Hello everyone, it’s been a while.

There are new hoots afoot in Claraland. I’m sure only people I know read this, so there’s little point in filling in the gaps with breakups, jobs and so on, but I will try.

I’ve been working with Baby R since July last year and MumBoss is now due to have Baby 2 on 11th March. I was shocked, and a little intimidated at the thought of working with new borns as it’s not something that had really appealed to me, I like the banter with older children. We discussed it and all being well with the birth, 22nd April will be my last day.

I already had a flight booked on 23rd April to go to New York for 10 days. It leaves first thing in the morning, so I’ll be at the airport less than 12 hours after finishing work - if I’d known I was going for longer than a holiday, I’d've given myself more breathing space! I quite like the idea of just carrying on as normal right up until I go, though. It’ll make it easier in some ways. Once the baby is born and things seem to have definitely settled, I will apply for a B2 visa to allow me to stay in the US for 6 months. At the end of that time, Brad and I assume we’ll know whether we like each other enough to try and find a permanent solution.

After that, I’ll return to the UK for a few weeks before heading off again to Tanzania. I’ve applied for a volunteer placement with International Volunteer HQ and will hear back from them by Wednesday, according to their website. That’s to tell me whether the placement has space available, and how to send them the deposit / registration fee. I know which organisation they use within Tanzania but decided to go through the IVHQ as I would like someone to give me advice if I have any problems or disagreements with the in country staff - I had a friend who volunteered and had a bad experience. SO, from here on I’m trying to raise funds to pay for flights, fees etc by selling stuff here.

Things are up and down besides that. I’m sad to be leaving my job, as Baby R is gorgeous and very bright & she’s just hitting that age where she starts making whole sentences and chattering away. I’ve wanted to travel more for years, though. The reason I chose childcare was to allow me to move around the world, and I’ve been in Shepherds Bush for 4 years. It’s really beginning to feel like I have to just get on and DO something, and well… look, I did. It doesn’t mean I’m not scared. I’m getting no younger - turning 30 a few days after I land in the States - and I feel as though I’m running out of time to fit everything in. Finding my feet after the break up was hard and is an ongoing process, even though it seems like it should be easy when I’ve found a new boyfriend. It’s not. There are “issues” quite besides the fact that we live on different sides of the Atlantic, but at least being in the same country will help us decide what stage we’re at and… so on.

I am aiming to have everything ready by Easter weekend: room packed & painted, visa in progress (it says it takes 10 working days on the US Embassy website, so I’ll apply as soon as possible), Volunteer Placement organised if not paid for in full…. today I bought a huge suitcase from TK Maxx. It’s black and it’s one of those ones as tall as your leg. I’d never take something that size on holiday, even when I went backpacking I got everything I needed into 2 rucksacks - the biggest one weighed 11kg. But I’m not travelling light this time, I’m travelling to stay in one place for 6 months, and so I won’t make do with a quick wash & a ponytail, I’ll hopefully develop something akin to a home life & will need knicknacks. You know. Those things you do actually use but are generally held to be pointless - a moneybox, hair straighteners…. I might just take more than 3 pairs of shoes, too…. and INSTRUMENTS.

I’m going to try and learn how to record my songs properly while I’m unemployed & Brad’s at school or work. I’ve been writing more than I ever have before and some of them I’m quite pleased about. I’m going to mess around with my MacBook once I’ve gotten it working or fixed or what have you, the iSight has stopped working. Blah. But yes. Music, sleeping in, Summer in the City… all that.

I didn’t get married.
I quit my job.
I am going to LA in 2 weeks, though will PROBABLY be coming back.
I’m then heading to Prague in August, predictably.

Life is strange, unexpected, comfusing, but I’ll roll with it. I have a new place - which I’m decorating pink (I’ve never been allowed a pink bedroom whilst living with any of my boyfriends) it’s inbetween Chiswick and Acton. I don’t know what you’d call the area, but it’s still W12…. and I was the one ranting that there is life outside W12!

My new job starts with an 18 month old girl the Monday after my last day - which is Thursday 16th. Angel Boy and Mama had a chat yesterday morning before I arrived which resulted in the most appaling behaviour from Angel Boy all day - looking me in the eye and overturning tables, screaming and yelling, spitting in his brother’s faces… empying the entire contents of the rubbish bin INTO THE TOILET… eventually he collapsed in bed at 5pm, had a 10 minute nap (from which I woke him - I was babysitting that night. NO WAY did I want his gorgeous little face appearing round the door every 15 minutes) and then sat in my lap crying, until one moment where he sat bolt upright, looked at me, his face crumpled and he threw his arms around my neck and howled. Well, that set me off, much to his surprise, but through the tears he would kiss my face and I was kissing the top of his head as I usually do… and oh, you’ve never seen such a tragic sight. They WARN you, you know. You’re aware it’s hard leaving children you’ve gotten close to. But it’s so so so hard. I don’t know how I’ll manage next week. Cuddly Middle Boy on the way home from school every day has been saying, “You’re a lovely Nanny, I don’t want you to leave…” but at least he has more recollection of switching Nannies in the past. Plus, their new childcarer has a DOG and works at their school, so she is a known quantity and …well. The Dog swings it, she’s cooler than I ever was already. Sensible Eldest…. is still stuck into reading. He’s so self controlled, I expect there might be a show of emotion… when I actually leave for the last time. Til then it’s business as usual for him.

