other in coffee houses / bars / megabops / the all night garage and, extremely rarely, lectures. We did not text each other. We had never sent an email. We didn't arrange events on Facebook. Nobody had a landline in their flat and in the Halls of Residence 48 people or more shared one public payphone. However, even without the simplest tools of social networking the friends I made in my University days are still some of the people I hold most dear in my life.

This weekend just past some of my closest friends and I assembled in a youth hostel in the Dales for a reunion. The spurious reasoning behind the event was that on the 8th October 1989 we started University, so nearly 19 years later we are as far away from that first day as we were the minute we were born. I did the majority of the planning and I used the social networking site Facebook to create a group for the event and email out the plans.

So what did we do over the weekend? We discussed how things had changed. The world now is unrecognisable. The last time we were all together, in 1993, the Americans had invaded Iraq and the world was going into a major recession. House prices were tumbling. Inflation was rising. How things change. Back in 1993 I was resolutely single and refusing to countenance the idea of having a boyfriend and I'm right back there again. Some of us are a bit bruised and battered by child-rearing and single motherhood. Most of us are greyer. Some of us are in the major league of blogging (e.g. Highwaylass). But, as a social network we support each other and I feel that we are all the richer for our shared experiences. Facebook might have brought us back together again but the friendships stretch a long way back to the days before any friendship was digitised. All these people were in my life long before I met my ex and I hope they will still be in my life many years into the distant future, whatever social networking looks like in those days.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night - part 3

Tonight's blog is brought to you by the power of mushroom and courgette korma and a quorn tikka masala, made by Velouria's little paws. Indeed, Vee could teach you to make a graph showing the fat, protein and carbohydrate value of the dinner but that would be just frightening.

Tonight's topic: Top Guilty Pleasure Choons

Velouria's:

1. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
2. Umbrella - Rihanna (it's raining tonight. Blame Velouria for this)
3. Here you come again - Dolly Parton
4. Galveston - Glenn Campbell
5. Since U been gone - Kelly Clarkson
6. Toxic - Britney Spears
7. Close to You - The Carpenters
8. Rush Hour - Jane Wiedlin
9. Only You - Flying Pickets
10. Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa - Gene Pitney.

Velouria is in a contentious mood and told me that I'm not allowed to simply list out ten Duran Duran songs. I pointed out that Duran are NOT guilty pleasures, in fact they are a New Religion (see what I did there?) and hence a perfectly acceptable pleasure. Her riposte? Maybe not for you, only for the other 6 billion people on the planet. Next week her curry will be accompanied by the gentle sounds of Natasha Bedingfield in revenge.

Rio's:

1. Final Countdown - Europe
2. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
3. Maneater - Hall and Oates
4. Never Gonna Give you Up - Rick Astley (I'm not Rickrolling, I've always loved him)
5. The Frog Chorus - Paul McCartney
6. Too Shy - Kajagoogoo
7. Gold - Spandau Ballet (as a Duranie I am not supposed to like der Ballet)
8. Time of my Life - Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
9. Islands in the Stream - Dolly'n'Kenny
10. Fame - The Kids from Fame

Your turn: which songs get you up on the dancefloor, howling like an over-excitable banshee? You can post anonymously but Velouria and I will just check where you posted from and work out who you are.

Tuesday night is Curry Night - no 2

As promised, tonight's Curry Night is brought to you by saag aloo, vegetable dhansak, mushroom pilau, paneer saag and huge naan. Velouria is prone on the sofa nursing what can only be described as a curry pregnancy.

Here's tonight's list: Those That We Shouldn't But We Would.

We tried to find an online Venn diagram generator to show where we both agree but failed miserably.

