Things I have learnt this year... #375

And so we say goodnight and goodbye to 2015. How was it for you?

Bizarrely, although 2014 was infinitely more financially challenging - it just radiated brilliance. Surprise trips and a summer of sunshine made it memorable, with 2015 somehow trailing in it's wake. And yet, I made more in roads in my career than I had ever hoped for; I shared many brilliant moments with people I love and I had the joy for being able to be much more present for my kids than in any other year before.

What I have leant without question is that whilst money doesn't make you happy - it sure is lovely not to have worry over every single pound. That whilst eating well and exercising do no harm to the body - the place they help the most is the mind. That opportunities abound - if you start to create them for yourself. Most of all, I have realised - take no one for granted - even yourself and your health.

What else?

- I have also learnt that I am no baker - but that is why Waitrose make fairy cakes that you can add a topping to and a choc button and voila! Home baking CM stylee.

- That you are lucky with kids to get 5 minutes to yourself. Which is why next year I must step away from more social media and go for long walks instead. Headspace is an underestimated joy....

- South Cross is the best gin I have ever had the joy to taste - and if you ever wonder what to buy me - look no further than it....

- That a trip home to Ireland and a walk by the sea sorts out any head...

- That letting go of hate makes you lighter than any diet...

- A spirilizer creates endless possibilities... as long as you like courgettes...

- Most folk who are wealthy are simply so because they never buy a round...

- That if you can't quite do it - FAKE it until you MAKE it...

- There are no friendlier folk on earth than the Irish - but sure, you knew that anyway...

- Series 2 of The Affair was even better than series 1

- Most of all listen to your gut - if it don't feel right, it aint.

So, I must away and start swallowing gin like prohibition starts at midnight - and all that is left to do is wish you all a wonderful, inspiring, challenging and enlightening 2016.

Keep her lit!

CM xx

New box

Every time in my life I've had to tick one of those damn boxes: are you '25-29' '30-34' '35-39' '40 - 44' etc I've just ticked and not really given it much thought. A friend on my 30th kindly pointed out I was 'in a new box' but it didn't phase me - age is just a number.

Really, in my case it has been. Often I find myself shocked to wake up and discover I am responsible for two other lives on this planet; I read my 17 year old diaries and feel exactly the same sentiments; I  go for prosecco with the 23 year old Uni graduate next door and think we have loads in common... And yet, in the past month I feel I have entered a new box. A new zone.

I can put it down to 2 things - the first being my upcoming hysterectomy. Yes, everyone else gets a new year hangover and I get a hysterectomy. Yay me! The hospital sent me the leaflets and on the cover are all these grey haired older ladies laughing - obviously just tickled pink at the thought of being womb-less, and I thought 'Christ, is that me now?' My Mother had the same op when I was 11 and I remember thinking it was for OLDER women - like REALLY old - and yet, she was younger than me when she had it. Similarly my Aunt had one aged 41. So here I am, in the era of untenable periods and gynaecological surgeries.

Obviously I'm thrilled about no longer having to suffer for 3 weeks of every month - but there is a part of me that mourns my fertility. That though I don't want any more children, I'm saddened that the child bearing years are over. That I'm done. There is something so finite about it all - that is hard to swallow. Most of all, the knowledge that that era has passed... and the new one makes me... old(er).

The other reason is a sadder one: in the past month I have had so many friends lose their parents or receive devastating news about their health. This Xmas, as I sat next to my Mother as she drove around Ireland, shopping for her perfect Xmas, I looked at her with new eyes - simply grateful to have her in my life. I'll confess I take my parents for granted, expect them always to be around - have only in the past few years put my childhood grievances to bed, and embraced this new dynamic.

Are we really here - at an age where our parents are not the robust over-bearing energetic folk that we once knew? Even, are we?

This Xmas, though it is far from my favourite holiday (too much stress and pressure and expectation for the good of anyone's health) I jumped head first into the celebration pool - made time for all my family, flew home to Ireland, though it was far from the easy option. Rather than eating out as I preferred, I respected that my Mum loves a home cooked turkey instead. It's time for me to be less selfish - to just accept my folks for who they are and relish what I have.

Because of the new box. The box that says I'm not 23 any more, and make up isn't going to hide the morning after the night before sins. That I no longer paint the town red, but cosy up inside friend's houses with all our children running feral way past bedtime. That conversations with my 17 year old niece suggest I am the older tragic adult who thinks they are still cool but is far removed from the word as is possible. That exercise isn't a choice any more, but a necessity. That a size 4/8 may no longer be within my grasp - and that is OK. For the first time in my life, I'm in a new box. But I'm here and that is all that matters.

Planets colliding

Rarely if ever do I find myself looking for astrological guidance - but today I googled Astrology zone just to see WTF is up with them there planets.

Why? Because since mid November things have been turbulent to say the least. There was the operation that never was - or rather it was an op, but just not the one I thought I was going to have. Followed by the news I have to have another, more serious one. NO SMILEY FACE HERE.

