Near The Knuckle

You know those times when you think you had a good idea and the whole bloody universe gangs up to show you just how wrong you were? That was me 20 minutes before I needed to be at work this afternoon. When I was stood in Asda - 15 miles from work with two full shopping trolleys, a husband in denial (of being my husband along with all sorts of other things) a son who wanted to cuddle me, a daughter who wanted to pack the bags and was articulating this at high volume, a queue of people behind me, an checkout operator with a ‘there’s no rush, duck’ attitude and precisely £17.82 less in my pocket than the total she’d just rung up. Oh, and wearing unsuitable clothes for work and having had no lunch too.

So this morning I’d got up after a lie in and swanned about eating croissants. Now there is an art to eating croissants akin to the art of eating Cadbury’s flakes. Anyone recall the series of tv ads for Flakes? Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before? The first one I remember is the woman in soft focus, with very glossy lips, a floral dress, a look similar to Kate Bush and a field of some sort of seasonal crop. Must have been the 70s. I recall the one where she was in a claw foot bath with the phone ringing and a lizard too. Anyway, much though we’d all like to think we look as erotic, sexy and gorgeous as those women when we eat a flake we know the truth is we look bloody clumsy. We end up in pretty much the same state as a toddler with a pack of chocolate buttons. There are miniscule flakes of chocolate stuck to our chin, top and cleavage. And as it is so flaky it melts upon contact with your skin leaving brown smears everywhere. It sticks to the roof of your mouth and makes you speak all funny and coats your teeth. Well croissants are like that too. They are French, which by definition should be all sophisticated, evocative of reading Sunday papers in bed with freshly squeezed orange juice and black coffee, smeared with real butter and posh marmalade but actually there is not a great deal of a croissant which makes it into your tummy, most of it either crumbles back onto the plate or ends up all down you. One has to inhale rather than consume a croissant.

I made my list of food shopping for the month and was debating with Bloke whether to do it this morning or to wait until tomorrow when I came up with the idea of all of us going together to do it, you know, like a family. I need to fill two trolleys for a months food shop so I usually do half the shop, pay, load it in the car and then go and do the second half. I had visions of us pushing a trolley each, children assisting as we went round, identifying all sorts of produce from around the world, smiled indulgently at by other shoppers, two of us loading the conveyor belt while the other two packed up at the other end, waving a cheery goodbye to the checkout operator and when Bloke suggested Asda it completed the vision with the four of us tapping out back pockets in the style of their tv ads as we left. We’d arrive home in time to put away the shopping before I got changed and headed off to work.

And then I woke up!

So we did indeed arrive at Asda. The first indication that we should have given up and gone home again came when the queue for the cashpoints was snaking into the carpark. There are 3 cashpoints there but one was out of order and one was working but out of cash. Maidstone came with me but hadn’t worn a coat and was shivering so I picked her up and she wriggled inside my fleece with me where she was overjoyed to be so close to me and spent time kissing me and tickling me with loud ‘I’m tickling your boobs’ comments. And actually a fleece with one blonde and one redhead appearing out of the top kissing each other probably did look faintly odd.

One of our two trolleys was the classic supermarket trolley which has a mind of it’s own. Quite literally. It had an IQ reading and everything. Except it had gotten all above it’s station and decided it didn’t actually want to be a supermarket trolley. It wanted to be bumper car. It had wheels and it was going to use them, but not for the purpose some supermarket trolley manufacturer intended. Oh no siree bob! It’s was going to use to them to escape, to leave Asda, trek across country and find it’s spiritual home in a fairground somewhere in the west country. It wanted to feel the wind in it’s wire, feel the rough ground beneath it’s wheels. It wanted rough hands to grasp it’s handle and spin out of control to the sounds of ’scream if you want to go faster’ with the scent of cheap hotdogs and candyfloss in the air. And with every negotiation of a corner of an aisle, with every tin of value baked beans and six pint carton of milk we put in it, it expressed it’s desire to escape just a little more violently.