…and then there’s the OTHER loss. Best not to dwell on that. We’re still friends. I’m heading round to help clean the old place today.

The band have been having drummer problems, after our first drummer hurt his back very badly, and then I broke up with our stand in drummer. We needed to find someone who’d be committed, and there’s a guy who’s interested but we’re seeing how things pan out. Being 2 hours late to the first rehearsal wasn’t particularly a good sign, but hey. We’re still being pursued by promoters and venues, which is nice. We do just need to get our shit together and figure out how we can play either acoustically (we did a half hour set at the Water Rats recently, which went well til we started messing about with drum machines. Experiment… failed!) or get this new guy up to scratch. It’d be nice to be playing again in September. I’ve got to edit down all the old live recordings so he has a reference for each of our songs, but he seems to be a “proper street innit like” lad who’s had different influences and plays unexpected rhythms on the songs - which is great! it’s actually very exciting hearing someone else’s take on our stuff, as we’re all coming from the same influences and so on - there are only so many Suede and Wilco songs you can rip off. So… this might be the missing ingredient that makes OUR insipid alt.country stand out a little. Oh yeah. We’ll totally be megastars by this time next year.

Hmmm. So… all in all, quite an upheaval this month. I’m getting through it.

My boss was sweetly concerned yesterday that I am “far too intelligent to be just a nanny” my whole life and that I could “obviously” do something with myself if I wanted to. Now, this is something that I’ve wondered about myself. Quite what I would be capable of if I put my mind to it. I consider myself reasonably bright, but definitely not top tier academic type intelligent. Leaving school at 16 and then deciding the college couldn’t teach me anything I couldn’t learn myself “on the job” (oh, and having the balls to go out there at 17 and stride up to people and offer to work for free also helped) means I have useful applicable knowledge of plenty of things, I lack a certain discipline in the way I approach them. Mind you, I’ve never found it a problem as I consider myself more artistic than logical - creations happen to me, through me, I’m not sure how much control I have over them. Drawing plans for a seahorse shaped clock in Design and Technology seemed like a waste of time when I could demonstrate how those shapes fit together… by cutting them out and sticking them together. Things like that seem so obvious. Did sculptors in Roman times make a mock up of their statues on a CAD program and indicate how and where they would start?

So, whether it was the glass of wine talking or what, I was a little bemused by her insistence that I come up with some kind of plan. I didn’t have a plan when I was 16 to get into DVD. The damned things hadn’t been invented! I just wanted to work as a sound engineer, and managed to blag enough experience through boyfriends and the novelty of being a teenager that when John was offered the chance to run his own DVD dept I wasn’t particularly intimidated by learning a new technology. We hired Martin to be our author, and I looked over his shoulder often enough that when he stormed out after 3 months, I’d picked up enough to make it work by myself. By the time I’d been in the industry for 10 months, I had been to conferences in California, Dublin and Amsterdam, worked at some big companies and was faced with the added pressure of being detested by the Production Manager to the point where my only survival tactic was to be so perfect at my job that I couldn’t be hauled up for it. They found something, anyway - but ho hum. She’s notorious. I’m still bitter, but it was good discipline - I learned to test and restest my projects til they passed quality control first time, every time. That meant I was mentioned by an old QC that I used to work with when her new company were looking for an Author. I’d been out of work for 9 months by then, bar a couple of freelance projects, and I stayed at that company 3 years until I decided that being in an office wasn’t fulfilling any more.

I often wonder how much my childhood experiences affect my work as a Nanny. I won’t lie to you (as Nessa says) I had a thoroughly miserable childhood. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel loved by my family… but I did often feel as though I were a disappointment - my weight, my awkwardness (I have learned social graces gradually. My inbuilt nature is STUBBORN. I have adapted to seeing other people’s points of view on the whole. It doesn’t matter though. They’re still never as RIGHT as I am). Being an obese child meant I was beaten up every day, and the school didn’t know what to do with it. I remember being asked, if I was the common factor, did I think I was doing anything that could cause people to beat me up? How about being a clear foot taller than the rest of my class, and weighing more than my mother… at 12? Oh, and being the goody two shoes that the teacher sent the other kids to when they needed help with their spellings. My mother was a school teacher, the other kids all grew up in broken homes on a council estate (I exaggerate, but we lived in a rough area. On the whole, it was council estate kids and parents who smoked weed all day. There were a few “nicer” families… but my mother wasn’t from the area and spoke with a home counties accent. Looking back, I find it hilarious that I was taunted for being “posh”, but I’m grateful that I can switch from my native accent to a neutral vaguely middle class RP with ease).

