Monday 30 November 2015

Goodbye Flo you old bitch...

I want to say it was an unseasonably cold May, back in 1987, but in Ireland, summers rarely began, if ever, before June. I stood at the top of the stairs in a flimsy white tennis skirt - barely covering my derriere. My Mum's partner shouted up to me to get tracksuit bottoms on, that it was freezing and there was no way I could go to tennis practice dressed like that. Deciding I couldn't be bothered to argue, I obliged.

Never have I been more grateful - as that day, I got my period, aged 14 and one month, for the first time. For some reason I thought a period was a moment of purge - and that I would only have to wear the brick like sanitary towel for all of a day. Then, yes, only then, did my mother break it to me that it lasted longer. I was devastated. But not as much as I was 3 days later, when I was certain Flo had left the building, only for her to return with a vengeance, just as I played a competitive game of squash in the same flimsy white skirt.

From that day on, I decided on two things: 1. tampons were the only way forward and 2. Flo was my enemy. And she has been ever since. Let me count the ways? The jeans she has ruined on her tidal days; the carefully chosen delicate lace underwear destroyed upon her early arrival; the sheets she has  coloured - on holidays, at friends' houses, on a first 'sleepover' in a new relationship, on camping trips in sleeping bags (my favourite); the nights of passion she has refused to allow; the moments she has shown up - in meetings, on dates, at weddings, in job interviews - completely unexpected. The stress she has caused to find myself out of tampax and the shops all shut; the embarrassment at her over-flow (once on a tube, another time on a bus - and let's all forget the airplane drama). Nothing has ruined my life quite like Flo.

Her best buddy PMT hasn't exactly made life a walk in the park either. The sheer force of my hormones has rendered me suicidal, psychotically angry, desperately needy and wildly violent - all in the space of ten minutes. Husband says he too 'suffers' my PMT. Not a month in my life has ever gone by without breast pain, aching stomach, bloated belly, back pain and cramps. Except when I was pregnant. The only 2 times I have ever been grateful to Flo. Yes, my 2 kids have been worth every second of all that hell. But weighing it up - God is having a freakin' laugh isn't he, if this is what women have to endure just to have children one day?

But come January, me and Flo are divorcing - for good. It has been a bizarre pill to swallow - that my child bearing years are over; that my womanhood will forever be changed - but I am more than ready. Surgery is my only choice - after two operations this year I cannot keep going under only to wake and discover more surgery is needed.... I may have a tampax bonfire to celebrate. My lovely 'luxury items' that I guess at 3.50 per month for towels x 13 times a year (every four weeks people!) equals £45.50 plus tampax at £50.70 a year (lets not include all the prescriptions for transexamic acid and stain removal etc) is £92.20 a year for 28 years - is almost £2,700 I have spent in my lifetime. That is a freakin' holiday there... Anyway, whilst I am not jazzed on the thought of surgery at all - and the recovery - I think I will be a new woman - Flo-less. The PMT will stay - well I have to give my husband something to keep him on his toes, no?

Wednesday 11 November 2015

Halloween is my Xmas

If only I had more time to blog... So what is moving and shaking around these parts?

No. 1 The quest for the PERFECT winter boot continues. I have tried on Uggs (SO comfy but the nicest ones are the biker boots and I have a pair of bikers already - not Ugg ones - so can't see the point in forking out for another pair). I've tried on the fluffy Ugg trainer thing which made me look like an ostrich and I have spent more hours online than I can mention hunting - but at last, sitting in the hairdresser the other day as my daughter got her blonde locks chopped, I spied these babies in an advert:



OH MY GOD COME TO MAMA. But they are a fecking fortune. I'm going to torture myself by trying them on anyway. Then if I really love them I may ask a friend going to the States to get them as they be WAY cheaper there. But will I look fabulous in them, or somewhat Yeti?

No. 2 I have only just discovered The Jinx - which I know I know, is like saying 'These Oasis lads are onto some decent music aren't they?' Anyway I have only a second to blog as I have 2 eps still to do on it and away I must.

No. 3 I'm off into hospital again next week - and I can't wait. Apart from the going under bit and having surgery and all that - I'm excited as it is a night away from the kids. Plus, after it I shall never have a period again. How goddamn exciting is that? Those 'luxury' items cost me £££ every month not to mention the fortune I spend in prescriptions for Tranexamic acid tablets. Honestly women get such a bum deal in life - teens blighted by unexpected period arrival, twenties trying not to get pregnant, 30s desperately trying to get pregnant and 40s suffering for having had children. God was most definitely a man.

No. 5 WHY OH WHY are we even talking about Xmas? I fecking HATE Xmas. Did I mention that before? All that money and greed and trying to keep everyone happy and waste of paper - I wish to god it was bi-annual. All it says to me in big letters is 'STRESS.' Oh yeah the run up is fun - all festive dos and red cups and mince pies and frantic meet ups, but the actual day itself? Anyone who enjoys it is lying. This year - thinking my family would want to see me on Xmas day, I booked to return to Northern Ireland - but it turns out folk make their own plans and I'm not included after all. Or I am... when it suits them. Slot in. Fly all the way to Ireland to slot in? Thank god some good buddies are around - their festive cheer would light up Oxford street, so all is not lost. But in general, the event brings me out in hives. All that expectation -for what? Wish we all slung money in charity boxes and went to the pub instead. Call me grinch, or bah humbug - and I accept. Halloween is my Xmas, we all know that.

No. 6 Halloween was epic this year. I think the best by far. Husband, who started drinking as he made his famous chilli at 11am, was hammered watching the rugby at 4 (a devastated Australian). Why we let him near fireworks with kids around at 8 is beyond me. He was safely tucked up in bed by 9. Meanwhile I made more lychee martinis than you could shake a stick at... My neighbours called in at 9:30 and no one was making any sense, so they promptly left. Oddly we all made sense to one another... Still, at 11:30 my Mum told me to keep the music down and I forced everyone out like Cinders at midnight. It was memorable. Well until 9pm anyway...












I am just SO pleased with my pumpkin bag, aren't I? #style #youknowyouwantone