Bloke had zoned out and was clearly spending his time in some safe and warm happy shiny place deep inside himself. Somewhere where he sat in posh restaurants with tableclothes and napkins and drank proper alcohol and wasn’t trawling the wine aisle for the cheapest bottle of white available. Banana had regressed to some toddler state and discovered the pitch of ‘eeeeh’ just above the one where only dogs can hear you and was still audible to humans. And he chose only to communicate using this sound. ‘Which flavour Hula Hoops do you want Banana?’ ‘Eeeeeeh’

And Maidstone? She was probably the most sane of our number but has way too many characteristics of her mother, a taste for extravagance and a love of the fruit of the vine, so when not carefully monitored she was trying to load either or both trolleys with bottles of wine. Particularly of the rose variety cos she does love a bottle of pink wine does Maidstone.

When we were barely half way round and I checked my watch to find it was midday I started to feel slightly disconcerted, what with me being due to start work at 1pm and all. And I tried to chivvy everyone along a little. Some ten minutes later I was barging past all sorts of other shoppers with my band of merry helpers and renegade trolley following behind me, tossing in the value toilet roll and own brand crunchy nut cornflakes. Me and the children stopped at a checkout and started loading our trolleys while Bloke went off to get fruit and vegetables leaving both trolleys with us. Trolley without a cause had given up the will to be a bumper car and was quietly pondering a career with the circus. I tried, and frankly failed to organise a packing procedure based on where in the house the final destination of the goods was to be and even gave up worrying about whether things would get crushed or frozen things were going to start freezing the hula hoops by too close a proximity. Maidstone was single handedly loading the wine onto the checkout, all the while looking at the label and commenting on the vintage, Banana was continuing with his ‘EEeees’ and adding in the ocassional ‘Ummmm’ and then Bloke came back with all the fruit and veg so I was able to go to the end of the till and start packing while he carried on loading. It was 12.25. The trip is possible in 15 minutes, I had my name badge in my bag and would have to live with not wearing clothes I would have chosen for work.

But I hadn’t banked on this particular checkout operator. She was no ordinary checkout operator. She actually said to me ‘No rush Darlin’. I’ve learnt that there is no benefit to hurrying. My shift doesn’t go any quicker, I don’t get paid any more and there is no need to throw things down the checkout at customers.’ Wise words indeed. The sort that make you want to hug the person next to you. To start a rousing chorus of ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ to feel the love and respect for your fellow man, the stop and admire the daisies, to hear the birds sing, the bees buzz and to take time to see all the beauty in the world around you. To nod sagely and agree that there is nothing to be gained by hurrying, no good can come of it.

Except of course getting to bloody work on time!!!

But, and reasons for this will become clear, I am SOOOO glad I didn’t say a word. So pleased that I didn’t incur her wrath by saying something like ‘well actually I’d really rather you did hurry becuase I have to be in work in 31 minutes and it is a 15 minute drive away and we still have to get these two trolleys, one of which is about to make a bid for freedom and get on it’s way to St Ives as soon as it smells fresh air across the carpark and loaded into the car along with these two children which will take at least 7 minutes by my calculations leaving me with very little margin for error, daisy smelling, birds and bees listening or the luxury of worrying about whether you put hairline cracks in my eggs by sending them whizzing down towards me a bit on the quick side.’ Instead I just smile and complimented her on her great attitude.

So we got there, we were all standing on the exit side of the tills, our two trolleys were brimming, the end was in sight, we were a full minute and a half ahead of schedule (and this was despite me being a bit crap at getting the bags to come off the bag dispenser and the checkout lady bustling out of her checkout, coming to the end and pulling off about 300 carrier bags for me to ‘help’) and then she pressed the total button. And although I looked at the total as it showed up on the screen I didn’t quite believe it until she said the words ‘That will be £217.82 please’. Which would be fine. If I didn’t only actually have £200 in my pocket. And by being a bit sensible with my loading the last few items to come through and therefore be loaded into the trolley were 10 loaves of bread at 26p a loaf, 12 lots of 6 pints of milk at less that £17 for the whole load and all the expensive things like meat and wine stashed right at the bottom of the trolleys where it was totally unfeasible to drag them out and say ‘oh just take these bits off actually, we don’t need them’.