The main thing I wonder about passing on to the children I work with are anxieties about food. I’ve had an eating disorder or one type or another for as long as I can remember. You don’t get taken to keep fit classes and doctors when you’re under 10 and not have some hang ups. I got to the point that I was painfully thin, having no periods, spending 4 hours a day in the gym on one portion of steamed vegetables a day and… well. One day I sat down and thought, OK, you’re not fat any more. Being this thin is probably worse. You’d better get better… so I went to the doctors. Had some therapy. I don’t want to be crazy, and these days, although I have the odd wobble where I feel like I want to lose weight, I’ve noticed that dieting is actually a pretty weird way to go about it. Thankfully I seem to have found something that works for my body, and I’ve dropped 20lb since December without curbing my food intake at all - simply eating when I’m actually hungry. It seems obvious, but food can be used to mask so many other problems - people DO comfort eat. But why? Examining what the actual problem is makes more sense to me. That’s allowed me to NOT be preoccupied with food all the time. There’s more to life than what your next meal will be. I started taking an interest in that other stuff. Then I lost weight without even trying. Well, that tactic and Paul McKenna. No, really.
Anyway, so… the kids I work with, being boys and being slim and active, they don’t really have any issues with weight. Boys don’t exclude each other from games with no explanation, or a “we’re NOT YOUR FRIEND today”. Girls sow insecurities into each other at such a young age. I think working with Toddlergirl will be a challenge for me, but my modus operandi seems to be, shower them with love and affection, but don’t spoil them… I want to make sure I pay attention to the child themselves, and work WITH them to meet certain standards. When Cuddly Middle Boy didn’t get into the private school, he didn’t really dwell on it - he has a different set of skills, he seems happy enough. He’s staying at his school with all his friends, he’s not disappointed. That’s all you can EVER want for anyone - contentment. Boosting children’s self esteem seems to be a priority for childcarers everywhere at the moment - it’s getting the balance between empty praise and expectations that’s the key. Have high expectations by all means, but show the children how they’re meeting them, help when you can, listen to what their priorities are, too. Cuddly Middle didn’t really care about getting into that school, he’d rather draw pictures and play football. Sensible Eldest wants to do well academically. You work with each child’s strengths. Share their pride, but teach them consideration for others.
In this society, the emphasis placed on looks, especially for women, is great. Who you are as a person should count for more than how you look, in an ideal world, but natural selection and animal instinct means that good looking people will always receive preferential treatment. Mind you, if you shift your priorities slighty, if you listen to people enough to give them a sense of self, they’ll find what suits them in areas other than clothing. Find your “inner peace” or whatever you call it, and that’ll help you make choices that won’t destroy you through stress or whatever. If I can provide love, fair discipline, affection and attention to a child then hopefully they will grow up thinking of themselves as capable and worthy. Since I got to a point where I don’t *care* that people used to see me as ugly and judge me as worthless based on that, I’ve been able to make choices based on what I think it right for me, and hopefully, allowing children to feel content in themselves and have enough confidence to make the right choices FOR THEM, will help them grow into better balanced people than I was. Food is so not the issue. I have never been in the situation where I’ve worried about what children are eating - I’m a good cook these days. I give them healthy food, limit the rubbish, they’re fine. Where is the stress there? Unfortunately a lot of people don’t understand what their body needs, and the effect all that junk has on it. I admit to eating badly at times, usually because I ENJOY the odd treat or cut loose and drink waaaaay too much. But on the whole, eating healthily hasn’t been too much of a challenge. You just have to learn to cook for yourself, which is a dying art.

Also, self esteem has been a problem for me, while I was younger I was quite severely depressed and used to self harm. I see this as directly related to the same issues as food - punishing yourself for not being good enough. I feel as though that is a long way behind me, I was 16 and had a lot to cope with - being obese, the death of my father when I was 13, seeing my mother go through that stress. Our family had a lot of financial problems when I was tiny, too, which resulted in my father moving an hour and a half away from the rest of us during the week, and Mum having to contend with those stresses by herself, with the demanding job of running a house with two under-5s in it WHILE her critical and hostile mother in law lived round the corner! Of course she made mistakes, but on the whole, we had everything we needed while I was growing up, despite the whole family living on my Dad’s student grant.
I have learned better coping mechanisms these days. I am a pretty content person, even when I have failed relationships and job swapping to contend with. I thank whatever it was that gave me this strength, and hope I can, with a little consideration, help pass it on to a child in my care. As I’ve learned how to be happy with myself as an adult, I maybe have more insight than someone who grew up happily and trouble free. Maybe those people are the ones who won’t deal with stress well as an adult. People often comment on how calm and capable I seem. It surprises me, as I was quite a loose cannon when I was younger (stark raving bonkers, some would say). But I want to be calm and capable, and I usually get what I want!

Anyway this is a very strange post. Maybe I shouldn’t write when I’m just awake, maybe I shouldn’t feel the need to explain myself, but life has been changing, changing, changing, and I try to make sense of it. My boss worried that I didn’t have a plan, that I wasn’t going to be able to provide for myself when I was older. I think I have enough going for me that I’ll find something to make me happy whatever I end up doing. Working in an office wasn’t making me happy. I know I have limitations when it comes to dealing with other people sometimes…. so you know what? Being autonomous while in charge of little people who are, in my experience, much more reasonable in their innocence than grown ups, seems to suit me! I love what I do. I know I won’t be a nanny for the rest of my life - or do I? I haven’t had the urge to do anything different in the past 3 years. So maybe I will be. All I know is that if I get to the point where I’m not enjoying it, there will be another avenue to pursue, and I’ll probably do OK. I don’t worry about my future. I don’t have a career trajectory to maintain. I have time to make music, tweet recipes on my iPhone (anyone want to give me a book deal and a huge advance?) and hang out with friends, and that’s really all I am after. I’d rather be content than outwardly, visibly successful. I only want the same for my charges. I hope it works.

So, it’s my birthday

A bit of a strange one this year, it snuck up on me as I’ve had other things on my mind.

To recap - I went to Bristol with Tim while my nanny family were on holiday. I took loads of photos which can be found on Facebook, if you’re my friend there. We visited some castles, a stone circle or 3, had dinner with Aled and Anna, stalked all of Tim’s Bristolian acquaintances *quite* by accident… failed to buy anything from the exciting haberdasher, nearly got hit in the side while I was driving (I really should learn to stop at junctions) walked through Cheddar Gorge, bought Mead and Cider, drank lots of beer, fretted about the junkies outside our apartment.

