D-i-v-o-r-c-e

What do you usually find on the day you come back from holiday? For most people it's a pile of letters on the doormat and that you didn't remember to throw the milk out after all... For me, it is that my ex has had some change of heart and is about to drop a bombshell.

On New Year's Eve 2007 I was travelling back from holiday and at the service station at Donington on the M1 I rang my husband. He chose that point to tell me he was moving out. Move forward a few months and at the same sodding services I get a text asking me when I'd be home because he needed to talk to me urgently. Now this could have meant one of two things: (a) he wanted to get back together or, (b) he wanted a divorce. I know it sounds unlikely that I wasn't sure which it would be but he's that bloody mercurial that it could be either.

Anyway, I get home and he turns up late (he'd fallen ASLEEP at home. How ungallant). It turns out that he wants a divorce so he can 'move on'. I did question how much more moving on there was to be done considering he lived in a flat and had another girlfriend... Which is the problem. Apparently she's not happy that we're still married and whenever he mentions the 'W' word* (wombat? Wakefield? weaving? windscreen wipers?) she has a stropette and goes all silent for a week. So we need to get divorced.

Now I have absolutely NO problem with not being married to him but I do have a problem with getting divorced. Mainly that I object to spending over a grand on doing it. I spent £14,000 on a wedding for heaven's sake and that was FUN, a divorce is just a big waste of cash that could be better spent on clothes or shoes or nights out or holidays or .... well, anything apart from a decree nisi. So, I won't divorce him because I don't want to waste what little money I have and he can't divorce me because I haven't committed adultery (but I live in hope :-) ), my behaviour isn't unreasonable and I don't consent.

So, it looks like his new girlfriend is going to have to put up with me being wifey for a lot bloody longer. Oh dear.



*wife, apparently.

Things that make you go 'ah'

Blowing one's own trumpet and showing off is Not Done. But I got this card from my Year 13s and it made me cry it was so sweet. So, I'm going to reproduce the comments and be quietly proud of myself.

Thank you so much for everything: you have by far made law my favourite subject

No one could ever have come up with such ridiculous ways to help us remember about a zillion cases. Thank you for being brilliant ... and a little bit weird!

Dearest Mrs __, I am ever so grateful for your teaching in law, I enjoyed the classes enormously, your personality brightening even the most boring parts of law.

Thanks for being an amazing teacher. We love you!

Law would never have been so enjoyable without you as a teacher - God knows what I'm going to do at Uni! Thank you ever so much

Thank you soooo much for your help over the past two years, you're a lovely person and a hard teacher to follow

Thank you for EVERYTHING!! You have been a great teacher, they will never live up to you at Uni...

Thank you for being the most random, great teacher and for convincing me to do law.

I'm very proud to be random and a little bit weird if it can make sane human beings love studying law...

Two-faced, me?

Lots of things are proving to me that I'm two-faced. I don't mean that I spend my whole life air-kissing past people's cheeks one moment and then turning to slag off the size of their arse the next. No, I'm learning that I have two faces and they look in very different directions.

Most women have these two faces but I'm not sure that we are conscious of it. The first is the face our friends see. Women are most the person they are, deep down, when they're with their friends. The other face is the one the person we're in a relationship sees: it looks identical but it's very different. Because this face represents the person that we've become in THAT relationship. Sometimes women are almost the same person with their friends that they are with their partner, and I reckon these are the happiest couples. At the other extreme there are two entirely different faces because you have to change your expression dramatically to cope with the relationship you're in. I barely saw my friends with my ex as it was impossible to maintain these two masks at once. The scrutiny of publicity made it clear that what was on show wasn't a face, it was a facade.

Last night my real face was on show because old friends came over. Ironically two of my bridesmaids were at my house whilst my ex's best man was at his flat. I know what face my ex showed: it's always the same. Me? Well, there was no facade and a huge beam all over my face. I'm not in a relationship right now and you know what? I'm enjoying not being two-faced.

Enjoy the silence?

Right, imagine your job. What is the essential tool of your trade? (If Belle de Jour is reading this, which I know she's not, please don't answer. I grew up in Watford and I don't need to hear about foofs. Cheers).

I know what is vital to my job. It's my voice. And, rather unwisely, I have lost it. Since about 11am today I have gone through a gentle transition from:

Slightly raspy (hmmn, worrying warning sign)

V

Husky (a la Honor Blackman, or so I'd like to think)

V

Croaky (a la Kermit the frog)

v

Tuning in and out (a la 14 year old boys with hormone issues)

v

whispering (Bob Harris, obviously)

v

Nada, nowt, nothing at all.

The thing about lost voices is that you need to rest them and not do any talking whatsoever. Since my ex left this is now easy for me as after I put my son to bed at 7pm at night I know I won't speak again until he gets up at 7am (unless I talk to the TV - c'mon, I know you do too). At first this silence upset me. I am a chattery person and I found it wholly unnatural to spend hours in silence. But now I'm starting to get used to it, particularly as I have found my 'voice' on here. Too many of the words I used before my ex left were 'I'm sorry', usually for things he'd done but that I apologised for in a pre-emptive anti-strop strike.

These days I have restorative and recuperative evenings where my voice gets a rest. Tonight it's vital to give me my teaching tool back for the morrow. However, it's also good that I don't have to speak to defend, or explain, or deny. I'm starting to enjoy the silence.

