The reason I am

I am most relieved it is Friday. This week has not been great. I am on the bubbles as we speak. I won't bore you with all the petty details but suffice to say that apart from some notable exceptions the week has monumentally sucked.

The notable exceptions were 1. G's certificate he got in 'Assemmberlee' for his excellent sharing and playing nicely (two for two on the certificate front - I can only take this as affirmation of my brilliance) 2. Seeing an old friend for tea for the first time in a year with her baby and new bump 3. Fabulously entertaining evening at a friend's including home cooked meal. Oh and as a minor one 3b. the good weather kept people away from my playgroup on Thursday so Ted and therefore I, could enjoy it far more. That is all I can scrape together.

G and B have been threatening illness all week and moaning quite a lot about it. G has not been keen to go to school all week and getting him there every morning has been a massive uphill struggle. Ted had a fit at playgroup on Tuesday which had to be abandoned very early and on Wednesday he went for the injections I was meant to have caught up on several months ago. We were a year late on one set and only six months late on the other. The nurse looked at me sternly and then said, 'What happened, did you forget?'. They are like mothers, the medical profession, excellent at making you feel very stupid without being directly rude. I had a similar run in on Monday with a nurse. Anyway, ever since the injections Ted has acted as if he was on speed and has been ridiculously hard to handle. The last two evenings have seen him empty a considerable number of things into the bath. Tonight was my clothes and last night was a large array of toys - some soft, some electrical. The clothes one was particularly traumatic as it took me massively by surprise and made me scream - it made it look like there was a body in there. I am very stern and do tell him off, but he has perfected the art of looking sad, cute and contrite all at once so that I find it incredibly hard to stay angry for too long. I am going to start metering out his punishment with my eyes shut from now on.

So on to the good stuff - point no. 3. Last night was my night to go and try on my bridesmaid's dress. This is big news. I have NEVER ever, ever been a bridesmaid before - so this will finally mark the end of 32 years of non-bridesmaid action. I don't think my sisters and I can have been an  aesthetically pleasing bunch when we younger as everyone else I know was asked to be bridesmaid on frequent occasions throughout their childhood - but not us. As an adult, I was the first of my friends to marry - in fact my wedding was the first one I had ever attended apart from one of my sister's which was a lunch party and not the traditional big wedding affair - so I naturally assumed that the maid of honour roles would now roll in as I was the only 'official' married woman amongst our group. No such roles were ever offered to me and as time passed the role of pretty bridesmaid was passed on to my daughter and my role at weddings became Mother of the Bridesmaid. So, you can imagine my excitement to know that in January I will finally tick another 'to do' off my list and I will walk behind a bride, down the aisle with several other women all dressed in matching purple dresses. Even more excitingly, the wedding is only taking place because I exist. Yes peeps - the very reason I am in the universe became clear to me last October. And here is why....

It started in June. I attended an under 5s day in Catford with the boys whilst Bea was at school. Catford is not a salubrious place but once a year I don't just drive through it, I stop and enjoy their considerable park and the excellent free day they provide for pre-school children. It is truly amazing. Anyway, at the end of the day G insisted on going on a train ride which had a large queue I would rather not have joined, but, I could see he wasn't going to budge on this one and so we stood and waited in the heat. As we stood there I noticed a large crowd watching an entertainer do his stuff. The crowd were loving him and he was clearly very funny as well as ticking off quite a few of the other 'must haves' that Bea had stipulated her party entertainer must include. After we finally got off the train I was in a rush to get back to the car and pick up Bea in time but I instinctively approached the entertainer who had now finished his set, and asked him for a card and also double checked he did everything Bea wanted - balloon animals, magic, puppet, making her centre of attention throughout. He confirmed that he did, seemed very affable and a lovable cheeky chappy type and I departed very happy that I had found the perfect person for Bea's party four months ahead of time.