I went to New York for Easter… which was just lovely on so many levels.

I have been about poor Angel Boy finding it hard to adjust to having me back when he’s spent 10 days on holiday with Mummy and Daddy. He wasn’t a happy boy, and being off school didn’t help - I’ve noticed this last week he’s been back, he’s more cheerful. He needed the routine to make things better. He’s still adorable, and I’ve been bonding with Sensible Eldest over Terry Pratchett books and accordion jams. He watched my fingers, listened to a song I’ve been working on, then played the damned thing right back to me, singing and all. We have a talent on our hands here! Cuddly Middle has been a little quieter than normal, absolutely obsessed with dogs lately.

THE BAND! is a whole different post. Excting things. Big Venues. Challenges! Opportunities!
http://www.openplanrecords.com/store

The band has really come together over the past month. Since I met Martyn we’ve been playing his songs acoustically, with us taking turns, or singing in sweet sweet harmony. However, there’s something missing as some of the songs don’t even seem to need bass in their stripped down version. He met Wez through work who was keen to come and play with us for a while. And then…..

Where to start? Ok. Since the acoustic gigs were going…. reasonably well, but with something missing, we decided to get another guitarist. We advertised on Gumtree and put a link to our myspace. Encountered a couple of strange people and two promising ones - a lad who I got on really well with (crawling home at 2am having been kicked out of Wetherspoons when all the lights were put on and the staff were sweeping round our feet!) and Lisa, who was full of cold, bless her, and who I thought seemed a bit shy. We arranged jam nights with both of them and although I’d presumed the lad would be able to walk in and play over the top of our stuff he was pretty cautious. We had our first rehearsal with Wez on drums, ran through the songs once and then Lisa joined us - she’d written parts and just sat down and played them off the bat. Within 8 bars, Martyn and I just looked at each other and knew - they fit perfectly, her guitar (a gold gibson) sounded lovely……………… and thankfully she was up for it too! From zero to band in 2 hours.

Jump back a couple of months, Claire and Martyn are playing the Good Ship in Kilburn at one of their acoustic nights. I’ve stayed on drinking and flirting and making a nuisance of myself and wound up at the bus stop for the no.31 way after said route has ceased it’s daily trundle through North West London. There’s a cab firm next to the bus stop and I ask how much to Shepherds Bush. A fellow would-be bus passenger is also going to Shepherds Bush and we share - turns out she works at the venue a few doors up and we chat about music, I was tipsily enthusiastic about our music. A couple of days later she looked me up on myspace… a couple of months later she’s landed her own night at the Half Moon in Putney…. and invited us to play. So, we’re booked in for the 24th of March.

Back to the studio. 3 weeks to go til our first gig, and we manage 7 rehearsals including the first jam session. I’m amazed at how well it’s come together, we’re playing different songs, we’re playing fast, we’re jumping up and down, we’re still playing soft harmony led songs but now we are able to rock out a bit too. Lisa grew up listening to Radiohead and Suede… and her guitar playing rocks my world. Martyn’s getting rhythms we only dreamed of before - drumming helps. Wez’s drumming is creative and sympathetic and just a bit more upbeat than anything I imagined - a new level! It’s just so weird to think that we’ve gone from a slightly shakey start to what sounds to me like a REAL band in just a couple of weeks…

We were put down as Headliners for our first ever gig but as it’s going to be nerve wracking, and as it’s Martyn’s birthday celebration and we want to be able to drink, we managed to swap to first. We’ll be on at 8pm which doesn’t give us enough time to get nervous particularly and then we can kick back afterwards. If this goes well, hopefully word will spread. We are going to record the show so we have something worth sending to people as the minidisc recorder we’ve been using in the studio doesn’t really work (Tim leant it to someone, it’s come back bashed and keeps turning itself off…). Then we’re doing the Good Ship again a week after, and then I guess we’ll concentrate on sending out demos and working on new songs. It’s thrilling. It really is so cool. Being in a reasonably successful band has been on my “to do” list for years now and I don’t see why we can’t actually do well. I would go see us. I have always had a feeling that I’m blessed in some way - for example, I get fired from a particularly stressful job where I hate the people and they seem to feel the same way… the next morning my grandmother died. Horrible time, but gave me a little money and breathing space, it was as effective as being signed off work with stress. I followed Radiohead on tour instead of looking for work and had a fantastic time. Or, I get work in a DVD company my ex started for 4 months, decide it’s time to strike out on my own and get offered all 3 jobs that I go for. Or, I walk into a bar in Kilburn, stick some music on the jukebox and the barman offers me free credits if I stay - we get chatting and he’s a promoter for a venue, who I’m to drop a CD round to when we have something. Things just fall in my lap, it feels, and I’m very grateful.

Let’s see how Tuesday goes before I get all excitable. We might suck. But I’m excited. I don’t think we will…..

I read a blog by a lady called Lori in America, she lives in a neighbourhood with a few problems. At the moment they’re trying to get a part of the local park cleaned up. There are lots of homeless people who congregate there, no families with children will go there because people are drinking, taking drugs and being generally unsavoury there. Broken glass, urine, etc etc. We all know an area like that, right?

