does anything taste as good as skinny feels?

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Making the most of the world wide web

This evening a friend came over for dinner.  In between slicing onions and putting the children to bed I threw on what I considered to be appropriate evening wear for a relaxed dinner at home a deux.  Tight gold jeans and patent red high heels ensured my children were all twitchy and wanted to know where I was going.

Ever thoughful of my responsibility as a hostess I had organised the Tesco delivery man to arrive around 10pm.  He arrived bang on time to unload my carefully prepared pudding - a Terry's Chocolate Orange.  They were 20% off.  It'd be rude not to.

Do you think Kate Rothschild and Ben Goldsmith are mad to air their dirty laundry?

''To all the vultures harassing and taunting me, the people calling me a whore and a bad mother, the threatening emailers and callers: I have been with my husband since I was 17, my whole life from then until now has been dedicated to him and our children. Ben in a rational mood would be the first to say that my devotion to my children is unshakeable."  Kate Rothschild defended herself this week in a Twitt-war with husband Ben Goldsmith.

At best, my own parenting skills leave a huge amount to be desired.  The rest of the time they are merely dire.  There are times when my brain seems to unhinge itself from the tepid, liquidy comfort my skull offers and thrusts mouth and limbs into the most unsavoury of behaviour and speech.  Which is why I sympathise with Kate Rothschild and Ben Goldsmith with the highly public airing of the breakdown of their marriage over the last week.  It's a bit like Prince William allowing himself to be interviewed by Heat magazine after Kate snogs Harry in the toilet at Boujis nightclub.  It's also the reaction of two people who are involved in a most common but deeply upsetting facet of marriage and who have become removed from rationale.


In other news, here is me and my chum enjoying a quiet few drinks.

New job

The husband has found a great job.  I'm very proud of him as it's no mean feat at the moment.  The only snag is the job's in London which is 250 miles away from where we are living.  He is staying in the big smoke during the week then coming home for weekends.  Apart from the obvious downside of us not seeing each other or him not seeing the children, I can see a number of upsides.

The pay is way better then he'd get up here and there is masses of work.

One of the main reasons to be here is to see my parents.  I can see ma and pa constantly.

I can spend every evening on skype chatting to my mates in New Zealand without my husband raising his eyebrows in irritation at the content of our conversations.

The sky plus recorder is now rammed with series links of Made in Chelsea, The Only Way Is Essex, Peter Andre: My Life.

I can eat tinned spaghetti on toast with the children at 5pm and not cook dinner.

When the twins wake up in the night and want to sleep in our bed, there's plenty of room for them.

Every cloud and all that.

Tonight I'm off to stay at a friend's house for a sleepover with the children so we can focus properly on drinking wine and talking shit until late.

Internal and external photoshopping

Last night the husband and I went out for dinner.  I got changed about 18 times, tried to work out if I wanted to channel Liz Hurley/Mary Quant summer chic with white trousers and a glittery black top or show off my past two summer's efforts at eliminating strap marks by donning a new red strapless number I'd rather cleverly bought on ebay super cheap.
'Is that the one you bought online?' The husband buttons up his shirt.
'Yes, why? Do you like it?'
'It looks super cheap.'
I make a mental note to re-list the thing BNWOT and tap my lip whilst scrutinising my wardrobe.  In the end I decide to pay homage to Barry Gibb by sporting a black, flared jumpsuit, vintage (looking) silver belt and high heels.  Two kir royales later and I feel like the cleverest, funniest, most alluring person ever.  After dinner we go back to the bar and bump into some 20 year old friends.  I say friends - they are actually the offspring of friends.  Two of the girls very sweetly feign shock at my being a 37 year old mum of 3 children.  I simper and fob them off only half heartedly with a limp wrist and 'Oh don't be ridiculous'.

A band starts up and I dance like Bez from the Happy Mondays, making my fresh young friends look at me oddly then stumble home with the husband, happy and glowing.  Still warm with my imagined youth I skype a friend in New Zealand.  Her husband answers the call, looks at me and sucks in his cheeks with a whistle and says 'Fuck me, Rudd, are you at the back end of an all-nighter?'

It doesn't matter how generous you are with your internal photoshopping, the truth will out.

Have you met Raymond Luxury Yacht?

It has been some time since the last update.  Let me fill you in.

We now live in our own house, 5 minutes walk from my parents and seconds from the best boozer in town.  It's fantastic having our own space and being able to see my parents every day.  I feel fairly sure my parents may well start to impose visiting restrictions.

We went to France with the children for a week for a friend's wedding.  It was the first wedding we have done en famille and it was utterly amazing, due in no small part to the bride and groom's unbelievable organisational skills.  They even had their own website which detailed which flights were the cheapest, what time food would be served on the wedding day, a map of where everyone was staying (the groom,an old school friend was delighted to get everyone 'on site' - one of his favourite states of being) and for how long, what the facilities were like for children, I could go on.  They made it impossible to not want go.  So we spent what can only be described as an idyllic week in the Dordogne at a rambling Manoir and a hamlet of gites swimming, drinking white wine, playing with the children, chatting to all my old school friends, sharing some appalling parenting stories and wearing high heels every evening. Seriously, I don't think I could design a better holiday.  It was particularly fun to do it all with the husband as the last few English weddings I have attended on my own.  It came to light he was also known as 'Eugene Travis' by his NZ crew.

'That's just my drinking name,' he said.

I was puzzled.  'I thought it was Chest Fernandez?'

'Nah, that's my DJ name.'

My school mates naturally wanted their own drinking names.  Step forward Raymond Luxury Yacht and Le Skud.

Before leaving New Zealand I was worried about the year ahead for the husband in the UK.  As he is someone who enjoys spear fishing and surfing, I was concerned that the delights of the Ribble estuary which slops past our little town across miles of quicksand wouldn't hold the same attraction as the stretch of glittering ocean where we are lucky enough to live on his side of the world.

In the run up to us leaving we hadn't spent much time together (probably because I had little time spare between all those leaving parties).  For the last month or so since we arrived we have spent almost every hour God gives us glued at each others' hip.  My whining refrain of 'We really need to have quality time together if we want our marriage to last the distance,' has been replaced with a shifty 'I'm just popping out to get some milk' in order to have 5 minutes to myself.  Actually I'm thrilled, it has been a hugely bonding month for our family and really great for the children to be picked up from school and nursery by both of us as they settle in.

HRH has generously supplied us with a fun filled weekend of Royalist fun.  We have friends coming to stay and I can barely contain my excitement.

check your passport before you fly

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See you on the other side

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Daddy's little girl

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unanswerable questions

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