Well that was £2 I will never get back. Sodding Lottery. It is the destroyer of dreams. I had some amazing plans in place and the new wardrobe I had decided upon was just lovely. Particularly because in the last few weeks I seem to have been placed on a mailing list for people who have a high disposable income and so a large number of luxury catalogues have been arriving through the post on a daily basis. I have no idea how this confusion has arisen because a quick double check with a credit agency would have soon alerted these marketing whizz kids to the fact that I am a confirmed pauper and am yet to win the lottery. Still, the post arrives in time for lunch so I have been giving the catalogues the time of day as something interesting to look over whilst I eat and I had compiled a long list of exciting things that were going to change our lives once purchased. My lack of lottery winnings now means I shall NEVER own the £360 soft leather jacket from Isabella Oliver, the children will have to make do with boot sale plastic toys as opposed to hand made wooden ones as well as Sainsbury's clothes instead of Boden and Joules and our kitchen will never have super sharp knives and a Kitchen Aid. I'm sure you'll agree this is all quite heartbreaking. Stupid stupid stupid lottery.
So the news in M&O headquarters (that is new - did you notice? I am trying it out). There is quite a lot of tension actually. Bea and G are both shattered from the first few weeks of school and yet also ridiculously over excited that their birthdays are nearly upon us. I cannot stand all the excitement - not in a bah humbug type of way but because of the pressure that it puts on me - I am solely responsible for fulfilling all their hopes and dreams and am ultimately responsible for any disappointment they experience on the big day for which they have waited all year long. Bea is similarly afflicted with the pressure of the day - she is still struggling to decide on a theme for her party and so every day she tries to think of something other than Hello Kitty but then ends the day deciding that Hello Kitty is in fact the only choice. She has even made a countdown calendar to the big day and is marking each box off with a big cross. Bring on January where all pressure is off and I place a ban on all talk of Birthdays and Christmas for another nine months.
The other tension is between me and K who is off on a stag do this weekend. This in itself is not the problem, as this is only the second one he has gone on in about eight years and it is also for his brother, so I have had to agree to him going. However my problem is with knowing that the stag do will inevitably involve a visit to the type of seedy club all men deem an obligatory part of a stag do. I realise that even a very lazy or ridiculously stupid internet user could find all manner of aesthetically pleasing young females in little to no clothing within seconds of searching, but, the idea of K specifically going to a place where there will be many of them right in front of him and in the actual flesh, is what I find particularly disturbing and upsetting. Over the last twenty four hours I have toyed with the idea of becoming the new Mary Whitehouse and starting a campaign to get all such 'gentlemen's' clubs closed down and the women in them burned at the stake, but now I realise that I am too lazy and I have no idea where to start with such a campaign which would, I'm pretty sure, require a hefty amount of funding.
I also realised that my real problem (after some considerable soul searching) is knowing that these stupid and scantily clad women, (who will no doubt deem my husband and his entourage as being particularly 'sad' and even worse, 'middle aged' whilst fleecing them for all our food money for the next month) will be young and lithe with pert boobs and a stomach that doesn't fall down when the control pants are removed, and quite frankly I don't like that. I am not jealous so much as irritated that he will be reminded of what bodies can look like before the owner uses them in which to grow multiple children and as a dumping ground for any food within a five mile radius. It might confuse him. My body confidence is not helped by G who is brutally frank over my appearance - a few weeks ago in a coffee shop he announced very loudly that he knew I was having a baby. I informed him in hushed tones that I was not having a baby. He responded, even louder this time, that he knew I was having a baby because I had a fat tummy. I replied, with as much dignity as possible, that the fat tummy was not as a result of a growing baby but because I had eaten too much for too long. He went back to his drink muttering that he just knew there was a baby in there. This is coupled with the particularly delightful conversation I had with him whilst I was applying make up a while ago. G was watching me at work and then said, why are you doing that? I said 'to make myself look pretty'. He carried on watching. After I was satisfied with the job, G asked if I had finished. I said yes. He said, 'It hasn't worked'. I thanked him and went to the loo behind a closed door. Upon finishing I opened the door to find G still there. He looked at my face again and then paused before saying, 'It's still not working'.
All this stupid stag do stuff has got me thinking - it is very difficult to be a modern woman. Not only are we meant to be a whizz in the kitchen but not a slave to it, fun but not wild, sexy but not oversexed, career minded but not career obsessed, thin but not too thin, motherly but not mumsy etc etc etc but we are also meant to be 'enlightened' enough to wave our menfolk on their merry way with a cheery smile and a happy heart in the safe and sure knowledge that they will be surrounding themselves all weekend with half naked ladies they have paid for the pleasure of seeing. I find it confusing. Even more so because I am in trouble for not being more 'happy' for him. Ridiculous.
Still, I am trying desperately to bury my head in the sand about it all, which will become a lot easier when I am safely ensconced in the Suffolk countryside. The children and I are escaping to the technological black hole that is my mother's so that I can watch Poirot and House of Elliot with her and not think about all this modern day filth and my own body inadequacies.
So, all in all tension is running high. I think once the invites are given out, K's hangover has abated and I am back at home, well rested and with a full fridge and freezer we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. I shall also be buying some more lottery tickets - I clearly just had the wrong ticket last week. I am going to buy the correct ticket this week and therefore enable me to begin my new anti-filth campaign in my new and beautiful leather jacket whilst the ugly, fat nanny I have employed is at home whizzing up a freshly baked cake on my beautiful Kitchen Aid. I am excited again.
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