Then after that it all went a bit tits up really: people misconstruing things I've said and taking it all wrong; people I thought I knew well behaving in a wildly different manner; and all and sundry having horrifically bad news. Not a day has gone by in this past week where I have not heard a tragic story - it seems the world has gone a little cray cray.

Sadly I could find no rhyme nor reason to all this presumed celestial angst. Perhaps it is also the loom of bloody Xmas and all the exhausting expectation it demands - not to mention exhausting efforts. Every year I swear I will be on a plane for the next one - and at last in Dec 2016 I think it will be so - as we finally head to Aussie shores, for my Husband's return - a first in 15 years...

I don't know, I thought life got LESS complicated the older we get - not MORE. And yet, it seems as if so much more is at stake. Plus, in this digital ace - when we communicate by text, snapchat, email and Facebook - the nuances in our sentences, the tone - the meaning is all but lost. People read into our words as if we had never written them. The room for misinterpretation is enormous - and the result? EVEN more emails and texts and snapchat and Facebook conversations to resolve them. *Sighs and yearns for a simpler time*

I've even been misinterpreting things myself: on a night out in London last week, with a group of amazing drunkards women, after consuming a lot of fizz and jagarbombs and shots and dark and stormies - we all had to make like Cinders to jump into our waiting carriage minibus. I arrived at said bus and then remembered I had left my nice scarf behind in the club. So I dashed back and retrieved it (after almost coming to blows with a doorman who was about to refuse me entrance - see what I mean about everything being difficult??). then I came out - and... No bus. The had left without me. I paced along Camden, verging on tears, with no coat, no phone, no money - nothing - panicking at what to do. I searched along the street, screaming for my group - when about 15 minutes later - a LONG 15 minutes I add - one of them called to me. I jumped into the bus and raged at the crew - 'I am so fecked off with you lot! You left me! Deserted me! In Camden! How could you have???!!!  I then leant my head on the window and tried to keep awake on the journey home.

Once home, I dropped my spare jeans in the street (my daughter found them the next day) and stormed drunkenly into my house. Only later did the ladies tell me, the bus had never moved. I however had walked in try wrong direction and in my state had been unable to find them. Where they stayed, waiting patiently and wondering where the feck I had got to.

SHAME FACE.

Planets, hurry up and speed up and stop this retrograde nonsense I tell you. Roll on 2016....

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?

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

Rage, rage against the well, whatever you fancy.

This week has felt quite emotionally difficult - for many reasons. Oh where to begin. I know! Things I learnt this week... part 389

1. DO NOT FOLLOW THE HERD.

So when I arrived in my small market town, I heard only bad things about the local high school. Meanwhile, several years later a good friend told me she was putting her son through the 11 plus. She had struggled to get a good tutor, which would ensure a great chance at passing the exam and going to a fabulous highly academic grammar school in the next county. I immediately got on the case as my son was a year younger and sorted a fab tutor. I was all set. So I thought.

Then it came to visiting the schools. The big wig grammar was fab - just like my old school, in a 70s building. The headmistress seemed fine, not warm or exciting - but safe. The school looked great. All boxes ticked. Then I went to the local high school - set in stunning old buildings, with a beautiful vista, stone chapel and luscious grounds. The headmaster gave a speech so inspiring I nearly jumped up in pew shouting 'Captain my Captain.' He said his school was not an academic hot house, that their motto was to 'aspire and achieve,' that schools must constantly adapt in a world where our intake were barely born by the time Facebook began. I left thinking, 'have I got it wrong?' 

Then I chatted to my son's head teacher and she was brilliant. She asked, "why put your kid through all that pressure at 10?" What if he failed? I did the 11 plus - because in Northern Ireland, one has to, and I swore I would never put my kids through it. 

I realised something huge: my son is not me. He doesn't come from a broken family; he is not an only child; he does not need school in the way I desperately did. It may have been my salvation in many ways - but that was pure luck - luck that I made the amazing friends I did. Luck that I still have them in my life today. 

Instead of getting caught up in all the vacuous social status, the running with the herd, the blind thinking - I listened to my gut. For some people with academic bright kids, the 11 plus is a great idea. My son is emotionally smart, a wonderful peace maker and his teacher said he would probably pass - but not fly though it. Why go through all that stress only to maybe ruin his esteem if all his mates passed and he didn't? Why make him be the kid I was - the kid he isn't? It was hard for me, to let go of all the dreams I had had in my head. But I thought of what school would be best for him - what school really excited me - and how lucky I am that I live in a lovely town where the local one is so impressive. I emailed the tutor. I'm out of it. My son is happy and therefore so am I. 

2. WELL ACTUALLY I'M NOT. I'M ANGRY. 

I got the train back from story conference last night - and met 3 brilliant women (and 2 of their kids). One was a student from London, studying in Glasgow. We envied her youth, until she reminded us that she may never get on the property ladder. And has debts of 40K, before even doing a masters.
She was articulate and lovely and a feminist. She worried about ever having kids and juggling it with a career.