Thankfully London has a lot of nice parks, but there are areas where you wouldn’t want to go. In Newcastle, I used to live in one - Cruddas Park. (No evidence of an ACTUAL park…)

I’m sure I’ve told the story about the weekend a bad batch of heroin was being sold and 3 addicts in a tower block opposite died and every time I looked out of the window I saw another ambulance carting off a corpse. Or… although we had porters in the ground floor to check who came and went, it didn’t stop the alcoholic punk pinning me in the lift one day trying to touch me and telling me exactly what he wanted to do to me. Or, the schizophrenic guy on the end of my corridor sitting outside his flat night after night yelling down the hall at 1am.

I was 18 when I lived there - I’d been thrown out of a house by the landlord, had a day’s notice and nowhere else to go. I was given a flat on the spot, admittedly I was a teenage girl, classed as vulnerable, and taking advantage of the many many mental health services that’d been offered to me to help get life back on track… It could’ve gone wrong for me, and I could’ve wound up in all sorts of trouble. But I didn’t. I was living in a reasonably secure flat in the block - not the most savoury of areas, but once I got inside my apartment, I had a cooker, a little furniture, and I was living on benefits, the equivalent of Welfare, to the tune of £40 a week. Out of that I paid my electricity bills, did food shopping, and resisted the urge to use the credit card my thoughtful bank had provided me with.

(Interesting that while I was living on the bare minimum income, with no past history of credit I had no trouble getting a credit card, but now as a solvent never-been-in-debt young adult earning good money, I get turned down for an application. I wonder who they’d make more off in interest payments?)

Anyway. People have made sarcastic comments on Lori’s blog. Also, If only they had homes, they wouldn’t resort to hanging out in the park. Well, when I lived up there, there was a churchyard near Central Station that always had a large group of people hanging out there, drinking cider by the 2 litre bottle, shouting abuse at people, peeing up against the wall, etc etc. Time after time I would see the same people hanging around, no sleeping bags, no possessions with them, so even if they have a place in a hostel it means they have a roof over their head. They have SOMEWHERE to go. But they choose to go and cause a nuisance of themselves. Yes it’s sad and some obviously have mental health problems. But there was me dutifully tripping up to the hospital three times a week trying not to let mine get the better of me. The services are available, and free.

One day I was approached by a woman who I recognised as a regular hanger-outter. She asked me for money and I apologised and said I had none spare. Bearing in mind, even if she’s in a hostel she’s probably claiming benefits and is over 21, so on a higher rate than me.
“You fat cow, stupid bitch, look at the size of you, you’ve probably had more to eat today than I’ve had all week…” she said. It’s stayed with me all these years. I was slightly amazed that she could afford all that vodka and cider, but not food. If you’re hungry, try buying food once in a while instead of £8 bottles of Vodka. I get a lot of food for £8. It’s about all I have to spend on food each week, ACTUALLY.

The guy in Hammersmith who’s always asking for 30p? It’s not for a cup of tea. 30p is the minimum bet you’re allowed to place in the Betting Shop Tim sees him running into when someone gives him money. Tim’s worked in Hammersmith for 10 years and sees it happen regularly.

I know it’s sad, and I know we should all be a bit more charitable towards our fellow man, but call my cynical, my sympathy only goes so far. I played the game, I got my crappy flat, worked hard at therapy and eventually found a job, scraped a living on low wages (a bit more than benefit payments, but HEY I did have to work a 40 hour week… who wants to work a 40 hour week when you can sit on your arse drinking cider?) and these days I think I’m seen as pretty successful. I have a nice apartment. I’ve got a good job and get paid good money. I have creative hobbies, buy myself guitars and books. But things could’ve turned out so differently, and I know they do for a lot of people. I don’t know why. I just know they don’t HAVE to. So part of me finds it hard not to be cynical. I don’t give money to beggars.

www.shelter.org.uk
www.addaction.org.uk
www.mind.org.uk

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TIM DON’T LOOK! DRESS!

What a strange weekend, and to think! it’s not over yet.

I’m glad I do things like this while I’m still young and when I have kids and am 40, I can look back and go, “Well, I had loads of fun in my youth.”

It started off with a band practise on Thursday night where we got to grips with moving choruses and verses around between us, and shortened a song that was dragging a bit when we played it live before. It’s called “House Raid” and is on our Myspace page in it’s old incarnation. As it was written as a dialogue between a girl and her lover who was going to fight in a war, we’ve split the verses - I sing the first and third, Martyn sings the second and we’ve removed the chorus in between verses 2 and 3. It feels incredibly short now but I think it will work better, we’re playing in last in tonight’s set.

Lucy arrived and bedded down on our filthy floor, and then Friday we met up with a gang of people and went off to Sketch, which has possibly the most surreal toilets I’ve ever seen… it’s like being in Mork and Mindy, on LSD:

Started off in the cornish pub having pasties and pints, then split into couples. I went and put makeup and stuff on with the lovely K, swapped clothes and tried on earring and necklace combinations, discussed the merits of a certain Maybelline mascara which only comes off with it’s own remover. I still have plastic dolly lashes now, two days later. I don’t know what to do! But it looked pretty cool on Friday night, let me tell you.