So instead I smiled my best smile, left Bloke and the children stood there, left the friendly checkout operator and the queue of people behind us, said a cheery ‘bear with me just a moment’ and dodging the crowds ran back to the cashpoints outside, joined the queue of 4 people waiting for the only machine dispensing cash and got some more money out. Ran back to the checkouts, with a face clashing horribly with my hair, handed over the extra £20 (I gave her the £200 before I ran) and then walked out with my cheery goodbye and Asda back pocket tapping just the same. Bloke said the woman behind us in the queue had been all tutting and eye rolling so the checkout operator had been saying about how ‘that’s the thing about ASDA, there are just so many great things to buy you always end up getting more than you came in for!’ while he pretended not to actually know me and be one of those volunteers who accompany the care in ther community folk when they go to do their shopping while Banana made further noises and Maidstone rearranged the shopping in the trolley and the errant trolley edged further towards the exit.

Somehow we still managed to toss all the shopping into the car and get me to work with minutes, well ok seconds to spare. I regaled my colleagues with the story, apologising about my top (a black top with a massive pink bejewelled ‘Tickled Pink’ splashed across the front and jeans with lots of frayed bits (thankfully I’d not worn the pair I wore yesterday which have ‘Angus’ written across one thigh in black biro, but that’s another story!) to which my boss laughed and said ‘ah that’s fine, it doesn’t say anything offensive does it?’.

It meant the topic of conversation at work this afternoon was food shopping though, with me explaining my shop for a month and menu plan and batch cook and freeze policy. I then confessed to doing a fair bit of baking rather than buying cakes and biscuits which led them all to look at me in astonishment as some sort of sensible grown up type. I did tell them that I felt I was misleading them all rather and I felt they should know that by 9pm most evenings I am in a wine sodden heap singing James Blunt songs but I fear I have totally given them the wrong impression of me

When I was at school I was crap at PE. Actually now I’m 32 I’d probably be even more crap at PE but it matters far less than it did back then. Well it matters less if you discount the risks to my health of being obese and unfit that being crap at PE goes hand in hand with, the trauma and negative effects on my children of having an embarassing large mother (but I over-ride that by being even more embarassing in other ways to draw attention away from my hips and arse!), the message I am putting out to them and other easily led people who see me being happy despite being fat and think it’s an OK state to be rather than showing them that Fat = Miserable and that it is a state they should never, at all costs find themselves in and finally of course the impact on the envrionment. Can’t quite think what that might be, but I’m sure there is one .

So putting all of that aside, I am concluding that when I was at school I was crap at PE. I was that girl stood with an ever hopeful look on her little freckled face that this time, just once, I might not be the last person left when picking sides for netball or hockey. That even the fattest girl in class, the smelly girl with the tatty trainers and the too big for her PE skirt handed down from the lost property box and the girl with glasses so thick which she had to take off for games so she couldn’t see the netball ball let alone the hockey ball would not all be picked before me. It never happened of course, I was always, always last to be picked for PE. But then when I was 14 I developed an ingrowing toenail and got my Mum to write a letter to say I couldn’t wear trainers so I got to just wear slip on gym shoes and do dance, gym and trampolining for a whole year and a half instead of PE, which was fab cos I was good at them.