The following week I rang the number, spoke to his father/agent and booked him in - I was just about to put the phone down when I checked the price of this perfect person. It was eye-watering. Treble the amount we had paid the phenomenally expensive face painter the year before. I faltered, told him to keep it pencilled in and rang Bea's Godmother to say that this year's gift to Bea was going to be a whopper. She was not thrilled with the news, especially as she was at work and probably not really in 'my world' of party organising. We left it at that. And then in August I went to have my hair done and the Godmother graciously came to babysit for the three hours I would be away. Upon arrival she saw the entertainer's card on our noticeboard and asked why the hell I had it there. I explained this was the hideously expensive entertainer she was expected to pay half for and she said, 'I know him'. Duh Duh Daaaaaaa.

To cut the rest of the story short - turns out she had dated him a few times - fallen for him and then he had sadly drawn things to a halt after the second date. She was broken hearted. She also told me that he was actually an amazingly good magician not 'just' a child's entertainer and that he had worked with Victoria Wood (an idol of mine). With that news I grabbed the phone, confirmed the booking with his dad/agent and the Godmother became excited by the prospect of seeing him again so that she could rock up all 'look what you missed out on you idiot' and he could be all 'God Damn I am an idiot look what I missed out on'.

The ensuing weeks included many discussions on what she should wear, should she contact him in advance and if so should it be by text or on facebook and plenty of speculation on how he would obviously be married/living with someone/have a girlfriend. In October the big day of Bea's party arrived and so did the entertainer, on time and wearing sparkling bright blue shoes. The Godmother arrived in more suitable attire but obviously looking hot yet subtly as if she didn't care and the resulting conversations confirmed that he the entertainer was indeed single and clearly keen. From that moment on things became jolly interesting and Bea's birthday party became far more interesting to all the mothers/family in attendance (I wouldn't say that I'm a massive gossip but suffice to say most of SE23 knew of the story thus far). As the incredibly successful party drew to a close and I had finally finished clearing away, the Godmother's friend and I nipped back into the scout hut and left Godmother and entertainer alone at his car. Entertainer was slick, Godmother was cool as a cucumber and they both agreed to go for a drink.

As you might have guessed by now the Godmother and Entertainer are now living together and engaged (less than a year after I brought them back together) and they are indeed made for one another (he really was a total prat not to realise four years ago). So, there you are - after years of looking after my children, buying presents, meals and sometimes balloons and entertainers for parties, I finally repaid all the Godmother's generosity by giving her the gift of eternal love (she had been single for many years which I think adds a bit more to my brilliance).  Clearly this was my role in life - to bring the random entertainer from Catford (incidentally he is from North London so it was particularly odd he had found himself in Catford where 99.9% of the residents would never ever dream of paying him a small mortgage payment for a children's party) and the single Uni friend who had showed me many, many years of kindness and generosity. I finally feel like my life has served a purpose. Oooh another tick on my 'to do' list.

The lovely couple sent me home from the meal and dress trial with two bottles of Cava (clearly they have too much Champagne to ever get around to drinking knock off Cava - not that I'm complaining - I'm drinking it now which is why I'm going on for so long) and two jars of Marmite. That might sound odd but in response to my moaning about a lack of money and therefore having to substitute my weekly jar of Marmite for generic Yeast Extract which is horrideous and absolutely and categorically not comparable - one is delicious and the other tastes as hideous as it sounds - the Godmother became fairy like and whipped out two jars she was never going to eat and donated them to my cause. Turns out they went off in 2010 and earlier in 2011 but another great thing about Marmite is that it can never, ever go off. So, if anyone knows the PR for Marmite please tell them I would prostitute my Blog most highly with pictures and endorsements of their product in return for a never ending supply.

Oh golly, I must go now, the bubbles have really gone to my head and the room is beginning to rotate. Oops I have also written a lot. Sorry - I hope you did it in stages. I will, however, just leave you with one final highlight of my week. It went like this:

During the heatwave I showed G how to cool himself down by putting water on his forehead and the back of his neck. He did not look impressed as I bestowed my wisdom and the water upon him so in my best 'sing song' mummy voice I said, "Now, isn't that better? Don't you feel much cooler?" To which he left the obligatory comedy pause before he looked up at me and said "No, I just feel wet".

Chin, Chin, clink, clink, cheers and bottoms up. Enjoy your weekends! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx