My neck of the woods

I've lived in my little neck of the woods for 9 years. Its a long time to be in one place - particularly in the fluid city of London. I arrived here in this leafy village in zone 2 as a recently unemployed associate producer - desperate to become a presenter. Sharing a plush airy mansion block flat with 3 other girls. There was Claire who had just split up with her boyfriend and was in the summer of woe (which became the autumn of booty-calling and the winter of discontent followed by a spring exit out of the UK) - she spent all her free time using retail therapy to mend her broken heart. Why else would a woman buy three types of facial glitter and a pair of Gucci sandals to go travelling in? Caroline - the work-a-holic who smoked like a chimney and rarely got out of her Pjs before 6pm on a Sunday. She was looking for love but ended up dating men who would try and persuade her to give them hand jobs under the bar table. Singledom was far more appealing, especially as she only had a night off once in a blue moon. Finally there was Nikki, who thought doritos and cream cheese were a staple diet, wore the most colourful clothes in the whole of London and dated many frogs in search of her prince. I lived in the lounge, which the girls still used as a lounge - we all used to pile into my bed and onto my sofa for our weekly Dawson's Creek rituals, replete with Sunday Papers. I began presenting on a teen channel and was well paid, with a wardrobe allowance to boot and yet I still found reasons to complain - mainly about my wasteland of a love life. About 20 seconds away was a cafe that we basically lived in - once we moved out they shut down, clearly we had kept them afloat - and would stomp there every night to moan about work and boys.

They were happy years - in between the beer goggle snogs with unsuitable boys (remind me to tell you my 17 year old masquerading as a 20 year old cookie boy story another time) the overdrafts and my yo-yo career in TV. There was always something going on: a party, a launch, a showcase, a free screening with free wine and tasty sarnies. We were each other's family - home from home. It couldn't last. Claire buggered off to NZ, Nikki moved in with her man and I bought a flat. I only moved down the road but the difference was acute. I rented out my spare room to a boy for a start - and desperately missed my girlie chats. Who to go to when I ran out of tampax? I still miss those days occasionally. The 'stealth' nights out in our 'operation summer'(a plan to kiss as many boys as poss - no more mind, we were moral girls) when we wore little make up and a lot of attitude and whirled like dervishes on the sweaty sticky dancefloor of our local late-nite dive 'Latelys.' I became a member the first time I went there - I still am. Gordon the owner never charged me to get in. I lost count of the number of random boys I would write my phone no on the arms of. In the dim pink neon strip lighting we would down vile shots and sexily shimmy to drive the boys wild. Except the boys were wild already - neanderthals in pressed shirts hunting prey and avoiding relationships.

I loved the area - I could walk to 3 different cinemas; drink until 3am in two local drinking dens (the kind of places where requesting Madonna's 'Beautiful Stranger' or Britney's 'Hit me Baby one more time' was not considered uncool); there was a bustling Sainsburies, a posh Waitrose and lots of restaurants and bars. I made friends with the boys in the Video store (that became DVDs), the owners of the local Italian - it became my second home and in fact I later invited them to my wedding - and the folk in the dry cleaning store and the bagel bakery. Out went my miserly lodger, in came one of my girls. When she left my boyfriend moved in. My small second bedroom had been my room from day 1, then my first 'living with my boyfriend' room; the room that he proposed in, the room sproglet was conceived in and is now sproglet's room. I saw out my twenties in this flat - had so many different folk to stay on my crummy sofa bed - left this flat to get married, returned to it from honeymoon. Brought sproglet home from hospital.

My memories are mainly all good: (apart from the summer of hell after I had sproglet and it was 37 degree heat, with builders creating dust clouds and enough noise to wake the dead) power walking on the Heath with my friend Magster - followed by cake and tea - we knew exercise required rewarding; drunken nights spilling out of Latelys trailing feather boas with my friend Sam (who discovered this area long before I did); many meals in La Brocca followed by lock-ins and helping ourselves to drinks behind the bar; the buzz of the place in the summer, the first chills of autumn walking to the movies down a much-used side path and the twinkling fairy lights lighting up the lampposts to announce Xmas is imminent. Finally the cute turtle that swims in the O2 centre fish tanks, who I am convinced recognises me and waves accordingly with his little fin.