Velouria and Rio both would:

1. Gene Hunt, with him wearing his camel coat throughout
2. Paulie Bleeker, wearing the headband throughout
3. Reece Shearsmith, but not as Edward. Because that's just a bit too wrong.
4. Stuart Maconie despite being from 'the other side' (in unison we both howled 'especially with all those records'. Frankly, we're little short of vinyl whores).
5. Louis Theroux despite being far too posh

Velouria would, but Rio wouldn't:

1. Mark Lamarr (rude, clever and funny)
2. Justin Lee Collins (hairy and funny)
3. Dylan Moran (dirty and funny)
4. Eric Cantona (rude, French and fit)
5. Uma Thurman (fit)

Rio would, but Velouria wouldn't:

1. Jarvis Cocker, particularly in the 'Help the Aged' period.
2. The entire DIY SOS team, starting with Nick Knowles, working through everyone else (except for Billy) and finishing up on Nick Knowles again.
3. Simon Amstell (I don't care that he's gay)
4. Matthew Collins (despite the fact he looks exactly like my ex)
5. Madonna in the 'Like a Virgin' period (I don't care that I'm not gay)

Best rudery of the evening: 'Ray Mears, because he'd look after me in the forest and be up for a bit of bushcraft'. Blame Velouria, not me.

Next week: Guilty Pleasure Choons and Velouria is making curry (with ready-made sauce).

Your turn: feel the love. On whom do you have a wholly inappropriate and quite queasy crush? Post anonymously.

Tuesday Night is Curry Night

Tonight's topic is what we would put in Room 101. (By the way we ate vegetable pathia, dhansak, plain naan, chapatti and a pilau coloured in a manner no natural foodstuff has ever been).

Velouria's Room 101 wishlist is:

1. The entire Bedingfield family
2. Tracey Emin and that buttock-clenching post-modernist claptrap ("she is a lout" Brian Sewell)
3. Licorice
4. All Saints studded belts
5. People that try to high five you, especially those aged under 16
6. Pretentious marketing speak
7. Sandals All Inclusive Resorts and anyone who would actually go there

My list is:

1. Freddie Mercury
2. Small beige houses
3. Foof belt skirts
4. The food served by Betty's Tea Rooms which tastes delicious but makes you feel sick for hours afterwards
5. Personal statements that start "I have wanted to study Logic and Metaphysics since I was an four years old...". No, you haven't.
6. The phrase 'in terms of'
7. Men who steer their girlfriends by putting their hand proprietally in the girlfriend's lower mid-back.
   

Next week's list will be brought to you by an unknown, but voluminous, quantity of Indian Food and Top Ten Totty That You Shouldn't But You Would.

Your turn: please comment on what would be in your Room 101. Velouria would appreciate it if someone would pop X-Factor in as she's run out of options.

Girls on Film

How do you tend to spend Tuesday nights? My Tuesday nights have had a variety of commitments over the decades. In the mid-1990s, Tuesday was Student Nite at Ziggys nightclub in York (which is just as crap as the name suggests. One memorable night my best female friend and I were stood with a male friend, Dave, at the bar. A random bloke in a shiny shirt walked up and pointing at we two girls whilst addressing my mate Dave he inquired: 'they both with you?', when Dave answered in the affirmative Shiny-shirt-man responded, 'can I have one?' as if universal female suffrage had never occurred). For a while in the early noughties Tuesdays were gym nights and after I became a teacher they were stick kid in bed, work until midnight, go to sleep exhausted nights (c.ref Sunday to Thursday).

Now Tuesdays are far, far, far more wonderful than I can ever convey. Tuesdays are Curry Night (capitals ungrammatical but intentional). On Curry Night my friend comes over and we eat curry and discuss the state of the education system. This is a euphemism for thoroughly and systematically slagging off one particular school. However, last night we undertook some wonderful pastimes:

(1) planning out which songs we would dance to if we got on to Strictly Come Dancing. My answer to every single dance was a Duran Duran classic (i.e. Argentinian Tango to 'Girls on Film'. But apparently the tempo would be wrong). I worked through the Duran back catalogue and failed miserably to show any knowledge of dance whatsoever. I then chose 'Something Changed' by Pulp which was the 'first dance' song at my wedding. This led to,

(2) digging out my wedding video, heckling my ex and cheering myself. I have to say - and anyone reading this who attended might agree - I did look bloody gorgeous that day. Was that really my body? The weird thing about looking at the wedding video was I didn't feel any sort of nostalgia or regret for my marriage. I did get a little sniffly watching the wedding speech I gave but the emotion was solely about my Granddad who had died before the wedding. I'm surprised at how it isn't raw and difficult to watch my wedding video but it just shows how far I've come.