Met up with the rest of the cult gang just off Oxford Street in a pub which had very few chairs, and the ones that were there were only available to women who fluttered their eyelashes and asked, “You’re not using that, are you?” in the most winsome of ways. Headed over to Sketch and was pleasantly surprised to discover I’d gone through the looking glass and into a world where the walls rotate in front of your eyes, people scream “NATASHA! DARLING! COME IN HERE NOW AND BE FABULOUS!” at each other, Swedish journalism students offer to take you to even more expensive and ludicrously poseur bars and Gareth Gates stands next to you at the bar, horrified that the record label launch night he’s at is not in fact populated by other C list pop puppets but, in fact, fabulous fake French Chanteuses (she was great!), atonal string quartets and members of the audience clambering on stage to pretend they’re the headline act who didn’t show up while his songs were played in the background. I overheard him saying, in a cut glass accent: “Juliette! DARLING! Let’s get out of here… A. S. A. P.”

The stutter’s cleared up, then.

I could not drag myself away from the toilets, to be honest, and kept returning just to run between the egg pods and pretend I was in a Goldfrapp video or something. I think I only peed in there once, but must’ve spent a good 45 minutes up on that level. Walking through the restaurant made me feel slightly sorry for the diners, but they’re probably all anorexic PR girls and photograpers assistants being shagged silly by their bosses, or soemthing, so the food part of the night isn’t what they’re there for.

Back in the front bar where it was incredibly hot, the drinks were astronomically expensive but the bar staff let you play with the huge belfast sink at the end of the counter to pour yourself more water…. everyone was stalking the label boss but he was being quite chatty and debonair with it. Marion and I had leg wrestling contests (she won), the DJ began spinning some cool reggae/ska skanking music (shake that booty!) and James, Prav, Marcel and Gabi left. We continued for a short while but swiftly began to realise that we were way too drunk and confused to stay out much longer. We headed back up Oxford Street, put K in a cab and Lucy & I caught the infamous N207 home (obvioulsy we’re not in Gareth Gates’ league or we’d've had a driver, but I like to think the atmosphere on the night bus is incomparable). Lots of Love, although Lucy started talking about Gavin and Stacey which always makes me cry because of the last episode of series 1 where she gets a letter her Dad’s written her for her wedding day before he died. So I was crying, Lucy was asleep on my shoulder, and we made just THE PERFECT pair of pissed quasi lesbians you’re ever likely to see. THAT’S what London’s all about, baby. This is the W12 version of Swingers, right here.

So. Waking up wasn’t as traumatic as it should’ve been, thankfully the hugely inflated cocktail prices meant that I’d stopped drinking once I reached the bar and switched to water, scarfed 2 veggie burgers when I got home and was pleasantly surprised to find that I still had all my motor skills and also, still had home made bread with which to make Edam and Red Onion Toasties (yes, it deserves Capitals), and a Brown Betty just waiting to be filled with deicious, restorative, hot hot tea. Borough Market beckoned for EVEN MORE restorative grease healthy food, so we shuffled onto the tube and met up with the crowd once more. Within two minutes we’d lost Prav, James and Marcel in the throng, but found them an hour or so later in a fantastic pub called The Rake, which is the sister bar to Utobeer, which has the widest selection of beers I’ve encountered in London. I’m not going to say it IS the best beer seller, but it’s certainly the only one I would go to if I was after some obscure American/Belgian/Carribbean/Welsh beer. I drank Kriek. I was weird to poor K, who went home to sleep it off and met a guy then slept some more, from what I can tell. I almost got Lewis in trouble at work cos of drunk. But hey.

Back home, I cleaned my flat’s front room - hoovered, polished tables, shoved wires and important letters into wire cupboards and important letter folders (yes, we have both!) and then started roasting the veg I bought from Shepherds Bush Market for a fraction of the price a Butternut Squash would’ve cost me in Borough. I made a vegan meal - even omitting honey from the tagine and replacing it with soft brown sugar to good effect. Tim thought it was too sweet, but the tomatoes and cinnamon need something, otherwise it’s just a REALLY strange flavour, and the sweetness makes the tomatoes richer, the cinnamon calmer, and the chilli warmer. Cous Cous, pink champagne, cheap rose wine that was ACTUALLY REALLY NICE! and a jam session with the brilliant Johnny from the 70s… ended up with me agreeing to play a solo gig at the Boogaloo this month, no, next month, no, wait, let’s check when we’re sober that there’s actually a slot free on the March bill as the lady who organises it is drunk texting too. But anyway, that should be fun, as we ran through my songs Romeo and The Night Bus Song, I think we can cobble together another 2 between then and now, we’ll probably only need a couple of rehearsals. Oh, how i’m looking forward to that Nervous? I will be.

This morning, I am still happy that my flat looks cleaner than it has in ages, Julia’s told me there is lots of slutty lingerie on sale in Hammersmith, Lucy’s coming up to the Megalith Mall so I’m going to throw some clothes on and meet Martyn for a rehearsal in a couple of hours. I still have to decide what to wear tonight, but I have the gold shoes for my wedding, a nice gold sequinned belt and a little gold sequinned fascinator that I could team up with my little black woolen dress… K gave me a wonderful pheasant fascinator too, so I guess they’re now officially my “thing”! How fun. I might do my eye make up like I did in Belgium now I’ve found a brand of eyeliner that doesn’t go flaky or peel off when you paint big goth cat eyes on yourself. I have the gold glitter to go on over that as well… so all in all I’m looking forward to one more night of weekend before I go back to my other persona and wipe bottoms and be calm and responsible and sweet to small people.