I am ready to move on - to have a proper house, to drive to work like a grown up and to have room for more than 3 people in the lounge at once. I will miss my dear friends in the area - Pocket who is heading to LA anyway, Gerry and Lis who pop round with beers or a bottle - willing to lend helping hands at sproglet's bath time, Rachel who pounds the air with me at body combat, Kate who joins me for cakeathons in Hampstead, my amazing child minder who has looked after sproglet for almost 2 years (when I told her we were moving she was fine - I cried) and always is flexible and genuinely loves him. I am excited to move on, but a little part of my heart will be left behind here. No doubt on moving day I will shed a few tears. Forgive me in advance - this area will always be home to me - no matter where I am.

To do... no.124,678

Well I did it. I turned 35. A new box. A new chapter. It was a breeze actually. I just drank some cocktails, got a cute card from sproglet and berated husband for not getting me cake or flowers (he will be shelling out for some summer footwear pour moi though). A very chilled day. Lots of facebook messages and text messages and people enjoying the fact they are younger than me. Who isn't these days?

But oh my god - the lists. The endless fecking lists that have emerged to haunt my waking moments and sleeping ones too. My head feels like it is about to explode under the weight of 'to dos.' I know starting a new job is stressful. I know that moving house is stressful. I know that renting out a property is stressful. I know children are stressful. I know finding good childcare is even more stressful. Put all said stressful ingredients into a large mixing bowl, stir with woman on anti-depressants, a husband's 65 hour working week, add a pinch of short tempers and dollop of not enough time in the day and voila! You have a nervous breakdown in the making!

Why does everything come at once? I am trying to exchange on new house but mortgage people are on go slow... Solicitors ask impossible questions. I have to buy beds, paint my flat, get carpets cleaned and boiler certificates. But furniture and organise delivery at new home. Pack. Move. Find a nursery for sproglet where fairies make organic angel cakes and they skip over rainbows and drink nectar from bluebell cups and the like to ease my enormous motherhood guilt at going back to work. Thank god I am not Catholic is all I can say - as my guilt weighs me down and I'm not even there yet.

I haven't moved from the sofa in two hours - making calls, writing lists, sending emails. Sorting it all out. Of course I am still buzzing about new job - but the reality of 9-6 5 days a week will hit me like a tonne of bricks. Don't hate me - but I haven't done full time work since '99!! Apart from the odd 6 week or 9 week stint (twice) I have just presented here and there - 10 days a month maybe. I know... I'll stop talking now. Life is about to change. But I promise to still blog.

BTW - I was handed a strange package in the street the other week. Turns out it was skincare from Japan. I stuffed it in a drawer and forgot about it until Sunday, when I decided to give it a bash. An oil cleanser, soap, toner and moisturiser. OH MY GOD. I have skin softer than sproglet. Buy some now. DHC. Genius. See, even in my wild list world, I still have time to drop in some product wisdom. At 35 I need to know my onions. Or rather olive oil based products. Buy it!

The nicest thing

Do you know the nicest thing?

I know lying toastie in a warm bed, knowing that you don't have to get up for work has gotta be up there - but the nicest thing for me, was yesterday my friends' reaction to me getting a job - finally.

It was so lovely to text them/ring them with my news and hear their cheery responses. Most phoned - full of pure joy for me. Telling me it was deserved and it restored their belief that if you want anything enough - it can be achieved. It made me gooey and warm inside - and just added to my excitment. I have cried on their collective shoulders; moaned, bitched, vented my frustrations - fed them tedious detail affter detail on my rollercoaster career. They have cajoled, comforted and calmed. My cheerleaders who believed in me and told me that it WOULD happen. They deserve medals themselves.

It really hasn't been the easiest of times - husband never here much, me lonely - chained to a child's routine, in night after night alone, wondering if I will ever work again. Through it all I have tried to appreciate the little things: lying flat with sproglet on the roundabout in the local park, gazing up at the summer sky; reading scripts in starbucks chomping on a muffin; Grazia on a Tuesday; bath times with sproglet; having time to watch what I want on TV; friends making time for me - popping round with thai take-aways, meeting for a cheeky cuppa or a bottle or two of red. I know that with the house move and the new job that life is going to get so hectic I am not going to have enough hours in the day. I can't fecking wait!

Over the Moon.... hurrah!

Hurrah!!!!!

Today I got a phonecall that will change my life - I got offered a script editing job at Eastenders!!!!

I am beyond excited. And terrified. After the assistant script ed job went internally at the BBC I was devastated - as I thought I would be seen as too inexperienced to get the fully fledged script editor one... but I applied anyway. I was chuffed to be invited for interview but didn't have high hopes. It was on Monday and I socked it to them! We talked writers and characters and all sorts - as I know the show inside out - and I tried to persuade them that passion was worth more than experience. I left with a spring in my step - I had done my best.

They offered me the job today. My heart began to beat very fast in shock.

I am thrilled. Amazed. Excited to be going back to work. Worried about leaving sproglet. Going now to soak up every last minute with him.

Thanks for all your support - is proof that hard work and determination DO pay off.

What you see aint always what you get

So... I got an email from another old schoolmate. Bless her - she had read this blog cover to cover and wanted to tell me how much she related to it and to keep my chin up - which was so lovely of her. (Thanks Pam!). But here's the thing - she confessed to having admired/envied me back in our old schooldays. According to her I was the 'girl who had everything': the looks/boys/friends/educational success etc. Which absolutely knocked me sideways - totally jaw-droppingly astounded me. Trust me, pre- dental work (thank the lord for veneers)my teeth were not a pretty sight; particularly the gap between my two front teeth and one further along. The boys used to cheerfully tell me (and I quote) 'You could drive a Rolls Royce through that - sideways!' Nice. Occasionally they would mix it up a bit and call me 'the dog' or 'human skateboard' on account of my unrealised breasts. In the emotionally wrought teen years when one's self confidence is normally in the toilet, my male chums would get hammered at parties, kiss me, then the next day announce they remembered nothing and that they were 'victims' of mine. Truly. I realllllllly felt good about myself. I may have grown Jessica Rabbit like curves overnight and my cups thus ran over - but even then my teenage pertness didn't attract the boys one bit. The only boy that actually looked at me was the school stoner - who didn't give a toss what anyone said (probably too boxed to hear what anyone said) and won me over by promising me a purple orchid. Which naturally, he never sent. So my first real boyfriend of note happened a month before my 17th birthday. Late bloomer? I thought I would never flower, or be de-flowered for that matter.

Educationally - whilst I was a jammy sod who could swot up the night before and do ok in exams - sailing through English and bizarrely Religious Ed; my true passion was art - but I was a lazy article - who procrastinated to within an inch of her life and never gave it her all - thereby getting good-ish grades but never the grades I was capable of (bar the A in Eng Lit A level. I think I wrote 25 sides in one paper...). Meanwhile my family life was hell - I lived with my Mother who was sinking further into alcoholism in my latter teenage years - and my Mother's ex-boyfriend at weekends. A weird scenario I know, but one that was my salvation. My Dad remarried and swaned off every weekend, seeing me when he could fit me in, in between his refereeing, work, socialising etc. The only thing that got me through such bleak years, was having a core of friends that I could turn to - and can still turn to - in my Eastenders like dramas. I remember when my Dad told me I had to choose between him or Mum's ex. If I didn't choose him - he would walk out of my life forever. I was 15.

Thank God for my muckers. They were always there for a conspiratorial ciggie on route to squash/tennis/rowing (followed by cream cakes - great health plan - try it) or a swift glass of Blue Nun at the Empire pub to whinge to about my fucked up family. I counted the months, then days, until I could get to Uni and escape my existence. I was tired of having 3 phone numbers (long before the simplified days of mobile phones), having to pack my bag on a Thursday night and the insane petty squabbles that my parental figures involved me in, just to score points off each other. To say that I had it all is so laughable. I felt like the girl who had nothing. To the point that I attempted to take my life when I was only 14. Now that I volunteer for Samaritans and I can look back in retrospect - I was such a classic example of someone crying out for help. I saved pills for 6 months. I planned every last detail - writing a will; planning the day; who would find me etc. The attempt didn't work (clearly) and I blacked out - only to come to 14 hours later and then vomit for a day. I planned another attempt - straight after school. I don't remember what happened that March day in 1987 - but whatever it was, it was enough to make me temporarily put the pills away - locked in a bureau in the corner of my room. (With a packet of Marlboro Reds and a half bottle of Tia Maria to make Black Russians with - oh the glamour!). I kept those pills right through until I went to Uni - and then threw them away - I had no need for them anymore - now that I had escaped.

16 years on - things are a million times better with my families (all 3 of them) and I still have the same friends - and now their wives and husbands - so on that one Pamela was right. They are my other family. The one I knew that would never leave me. Or at least I hoped they wouldn't. There is something comforting in having known someone for 23 years - in some cases 29. Hell, I'm still friends with some of those cruel boys - who grew up to be the loveliest men. (Who knew?)