So on Curry Night I looked at girls on film from two angles. The first, the Duran early '80s classic and the second, myself on my wedding video. One is an outdated curio from a time long gone. And the other is a Duran Duran song.

So this is my life story

Sat nav is an amazing creation of this century, it shows you where you are now and how to get to where you want to go. And if you have half a brain you will even know the difference between Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme and not end hundreds of miles astray, wandering around hopelessly and asking Black Country types why you can't see the Angel of the North. Amongst many things, my ex was completely anti sat nav. He much preferred the spiritual and geographical purity of having huge sheets of Ordnance Survey maps completely blocking out the front view of the windscreen and blazing rows about where we might be and which turn-off was the correct one. Another thing he despised was my music taste. At first he pretended to be into the bands I liked, but by the end he treated everything with disdain. Foremost in the pantheon of bands he hated were the mighty, mighty My Life Story (or 'My Wife's Tory' as he called them. Chortle. Not).

So, last night I did two, maybe three things, he would completely disapprove of. Firstly, I went to Manchester (a place he calls Scumchester). Secondly, I got there by using my sat nav. And finally, I went to an acoustic set played by Jake Shillingford of My Life Story. Now, I'd have to set up an entirely different blog to properly introduce you to the immense gorgeousness that is My Life Story but I know it won't succeed because the only people I've ever met who actually like them are my friends. You know who you are.

If my life story had sat nav the journey would go like this. In the late 1980s I took the route of being very shy and a total square who rarely left the house and had few friends. In the early 1990s I took a left and headed straight down A1 party girl territory. I was a bit of a glamour-puss and have lots of 'things I did when I was gorgeous' stories. In 1997 I bore right and met my ex and for a while the road was straight and fast to 'happy ever after'. In 2002 I got pregnant and I got stuck in the cul-de-sac of stay at home all the time, have no friends, be a bit square, whilst having a dreadful relationship. Then new year 2008 my life's sat nav recalculated and my ex took a right straight out of my life. At this point I set the sat nav for total new road and last night I arrived at one desired destination.

I got a cuddle from Jake Shillingford and I have photographic evidence that it happened on my Facebook. Wibble. Incoherency. Giggle. Woo-bloody-hoo. I made a bit of a twat of myself as I couldn't string lucid sentences together but he was very lovely and chatted regardless of my utter girly patheticness.

This post is dedicated to The Dedicated. We sparkle and shine. And we're the only ones who understand those words.

Happy returns

There are many ways in which to segment a lifespan: by careers, by rites of passage, by lovers, by hairstyles (both wise and, usually, unwise) but the simplest is by years. Tomorrow is my birthday and, unusually, I am about ten years younger than I was this time last year.

If I were clever enough to draw graphs I would be able to chart the gradual decline in my married fortunes by the manner in which my ex and I 'celebrated' my birthday. But I don't know how to do that.

1997 - a fantastic seventies cops themed party.

It was a cheap excuse to dress up as Charlie's Angels.

We scandalised the neighbourhood by having the party on the day Princess Diana was buried and the nation snuffled sadly. But we didn't. We dressed up in polyester and boogied.

2001 - my 30th. Huuuge party in Scarborough and a trip to Barcelona

2002 - I was pregnant so no drinking but we went to see a film

2005 - I was left at home to look after the kids whilst my ex went to football with his friends.

2007 - my birthday clashed with a home match again and I always lost. So went to the cinema with my best friend to watch 'Atonement' instead.

Hmmmmnnn. Do you see any decline in my fortunes? Unlike poor old Diana there weren't three people in my marriage towards the end, there were about 23. Me, my ex and the entirety of his football team. With me coming in at a paltry number 23.

So, what about this year? Well, I've had a bloody marvellous time. I went out on the town with my friends last night. We ate posh pizza. We drank cocktails with free Cobra chasers. My friends valiantly tried to get the Dj in an Indie club to play Duran Duran for me (they failed). A short Mancunian who looked like a bit like Ashley Peacock from 'Coronation Street' tried to chat me up (he also failed). I burnt chips at 4am. Today I recovered by eating Minstrels in front of 'Mamma Mia' whilst intermittently sniffling, singing and ogling Colin Firth. It rocked.

And I feel significantly younger than I did this time last year. I don't know about many happy returns, but I do know my happiness has returned.