Which is where we took up the gauntlet. All 3 of us worried about work and kids and the eternal juggling. I can honestly say that it hasn't been until this year that I FINALLY think I have got to a place where I have work/life/kid balance. Yet I talk to so many women friends who tearfully admit they want to work - but how on earth do they combine it with motherhood? Just read THIS. If it doesn't make you bloody raging - then you are dead to me. I mean WHAT is the world coming to??? When did it get so hard for women to have careers? Why do we always have to choose?

What is the point of getting degrees and debts and all that jazz if we end up having to leave work or be demoted just for having kids? WHEN are employers going to wake up to the fact there is an army of talented educated women who want to work - but just want to do so with flexible hours or the understanding they have families that sometimes they need to get to. What future is my daughter looking at? One where she has to graduate, pay off her debt, buy a house, meet someone and have kids in 15 years? That is A LOT of pressure to put on women don't you think?

3. RIP THE NHS

Try as I might I can't get an appointment with my GP - the one I want to see - about my never ending periods and raging hormones. If this is what it is going to be like until the menopause - KILL ME NOW. I'm keeping Tampax in business and not much else. Meanwhile I had my 'NHS check up' which was pointless as I refused to give blood or be weighed. The above article only highlights how ridiculous it has become for a junior doctor - those poor overworked people who do their best and are thwarted at every turn. Before our eyes it crumbles and how do we stop it? Read this and weep. 

4. DO NOT BUY ANY MORE CLOTHES SEEN ON FASHION BLOGGERS

Because it looks a feck of a lot better on their tanned, lithe bodies than it will ever look on YOU. They have 15 years on me, no kids and a life spent moisturising, detox dieting and searching for the perfect winter boot. They aren't doing a supermarket sweep of Zara with a crying kid on one arm and the other shouting they 'need a wee.' All you are doing is spending a lot of time wrapping up boxes and going to 'collect plus.'

5. AUTUMN IS ACE.

Well I had to end on a cheery note didn't I? Thank god Halloween is next week. Lychee martinis ahoy! 

Over and out. x

Back from the dead

This morning, a grey wet miserable excuse of a one, I decided to read back over my blog and a thought struck me - I have MISSED blogging. A lot. I just didn't seem to have time to get my blog on when I was juggling other paid blogging writing and script writing and child rearing and house cleaning and all that jazz.

Plus, (those that know me in the flesh may well be surprised by this comment) I felt like I had nothing to say. There is something about being in a work environment that gets your creative juices flowing and through various chats you come up with a whole range of stuff that you simply MUST blog about. But as I am no longer in full time work, seeing fab colleagues every day and now that my kids are not quite as stressful (though they have their moments) and Husband works from home all the time (he has gone from NEVER being here which did my head in to ALWAYS being here which obviously also does my head in) there aint so much to have a beef with...

I don't find a wealth of material to comment on, with the school run being my main social outing in the day. I haven't been to the cinema for an ages because there is feck all on I want to see - save the Krays film with Tom Hardy (that man can act, if you don't believe me watch Locke, where he holds an entire film driving in a car - no mean feat). I can't even remember the last film I saw - oh hold on - it was Trainwreck, which was so woeful I walked out. I love Amy Schumer (who doesn't?) but dear god this was bad - particularly the scenes when she wasn't on screen - with some bumbling sports star who's name escapes me. I've seen plates of lard with more personality. I'm amping for pre-Oscar season to finally get exited about something film wise - as the new stars wars? Meh.

I've gone from a summer that was nothing short of frantic to an autumn that is oddly quiet. Perhaps I'm just treading water until Halloween, my favourite holiday as you know. This year it'll be filled with fresh troops as I usher in a new set of folk I've met through my daughter, to celebrate with lychee martinis and more decorations than Harrods at Xmas.

One thing you should catch (if you be in London town) is a great exhibition called, Before They Were Fallen that two of my mates put together. It combines portraits and stories of those who lost loved ones in Afghanistan. I went along to the opening on Wednesday and to say it was moving was an understatement.

Often things haunt us - we see something on the news, read a story in a paper, and we just can't seem to shake it. The story that won't leave me is this one, from Humans of New York. It's the tale (in 3 pictures) of a guy called Shane, who was left at a children's home when he was 4. He remembers trying to persuade his Dad not to leave him yelling, 'I'll be good. I'll be good.' In an attempt to stop his Dad leaving he rips at his shirt, so his Dad ends up driving away shirt-less. The imagery of such pain just guts me. Every night I kiss my 4 year old daughter as she snuggles down to sleep and I can't ever imagine leaving her, or bear the thought of her being left. His tale has no happy ending, so if you read it and like me, want to help, his Go Fund me page is here.

So how have you all been? Anyone still reading - be nice to know you're around. I'm gonna try and dip in a bit more. Maybe even find something to moan about...

CM x