So, my day began earlier than expected as I got an SMS from my boss at 9.30pm last night asking if I could start at 7.30am this morning. A lot of Nannies work 7am - 7pm so I know I’m fortunate to have a job that has reasonable hours, but it still was a challenge to drag myself out of bed this morning, especially after the discovery of Guinness Red at the local Irish Pub - the only place locally to watch football matches. Sadly, as it was Australia day the place seemed to be filled with arseholes stereotypes in flags and fancy dress, yelling obsceneties at each other and going outside every now and then to throw up. Still, even though I was the least Brazen Sheila in there, I managed to get some attention (”Aah Jeeeezus! Oi LOOOOVE that dress!”)- nice to know even drunken Ulster boys appreciate a bit of retro kitsch :

…and to think I was “competing” with hotpant and bikini clad antipodeans (Do they realise that in this country, December is winter?). There’s no accounting for taste.

So, once MumBoss and DadBoss had left this morning, I ran around like a headless chicken trying to cover everything in the kitchen with old sheets and curtains and whatever else came to hand. The boys did me really proud by getting themselves dressed and ready, Cuddly Middle even helped Angel Boy choose appropriately warm shirts. I dropped them both at school and went round the house tidying up after the weekend. They’d had a really busy one by the look of things - adult clothes adandoned in the hall, kitchen utensils hidden under the sofa… I managed to get everything straight and neat before I had to collect Little’un. I decided that rather than try and make a sandwich in a centimetre of brick dust, we would head over to the huge park near Sensible Eldest’s school and visit a cafe I know nearby which has a whole room downstairs full of toys, low squishy sofas, organic roasted vegetable pizza… and so on! We spent an hour or so there, in the warm, in the CLEAN, having a lovely lunch and feeling not a jot guilty about the expense as I’d chanced upon a lost £5 note in the tube station. I feel bad when I find money, because someone’s lost it, but at the same time…. YAY.

From there we took a stroll in the pushchair to allow Angel Boy’s lunch to settle properly and, said Hi to Tim in his shop. The ongoing car saga was discussed (It is being towed to a garage tomorrow for unknown repairs and an MOT… fingers crossed) and Angel Boy was quite impressed by the iPhone’s “The Force Unleashed” app which uses the motion senser to provide light sabre sound effects when you swish it from side to side. Angel Boy talks about Tim a LOT when we’re alone, asks questions, tells me this, that and the other… but goes quite shy when faced with the man himself.

To the park afterwards, and a good hour in the climbing frame, Angel Boy insisting I take a turn on the zip-line slide and then cackling madly when I reached the middle and stopped. Those things used to be my FAVOURITE playground equipment EVER when I was growing up, so I was happy to oblige. We did some monkey bars, and got followed around by a little girl who seemed to be convinced that whatever Angel Boy was using had to be THE piece of equipment to use… it was quite funny, watching him dash from see-saw to slide to swing with her pounding after him breathlessly.

Collecting Sensible Eldest was a breeze, as Cuddly Middle was on a playdate with a friend. Angel Boy was beginning to show signs of tiredness and began whining and crying… I gave him a cuddle on the way home and put him to relax in front of the TV. He’s supposed to get 30 mins TV per day after dinner, but frankly if he’d stayed mobile and curious for that “I’m just putting dinner on” time, he would’ve gone into meltdown. I know MumBoss likes reading stories to him instead of letting him watch TV, so I’m sure they had a fine evening anyway as by the time she arrived home I’d liberated the kitchen from dust-sheet hell, wiped down all the surfaces, cooked some pasta with sauteed veg and parmesan, checked one page of Sensible Eldest’s homework and seen him progress with more, gotten Angel Boy into the bath and… failed to find the switch for the fuse that had blown, leaving the downstairs in complete darkness! Oh well. Can’t be Super Nanny every time.

I finally got Tim his long awaited Christmas/Engagement present:

He is one happy bunny. I am tempted to get one myself, but I’m paying £25 a month for a BLECH service from 3 and I’m tied into a contract until May. I didn’t receive any text messages over New Year - even though I was sending them, the replies all arrived at once on the 2nd Jan. They were really unapologetic about it when I called them - “Sorry Madam but that’s just mobile networks for you. All mobile networks are subject to disruption at busy times…” - Yes, but THREE DAYS? I missed out on meeting an old friend as I didn’t get the message saying which pub he was in. I had to work on good, old fashioned, “being where you said you would be at 4pm” style social life organisation. I could still make calls, of course, but no one thinks to call someone when we all send text messages as par for the course these days.

So, my options are:

[o] Reduce my monthly fee to the minimum tarriff (£9 a month) and use the iPhone with a different number, increasing my overall monthly spend by £20

[o] Buy myself out of my contract for £90, which works out even more expensive than paying £9 a month so isn’t really practical

[o] Put up and shut up

I don’t need an iPhone THAT much. The only thing I’ll ever use it for is checking facebook while I’m at work, and letting the boys use the Lightsabre app - which is just begging for another broken screen.

This weekend we’d planned on going to Brighton but did our usual “Oops this is WAY too late for normal people to still be in bed” routine and didn’t go. The car is still broken and Tim spent a fair chunk of time messing with wires under the bonnet. Now the battery’s flat. There’s no guarantee that when it does start up, the fuse won’t just blow again… so I guess we’ll wait and see. I think he’s going to get it towed to a garage for an MOT on Monday morning, and get them to repair anything that needs to be done. So hopefully I’ll be able to drive next week, just in time for my next lesson on 31st. I might cancel that and put it back by a week, so I have some time to get to grips with driving again… practising, practising, so that the foot actions become second nature and so on. It feels like a waste to be given so much information before I’ve processed the basics.