We're doomed, all doomed.

As my well-educated readers know the average person has fewer than two legs and if you are blessed with two legs you are above average (if you take a mean of all people a small proportion will have no legs, or one leg, or a stumpy bit and then when you add them in with the majority who have two legs you end up with the average human having 1.73 legs or something). So, clearly statistics are nonsense. Therefore, whenever you read that 1 in 3 British marriages end in divorce you have to question the statistical validity of that statement.

I can give you some useful advice on how to have a happy, lifelong marriage. Don't live on my street. Ever. My little terrace of 6 houses spells doom for marriage.

In number 5 lives J___. Her husband scarpered with another woman in 1967 and she still bleats on about it. We try to avoid her. In fact, on bin night I have to pay extreme attention to the manoeuvring of my wheelie bin, rendering me completely incapable of making eye-contact. Oddly, a minute after she starts talking to me I can usually hear my son crying inside and I have to rush in to see him. Even if he's 2 miles away at his Dad's.

I live in number 2 and, very conventionally, I split up with my husband after 7 years of marriage. He was immensely itchy.

Number 1 is owned by a lovely young couple called M___ and J____. They got married the week before Christmas 2007 and she'd moved out by March 2008. A three month marriage? Anyone would think I lived next door to Britney Spears. Ironically, they bought the house from T____ and C_____ after their marriage split up after 17 years.

This week I was talking to my other next-door neighbour, P___ who is married to M___. They bought the house a couple of years ago in a practically derelict state and have been doing loads of work on it. During our little conversation she told me that she and her daughter were shortly to be moving out after 22 years of marriage.

Clearly, the young couple with the baby in number 6 need to relocate. Fast.

How the other half live

I spend a lot of my time dividing the population of the world into two groups. There is the group I belong to and then the group I don't. For instance, I am a member of the group who refuses resolutely to ever use text writing and indeed I tend to shudder whenever I see text writing. I belong to a minority group in this but I do feel that when a semi-colon is required in a text, it should be used. I also believe that there is a verb: 'to text', and that this verb has a past participle of 'texted' i.e. 'last night I texted her', instead of the grammatically reprehensible: 'last night I text her'. Another set of two groups is the pedantic camp and the non-pedants. I think it's clear which camp I belong to...

However, you can change camps, and become one of the other people. Clearly, this does not mean tht da blog is guna bcum fulla txtese lol, because I actually felt just a little bit sick when I wrote that. No, I used to belong to a group of people who felt that their life was all but over. I believed that my whole role was looking after my son, teaching the kids at school and trying to avoid confrontations with my ex. I was never truly happy and I was the only person I knew who dreaded the bell on Friday because that meant a potential weekend of hassle and being shouted at in the kitchen. But I'm not that person any more. I have changed sides and I am now a thoroughly happy person. I used to be a member of the group who said 'no' to everything and now I say 'yes' a lot more. In the past few days I have signed up to seeing some bands on school nights and going on a hen-weekend in Barcelona. And, for the first time since my son was born, I can tell my ex that he's looking after our son without fear of endless fallout and recriminations. I'll simply hand him a list of dates and tell him that he has to look after him on those nights. Simple.

This summer has also been spent living like the other half. I've spent virtually three weeks abroad in France and Portugal with my parents and son. I've not been guarded and quiet like I always was before because I don't have to try to 'protect' my parents from knowing how bad my marriage was (although, to be fair, they knew perfectly well). However, I really learnt how the other half live at my Mum's hairdressers. Whilst I was there having my hair changed from the Red Panda look (grey roots, black middles, ginger ends) to glossy Auburn pony the 'phone rang. The assistant said that they needed an appointment for Princess M_______ and I thought 'ooh, it's a bit rude to call a high maintenance customer 'princess' in front of the rest of the clients' but it turns out that Princess M_____ is indeed a bona fide European royal type and she does frequent that salon. There's another group to which I don't usually belong: women who go to royally approved salons. I don't think I have half a life any more.

Girls who like boys who like boys who like girls

Today I got to meet a really fascinating new person and spend a good few hours in their company. This person was a complete stranger and it was really odd, but rewarding, to make their acquaintance. And yes, it was a male. And no, this isn't a juicy post because this stranger is my son.