The point is - we all think everyone else's life is a bowl of cherries. Cat Deeley doesn't look like anything bad has ever happened to her - what with that glossy hair, thin pins, golden legs (and career) and houses in London and LA. But I bet she has bad days too - just like the rest of us. We are all mere mortals, we all make mistakes. I have to remember this when I frequently think that everyone else is having THE BEST TIME and I think I missed the party.

Husband kissed me today.(I am 75% forgiven he says). Sproglet and I played with trucks and shared cornflakes. I walked in the sunshine and had a meeting a nice estate agent who will rent out our flat for us. I'm going to move house and somehow find work. It will all be ok. As Pamela said - there is light at the end of the tunnel - and it isn't necessarily a train coming towards you.....Hurrah!

Damages ...

...is over. What the hell will I do with my Monday nights from now on? What an amazing series. Did you not watch? Get the DVD box set quick - banish kids and spouse and grab a cuppa and a half price Easter egg and get comfy. You are in for one helluva treat. A lesson in how to sustain a story arc over 13 episodes that initially appears simplistic but has more twists and turns than an Irish country road! What a rollercoaster of a ride. And rejoice - for series 2 is currently in production!!

Wasn't Glenn Close amazing? Mind you the woman has never put in a dud performance in her whole life. Where would 80s films have been without her? 'The World According To Garp,' 'The Big Chill,' 'Jagged Edge' 'Dangerous Liaisons' and of course 'Fatal Attraction' to name a few. She is one of the all time greats. Who knew Ted Danson had such depths? I really have to rein in my need to pontificate on how great this series was - as we'd be here all day. Plus I just cannot write anything without giving a key plot point away and I really would rather cut off my eyelids than spoil this rare treat for the lucky few who have yet to discover the thrill of Damages.

Meanwhile... the sun is shining... Nemo is NOT on the DVD. Husband thawed slightly when I bought him a £45 bottle of something oaky and full bodied. He still hasn't done the weekly shop and therefore there is no butter for my toast but he has said he will deign to speak to me again today. I'm kinda getting over the whole punishment thing now - an Aries girl can only hold her fire for so long and I have eaten enough humble pie to fill a bakery twice over. If he doesn't get over himself and embrace forgiveness as a virtue we may enter a new battle zone. I know he wanted me to grovel. To skirt around him on tippy toes full of remorse and subservient wife gestures - but I am only capable of acting this despised role for so long - and then snap! Must go - sproglet needs me. By the way - I am taking Justine's advice - and am loving every moment with my son. This age is just a joy. He has taken a huge shine to a duck stuffed animal and carries it under his arm - everywhere. Including into the bath yesterday. Then howled in his cot when Duckie was getting his feathers toasted on the radiator and was too damp for a night time cuddle. In the end I had to put Duckie in with him - dry side round and then sneak it out from under his arm while he slept to complete the drying process... Thank god sproglet is far from high maintenance - I couldn't put up with 2 Divas at the moment!

Pictures without sound

Well its all pictures and no sound in our house at the minute. Actually it is blissfully peaceful. I could go into the sorry tale of why husband is not communicating with me - but I am the bad guy. I know I air my dirty laundry here like a fishwife - but I will put into a few syllables: me - drunk. Very. Misread a situation. Angry. Texts. Dismember doorbell. Lock up. Sleep soundly. Husband home. Lying in 3 foot hall until 6am. Angry. Door bashing. Not speaking. There you have it. I have apologised. By text. We have communicated through 3 texts (mine) and 4 grunts (his) since Fri evening. I go out, come home, he goes out. Sproglet runs between us and thinks it is a game. I wish I could be more bothered. But I have too much to do - what with organising a whole house move and all. A job to find. You know the small things in life. The cold winds show no sign of thawing. He claims that he won't speak to me for a week. My birthday is next Monday. Will he be talking to me by then or should I try and get some gals together for a cocktail or 5? Mind you, who the hell does cocktails on a Monday night anymore? Tis a school night after all...

The strange thing is that normally my birthday is like a week long event that builds to one helluva climax. But this year I'm just like.... yeah, birthday schmirthday. It all feels like too much of an effort. Is odd. I feel removed from it - almost like it has no bearing on my life whatsoever - which is great I guess, because if I ignore it - does that mean I can stay 34???