We ended up eating at Julia and Johnny’s flat on Friday night, and me who’d sworn off drink downing G&T’s most of the evening. I didn’t feel hungover at all the next day so maybe I didn’t drink as much as Tim made out. Saturday night we went to Dunc & Vicki’s for dinner as we’d not made it as far as the south coast. I think I only had one full glass of wine spread over little top ups throughout the meal, which was a relief. We were all tired by 11pm and Tim and I staggered home in the cold.

Today I think we’re heading to Spitalfields for a mooch around. Another friend of ours runs the Vegan Raw Food Bus thingy, but he’s working til 6 so can’t come and watch the Liverpool match (against Everton - it’s the derby! Should make for a warm, relaxed atmosphere in the pub later… /sarcasm)

Back to work tomorrow. Nothing much of interest has been going on but a normal, sociable weekend had by all. London’s a nice place to live if you have a network of friends in postcodes nearby. It’s just so expensive, but having dinner parties does seem to be the way forward! We’re all so old these days we just want to stay in the warm anyway.

I’ve not been listening to the weight loss hypnosis CD thing for a while (until this morning!) but still seem to not be gaining any weight. Hopefully I can rack it up and get back on track as far as losing is concerned. I find myself grabbing a salad for lunch at work instead of two thick sandwiches, though I have rediscovered the Breville at home. I bought some Edam cheese on a whim a few days ago and it’s THE PERFECT cheese for toasted sandwiches - I challenge anyone to say otherwise. A load of Edam and some red onion, slap it in the Breville and it’s brilliant. I’ve got some Mozarella too and intend to buy some sun dried tomatoes. It has HAS HAS to be square white bread as well, Sun-Blest or Kingsmill if you’re feeling a bit posh. That toasted sandwich maker was a present from Nettie, who this year got me a Dustbuster. She is always puzzled by my answers when she asks what I’d like for Christmas (”Er… *laugh* OH - KAAAAAY”) but honestly? I use these things all the time and it’s great to be given them as gifts as they’re useful and save me the outlay, or save me making do without them when I think I can’t really justify spending XXX on a Dustbuster when I already have a broom and a dustpan. The toasted sandwich machine came into work with me in Soho and we had phases where we’d all eat toasties for lunch or afternoon tea… back in the days where we had our own little office and got away with murder. It has been a trusty companion.

I don’t think having a toasted cheese sandwich will be a problem, as this “diet” works completely differently to everything else. Somehow, the self hypnosis CD gets in your head and you really don’t feel like eating unless you’re genuinely hungry. Then you chew slowly, and stop before you’re full - I’ve found myself feeling full and though I still feel compelled to finish everything if I’m at home and have made it myself (I can’t stand the waste) I’m taking much much smaller portions, my whole appetite and portion sizing has changed. I’m not so bad on leaving things in restaurants as they usually serve you huge portions anyway and I don’t feel as though I can eat them all. I’m hoping that within 5 months the extra 10lb will disappear, as I have crept down another 2 in the past fortnight. Not even trying! Drinking so much in Brussels! It’s a bit eerie. You wonder what else he’s put in your head…

Still, that size 12 wedding dress is looking like it won’t have to be altered after all. That would be super cool. I will have to start doing little weight exercises for my arms though, 70lb worth of loose skin is not a flattering look whatever dress size I am. I need to tone up. I think I’ll probably go back to the gym next week…. we’ll see.

Ok, so that time, I WAS quoting random radiohead lyrics. I should probably scan through old entries to make sure I haven’t already used that as a post title, but… I fear the answer.

I’m so predictable.

Band practise tonight. I was really hard on Martyn and made him watch my swinging metronomic headstock and play in time. I was like your evil conductor stopping everyone and yelling “NO! NO! NO!”. Only a little less harsh, I hope. Only marginally, though… it just gets so frustrating playing with no rhythm. Hopefully, when the new drummer joins it will tie everything together. It’s just little things that get very very frustrating, like slowing down when there’s a chord change, or me playing an intro and him coming in at a different speed… I need to work on cutting a chorus out of a song he’s written as otherwise it’s just too, too long. We got some demo songs recorded in the roughest roughest form though, which he’s giving to the drummer. Now I have the acoustic bass it’s easier to get the main songs recorded. Up til now, all we’ve had on myspace are the sparse songs or my own songs where I play alone.

You can find it here, until I can be bothered to install the media player on Wordpress.

We also took a cute picture that I’ve put as our default picture. We barely have any of us together.

I’m exhausted today! It’s been a long week but ended on a high and a low.

The high was going on a playdate with the two youngest while the eldest was on a playdate with someone his age. The Mum and I had a good chat and the boys were angelic, had a really good time, and played nicely for hours!

The low…. well. There are school issues, Cuddly Middle isn’t going to be going to the same school as Eldest.

I’m off to Brighton this weekend with my lovely fiance. After last week’s Brussels shenanigans I need a nice long lie in and some bracing sea air to wear me out and make me sleep soundly. Will be good. I hope I finally get to visit the Royal Pavilion.
It’s 50%50 whether the car will work, though. We’ve got it narrowed down to the fuses, changed one but it blew again, so we think it will be the common fault with a lot of this kind of car, the wire to the fuse box rubs against something and the insulation wears off, shorting it out. So, Tim has a roll of insulation tape (I’ve never used it to literally insulate something before!) and we’re hoping for the best.