If you are expecting some sort of novelistic denouement where I tell you about a long lost child I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed, because I'm going to be writing about the son that I've brought up and spent nearly every day of his five-and-a-half years on this planet with. However, I've only ever seen him with friends that I have chosen for him, not with friends that he chose for himself. Today his best friend came over and I met a whole new son.

Think back to your childhood. Was there a friend that your Mum wanted you to play with (usually her friend's child) that you basically couldn't stand? They came over and you got sent off to play together, but it was more punishment than fun? Well, I'm afraid that my friend and I decided a long time ago that my son and her daughter were going to get married, for us it's a joke. For her daughter it is a deadly serious betrothal. Sadly for this little girl my son has decided that he doesn't want to play with girls and he has a best friend that he's going to marry. And it's a lad. This playground menage-a-trois led to the most heart-rending note, in her handwriting, waiting on our welcome mat when we got home:

To E I love uoy are my best frend love fron C

His answer? 'Mummy, what's this card for?'. Poor C.

So, today his real male best friend came over and I met a new son. This son is excessively boisterous, obsessed by Ben 10 (which I don't let him watch) and has the strongest Yorkshire accent you have ever heard. Doing nothing to disprove Freudian theories of phallocentricity they even kept pulling their shorts out to compare willies (even though I told them not to. Repeatedly). This son doesn't put his toys away and doesn't cuddle me. He rarely sucks his thumb and runs like the wind. He shouts and shouts and shouts until I am sick. He looks very like my son, but he's just a bit more savvy, and a real leader.

It reinforced that men and women are very different creatures. Even if I do find someone to start a relationship with there's always a chance that anything I do for them will be met with an (unspoken) 'what's this for?'

A straw poll: did your Mum attempt to foist a friend on you? What was the matter with them? You can post anonymously remember.

Regrowing the family tree

I am back from France having gained a fair few freckles and lost a couple of grammes due to my salad-centric diet there. One thing that struck me whilst there was the whole notion of family.

The Mediterraneans know how to do family. Walk down the side streets and you often see a cluster of grandparents and parents and children sat on chairs on the pavement having animated and interesting foreign conversations (probably: "what the hell are those red-faced, sweaty, rucksack-toting tossers doing taking a photo of this street?"). Children are prevalent abroad: they go to restaurants until the middle of the night, they play on streets, the 13 year old ones drive scooters right at you full pelt (protected only by their insouciance: helmets and, heck, t-shirts, are for losers).

The odd thing for me was being a single parent. Now, I'm not claiming that France has no single parents but I didn't notice any. Everywhere there were couples with babies or extended families. In the hotel there was very firmly a Mum and a Dad collecting the kid's Coco-pops. Why is this? Are there far fewer single families abroad or is it simply that single parents can't afford to travel? It is shockingly hard to cope financially as a single parent: you have all the expense but only a half of the income (or in my case a third as my ex earned twice what I do). Additionally, it is exceptionally tiring travelling as a single parent: theoretically you can't even go to the loo on your own - you have to have your kid with you 24-7 as there isn't another pair of eyes to watch them. I remember the outcry after Maddie McCann's abduction about the children being left on their own in the apartment: it doesn't bear thinking about.

But luckily for me I am becoming more Mediterranean in familial matters. Trees regrow branches when one has been cut off. My family tree has had one major branch lopped off rather dramatically when my son and I were left by my ex, but instead we are relying on the older boughs of our family tree and holidaying with my parents. This means I can afford to take my son to places significantly more interesting and stimulating than my back yard; and - and this is a great thing- I can actually go to the toilet on my own abroad.

We're regrowing our family tree.

No, I don't eat fish. Or chicken.

In choosing the perfect holiday destination you should take into account characteristics particular to yourself.

Firstly, I have special skin that comes in four modes:
Mode 1: white
Mode 2: scarlet (following the least exposure to sun)
Mode 3: freckly
Mode 4: peeling

Additionally, I am a vegetarian. A proper one. I do not eat anything that once had a face or a parent and I call any pseudo-vegetarians who ´just eat fish´fish-and-chipocrites.
So, taking into account my skin type and feeding foibles where is the ideal holiday destination for me? Clearly (a) an organic vegetable farm in Reykjavik or, (b) my house.