Just one click

As it's Friday night my thoughts turn incorrigibly to my ex and what he's up to. He's at an artschmooze thingy with his new girlfriend. As I generally disliked his artist mates I'm not jealous of the event, just that he's there with his someone.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not heading down path into Sadsville, but it just feels a teensy bit unfair that he's seeing someone and I'm not. Of course, I spend all my weekends with a tall, exceedingly handsome, articulate and funny gentleman who's a big fan of eating out and loves to accompany me to the cinema. But he's only 5. And my son. Which doesn't really count.

What I'd like to do is click with somebody. Maybe not be in love and all that stuff which, frankly, is just too much like hard work, but just have someone to send silly texts to and flirt with. Or maybe email or Facebook. Heavens, I could even hit the Holy Grail of Facebooking and change my relationship status from'It's complicated' to 'in a relationship with'. Which leads me to my 'click' motif.

I'd really rather like to click with someone and there is somebody on Guardian Soulmates that I really quite like the look and sound of. He's a 75% match for me but I'm a 98% match for him (of course I am). But the problem is that I treat Soulmates rather like parties in my student days. I go, hang about for a bit, feel a bit out place, develop a crush and then walk off without saying a word. I then write anguished prose about it (in my student days in my diary. Nowadays? well, you're reading it!).

So to click would maybe just take one click. But do I dare?

How to make your friends influence people?

I just got a lovely Facebook email from a friend pointing out the existence of this website: http://www.mysinglefriend.com/. The idea is that friends nominate their single friends for the site. This is based on the sound advertising technique of word-of-mouth which is now known on the internet as Viral Advertising. I have to say that linking the concepts of dating and viruses makes me a little queasy... Anyhow, advertisers have long known that people trust people they know rather than random people on the telly. Therefore, if my friends tell potential dates I've got a GSOH, I'm attractive and that you get used to the smell after a while (the flies certainly did) the potential dater will be more trusting of my credentials.

The issue with all this is the potential semantic pitfalls my friends could fall into. If they use the wrong adjective all hell could break lose. A misplaced comma could be the difference between eternal love and a lifetime of pasta'n'sauce for one. I've been on Guardian Soulmates for a month being all picky about the unattractive men who've looked at my profile and quietly smug about the attractive ones. Over that time I created my 'Dating Site Dictionary' and I will now allow you into the linguistic mantraps the unwary dater/nominator may fall into:

'Loyal' - this means creepy and clingy. Avoid.
'Healthy Lifestyle' - this means steroid-munching-vein-popping half-wit. Avoid.
'Nice' - obviously didn't listen in English lessons when we told people to uses thesauruses (thesauri?). Avoid.
'Empathic' - did listen in English lessons when told to use a thesaurus. Hence a swot. Avoid.
'Creative' - made a thumb-pot in Y4 at primary school that his Mum pretended to really like and put on a shelf. Avoid.
'Vivacious' - a woman. Avoid. (Men are never described as vivacious, are they?)
'Tactile' - Sex-pest. Avoid.
'Funny' - this may actually mean funny/peculiar. With a weird tic. Avoid.
'Irreverent' - tells jokes about Polish people and stares at your tits. Avoid.
'Used to play guitar in a band' - once strummed a guitar at someone else's party. Is pretentious and a liar. Avoid.
'likes reading' - may own 'Bravo-Two-Zero'. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Now, my friends are all hyper-literate and super-adept with a semi-colon. Nearly all rely on their advanced powers of language-wrangling to earn a ciabatta crust. Therefore, I would trust my friends to influence people. The only problem is the Mr Right out there who needs to be influenced is the one who'd read the testimonial and mentally tag it 'Avoid'.


OK, here's today's game. If you know me or (even better) if you don't you can leave an anonymous comment suggesting what should be said about me on a dating website...

Falling flat on my face

Last night I wore heels for the first time in ten years and I spent some idle moments (of which I normally have none) wondering whether I was going to be able to steer them.

Brilliantly, I managed to fall flat on my face. Not wearing the heels but at 3.30pm on leaving school. I got my completely flat and totally sensible school shoes entangled in the hem of my trousers and fell over. Chin first. The graze on my chin is the only terrestrial thing visible to the scientists on the International Space station currently: it's that large and livid looking. It didn't bode well for heels + booze...

So, the old me would have had a cry and used it as a reason not to got to Year 11 prom. And the old me certainly wouldn't have worn the heels. The new me slathered industrial quantities of Touche Eclat on to my chin and tottered out in my gorgeous heels. At Y11 prom I had a fantastic time watching a load of 15 year olds be magnificent. The girls all looked 25 years old and like the next 63 members of the Sugababes. The boys looked like 12 year old children in tuxes. Bless. The excitement was palpable and they all screeched in such high-pitched voices that only dogs could hear what was being said. At 11pm it was all over and they headed for the afterparties (read snogging in shrubbery at their mates' houses. Or worse). I could have gone home, and the old me would have.

The new me shot home, changed into a little frock and headed for the town. Extremely drunkenly I had an 'unmarriage' ceremony in a bar where the wedding rings came off and went in my bag. Then we headed to a club so I could dance with tall men for the first time in a decade. Predictably, a man did come to dance with me but he was so tiny that he appeared to be a prototype for humanity (ah, this is a scale model of what mankind will look like, the real men will be twice this size).

So, last night I fell flat on my face. But do you know what? These days I'm brilliant at picking myself up.