In fact, I am in southern France.

French waiters have a special Gallic shrug reserved for vegetarians. In one shoulder move they can convey their total amazement that the namby-pamby carrot bothering Britons could ever have won at Crecy or Agincourt and in revenge all I'm going to get fed is an omelette. Hah.
However, there's something great about the holiday. I may be eating salad like a C-list celebrity on course for a 'How I shed the baby weight' special in OK Magazine, I may be smothered in Factor Duffle coat sun-repellent cream. But I haven't had a single argument all holiday unlike the humdinger I had with my ex on the train to Krakow this time last year.

That's progress.

Doing it Yourself

In this world there are two sorts of people. The first decorate their house every year and take annual leave from work to achieve a new habitat all based around a leaf motif they saw in Good Housekeeping magazine. Then there's people like me. I buy quite nice houses and then let entropy take over to the point where it becomes a crap hole and I move somewhere else into a home one of the Other Type of people has done up. Simple.

This is not purely down to laziness. It is because I've never felt very confident about decorating so I've always felt it unwise to start with a half decent room and end up with rubble a few short hours afterwards. So I don't decorate. Or at least I didn't until this year. I always took my post-backlash feminism extremely seriously during my marriage and left all DIY type jobs to my ex. Only, sadly, he isn't the Good Housekeeping type either so it never got done.

Today, dear reader, has been a day of new starts. I painted my porch. This is not the simple task it sounds. My porch is huge and was constructed by Heath Robinson in the late 1970s of untoughened glass and putty. Wet rot had allowed holes to develop in the superstructure. It has been thoroughly gnawed by a rabbit.

In the past 12 hours I have toughened the wet rot with Ronseal sealant. I have filled the holes with putty. I have painted all the woodwork. Sadly, I am not an adept DIY-er as I get bored easily: I'd much rather slap putty and paint around than, you know, sand or prepare surfaces. The puttied areas look like one of those Christmas cakes that are iced roughly to resemble a well-skied mogul field. However, there are now no holes in my porch and I'm proud of myself for getting it all done in 12 hours, whilst also teaching my son to play tennis. I'm such a DIY queen that I'm sure Nick Knowles will be around to recruit me to help with his plumbing*. I wish.

So, just how much of an independent Doing it for Myself Amazon am I? Well, there's one thing I ought to admit. Whilst I was in the shower washing off several laminated layers of paint'n'putty the shower curtain frame detached itself from the wall and fell on my head. As I don't own a drill I had to get my ex round to put a new one up. But I told him to buy me a drill for my birthday on behalf of our son. So, maybe come September I will wholly be doing it for myself.



* Yes, I do recognise this was rude and unnecessary. But you don't know just how bad my Nick Knowles obsession is...

Do me a favour

In the interests of veracity and well-scrubbed-lacrosse-stick-toting-play-up-and-play-the-game-girls-fair play I ought to admit that my ex is currently doing me a number of favours. This is somewhat of a surprise as I was out of favour for about half a decade. Last week he brought me some fresh milk round after mine solidified on contact with hot coffee in an unpleasantly ploppy manner. On Saturday I realised that I had left something vital with him last time he looked after our son and that the absence of this chit of paper was going to cost me a small fortune. So I rang him. He didn't answer on any of the first five calls as his mobile is always on silent. Finally I reached him and explained my predicament. He had Important Business to attend to and could not drop the chit off. I pleaded and he agreed to meet me somewhere half way between where I am and where he was going to deliver said chit. This, in itself, is little short of miraculous because we rarely ever met in a half-way-between-where-I-am-and-half-way-to-where-he-was-going manner whilst married, neither in time nor space nor emotion. So, we met, I got the chit and off we both went with a smile and a wave. There was grace and there was a favour.

Thinking about this on the train to Manchester (whilst waiting forlornly for the free coffee to arrive. It didn't) I realised:
1. Whilst I was in favour at the beginning of the relationship he made me happy
2. He helped make our son and that's the greatest favour anyone could bestow
3. And, at the end, he did me a favour by leaving me with my son and the house; dignity a little tattered and heart thoroughly broken; but in a position where I can regroup and become the person who writes this blog.

He's done me a favour.

Feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic

I doubt you need a refresher on quantum mechanics, but here's one. Nils Bohr's quantum theory suggested that as matter behaves differently at the quantum level that we had to 'look' at the matter for it to behave as expected in our world. Hugh Everett III's many-world theory gets around the idea that it appears that at the quantum level matter behaves oddly (it exists in two places at once; freaky) and he suggested the many-worlds interpretation. Basically, Everett suggests that whenever we come to an important decision another parallel universe is created where the choice we chose not to take is followed. So, you go to Dorothy Perkins, remember your bank balance and don't buy the gorgeous frock. Everett would suggest in a parallel Universe another you buys the frock, goes out, parties and maybe ends up marrying the lead singer of a major 80s band such as Duran Duran. Bet you wish you'd bought the frock now, don't you?

So, somewhere in a parallel universe there is another me whose husband didn't leave at the beginning of February. Last night she would have eaten pasta & pesto alone in front of the TV and then snoozed on the sofa. At 2am she would have run up the stairs to bed at the sound of his key in the back door to avoid a fight. Meanwhile, her colleagues would be out celebrating the end of term.

But, I don't live in that Universe because my husband did leave. And so, last night was another milestone. I went to a staff do. This is a big deal (although not enough of a big deal to warrant random capitalisation). I had a blast and behaved fairly disgracefully. I admitted a wholly inappropriate crush to a colleague. I did bum-to-bum dancing whilst pouting with mates. My mini-me friend and I decided that even though there are 12 years between us we were going speed-dating whilst pretending to be sisters because that would make us hotter. For some reason my mate and I ordered about 7 taxis which never arrived so we commandeered a lift to town with a faculty leader's boyfriend. Who we've never met before. I snogged a completely random stranger who is about a decade younger than me in a club. I didn't get to bed before 4am. At one point a kid who I used to teach asked me if I was stoned (no, I wasn't) but I did suggest that the state I was in could be aptly summed up by these Oasis lyrics:

I need to be myself

I can't be no one else

I'm feeling supersonic

Give me gin and tonic

Actually, I didn't need any more gin and tonic because it appears that I was a major factor in the bar running out of gin. No, really. Anyway, I'm glad I live in my supersonic Universe and I feel really sorry for the alternative me in a parallel Universe who is probably having an argument with an alternative ex-husband right now. But, I have to say I'm quite jealous of the other alternative me who once picked a dress that I rejected and is now Mrs le Bon. Well? I can dream.

A game: please (anonymously, if you wish) tell me what an alternative version of you is doing in a parallel universe. This must be based on a decision you made and where the flip-side might have ended up. Go on, it'll be fun - and you can post anonymously!

This is my truth. Tell me yours.

As I was tucking my son in tonight he asked me what 'fiction' meant. As he's five I told him it meant stories that people make up that aren't true. However, this chimed with a number of thoughts I have been thinking that were crying out to be blogged. I have been questioning where fact ends and fiction starts.

My ex told me that an old friend of ours had contacted him for a chat. The reason this was done was that this old friend had seen me in my bitter early days following the split and couldn't believe what I had said about him was true. The person she'd always known and the person I described just didn't intersect. However, when I considered things more closely I did recognise that my ex was two people: the person I married and the person I split up with. She used to know the person I married and I would never have split up from him. However, the person I split up from was different and it's better that we are apart these days.

Then another old friend pointed out, in a lawyerly fashion, that my ex ought not to see this blog as it might prejudice any future divorce proceedings between us. I've had a re-read and whilst it's not particularly complimentary it doesn't outright libel him. I've said a lot worse to his face. Am I being unreasonable writing this? I don't think so and I'd like to think that maybe in a decade's time he could read it and grudgingly admit that all the things that attracted him to me are demonstrated on these pages. Or maybe not.

So, what is my truth these days? Well, I'm just so happy that I can't even explain it without drooping down to some trite simile. I'm confident, I'm my own person and I'm totally happy with myself. For a number of years I've been hidden away from the world because my marriage was so dire and my self-esteem was rock bottom. One friend recently told me that, until recently, I was the most lonely person she'd ever met: always home alone and often in tears from some marital spat. I would say that I can't imagine being like that any more but that's not true. I see it every day, in reflection, when my ex comes to collect our son. He's so lost and depressed and guilty about the split. I truly wish him well and wish that he could feel happy.

This is my truth. Tell me yours.

In loco parentis

If I were playing 'let's speak comedy Latin' then 'in loco parentis' would probably be translated as: push your Mother under the train. However, it really means 'to take the place of a parent'. This particular phrase is A Big Deal, in fact, enough of A Big Deal to warrant completely random capitalisation.

So, following this Latin refresher, your task is to write down what you understand by the phrase: 'married, with children'. Even those whose DNA pool is on the shallow side would recognise that those words will mean that the spouse in question will have:
(a) a husband or wife, and
(b) offspring, progeny, sprogs, kids, descendants or whatever other name you have for them...

Now my ex's new-girlfriend has a bit of an issue with (a). Despite the fact they went on holiday whilst he was still married to me she gets all funny about the word 'wife' and won't talk to him for a week if he uses it. The fact that he was married would be a rather large hint as to the existence of a wife, wouldn't you think?

It gets better though. This weekend my ex introduced her to his children. So how do you think she reacted? Of course, if you are deeply in love with a new partner you will do everything in your power to make that first meeting with their kids as wonderful as it can be. When I met my step-son for the first time we took him to the railway museum and had a great time with him. What did my ex's girlfriend do? Apparently, she sat in stony silence ignoring the children all evening and got stroppy about him showing affection to them. Oh brother.

So, rather than being in loco parentis, as she should be, she is in fact totally loco about going out with a parent.

Things taught to me by sixth formers

Last night I went to the Sixth form ball. This is what I have learnt from the experience:

1) Don't have any photos taken in profile. Not good.
2) Don't have any photos taken straight on. Worse.
3) Don't have photos taken with 18 year olds. You will look like something Hans Christian Andersson rejected from a witch fairytale as just too disturbing.
4) Don't drink lots of wine and gin and then hand your camera to sixth formers and ask them to take pictures of you together. There are some things about yourself you should never see should you wish to retain your sanity.
5) Everyone else in the world, except me, knows how to do a line dance thingummy dance to Whigfield's 'Saturday Night'. And that 'Cha-cha-step' nonsense. This makes me proud.
6) All DJs are tossers. Particularly bald ones from Garforth.
7) It's probably not dignified to emote through 'Time of my life' from Dirt Dancing if you want to retain any shred of dignity.
8) The idea of profiteroles is significantly more attractive than the reality of profiteroles.
9) Duran Duran are godlike genius. 'Girls on Film' attracted lots of dancers. Nice work.
10) Ignore any shite you hear about kids today. The ones I know are simply gorgeous. Particularly when stood next to women twice their age....

Rebarbative

During second year at University I was still under the misapprehension that I ought to do an English Literature degree. That year we studied the Romantic poets thus starting a lifelong dislike of Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'. However, the main recollection I have of Second Arts Eng Lit is how much I hated a bloke called Martin and a new word I learnt. Rebarbative.

Martin was one of the most reviled characters it is ever possible to meet on an undergrad course. He was a mature student. Who climbed mountains. For fun. He had the audacity to turn up at tutorials having done not only his reading but research too. Without a hangover. And on time. How rude. He had furry blue legs (some lame mountain outfit) and a beard. Ohh, how I hated the beard. It was like some highland rodent creature had smeared itself around his gob with the express intent of making his lips look horribly pink and wet. So, whilst idly flicking through the dictionary I found a word to define Martin:

rebarbative: /ri'ba:baetiv/ adj. literary repellent, unattractive [f rebarbatif - ive f. barbe beard]

Loud was the chortling when I discovered that 'repellent' could be a synonym for 'bearded'. It seemed to suit Martin extremely well, and a lifelong inability to fancy men with beards was born.

And I often think that girl is long gone. I don't read the dictionary for fun any more. I did a teacher training course where I was exactly the sort of know-it-all-look-I-got-all-As sort of mature student I loathed when I was an undergrad. I quite like mountains. I turn up for things early without a hangover. But certain parts of one's psyche NEVER alter.

My ex has taken the opportunity of being a free operator to express himself. And he has done this via the medium of ... a beard.

Rebarbative, indeed.