So, with this whole being crap at PE, being last to be picked, having my delicate and precarious self worth knocked and damaged further three times a week in trial by team picking you would imagine that Sports Day would be a nightmare for me wouldn’t you really. Ritual humiliation not just infront of the whole class, but the whole school. And invited parents / carers / relations. But actually no. Despite the fact that whatever ‘event’ I’d been shoved in for - and when you are crap at PE you tend to find you are shoved wherever the numbers need making up meaning I did events as diverse as discus and javelin (very embarassingly crap at these - if I managed to even throw them in the right direction - forwards, then I still made a really feeble attempt, got it barely my own arm’s reach infront of me and generally wobbled and then fell over with the effort), 1500 metres (also bad, I think I was not last on the occassion I did this, but the person who was last was still running round there long after all the parents / carers / relatives had gone home, the benches had been put away back in the sports hall, all the cups and trophies had been handed out and dusk was falling. I came considerably after the third to last runner though and had to be treated like a marathon runner with one of those silver blankets, wet flannels, an inhaler and lucozade tablets placed on my tongue to dissolve until my face returned to its normal colour, I stopped panting and the power of speech returned) and on one memorable occassion hurdles (still to painful to recount I’m afraid ) I actually quite liked the event. I liked the performing to a crowd, I enjoyed the feeling of others willing you to win, I liked the fact that there were winners - just cos I was crap it didn’t mean I couldn’t see that the people who were good were very good and as such deserved cheering and celebration for being so.

But now, I believe, competition isn’t encouraged any more. At children’s parties there is a ‘prize for everyone’ just for taking part. The pass the parcel is wrapped with the same number of layers (prize every time) as there are children and the music carefully managed to ensure every child gets a turn. Aside from meaning that once you’ve unwrapped your layer you may as well go and play that running and sliding on your knees with aeroplane arms game that all children play at parties instead of continuing to sit passing the parcel for another ten minutes what other message are we giving our children?

At jo interviews there are no consolation prizes. If there are five candidates for a job then only one will get it. The other four are not sent away with a part time salary and benefits package just for ‘taking part’. Every player of the national lottery does not to pick a sweetie from the bowl when their numbers fail to come up in the draw. At premier league football matches the ref doesn’t suddenly announce that ‘actually you’re all winners, I know, let’s all have five points each’. No, if you are the best, if you put the effort in then you win. If you have a natural talent you are rewarded for it.

Humans are competive, actually I get a buzz at being better at something than someone else is, I enjoy pitching myself against someone with comparable talent and winning, and whilst the trade off for the exhaltation of winning may well be the crushing disappointment of losing well I think I’d rather taste those lows in order that the highs may be that much sweeter actually.

There is something inherantly funny about bodily functions and fluids isn’t there? I only need to say ‘wee wee poo poo pants’ to Banana and Maidstone to have them thinking I am to the world of comedy what McDonalds is to the world of fine cuisine.

I think with the possible exception of ear wax (which I just can’t find a comedy angle on) pretty much all fluids are amusing to varying degrees. Clearly I’ve already done Menstrual Bleeding and I do have great plans for sleepy dust and dandruff at a later date but today I want to talk a little about vomit.

What adds to the comic effect of vomit is that it is rarely, if ever appropriate. Certainly once you reach past the age of about 10 it is usually caused by an excess of something (infact even at the tender age of about four I believe I might have created a technicolour puddle after wolfing down a packet of Tooty Fruity sweets too quickly for my little tummy to take. Anyone remember them btw - the brought out a Tooty Minties version too, which I was able to eat but I never again faced Tooty Fruits after that unfortunate incident) and often preceded by embarassing behaviour too.

I have two such occassions to share with you of vomit related eww-dom and cringeworthiness. There are more but these are my particular ‘favourites’.

The first was when I was 19. I had been having a relationship with someone for about a year when he had to leave town. He went back to his hometown and I was invited down to visit and meet the family and friends. I drove there, only breaking down in my old banger of an escort twice during the 100 miles of so journey, found he had gone out to work and was left to arrive and be greeted by his mother and sister, neither of whom I had ever met before. By the time he arrived home I was fraught with nervousness and only too happy to get changed and go out for the evening with him.

We walked into the town centre and embarked on a heavy duty pub crawl. I cannot actually recall what I was drinking in those days but chances are it was either cider or whiskey (I was, and infact still am, a very classy chick!). We eventually ended up at a nightclub. By this point I would have been staggering and after further drinking I stumbled to the toilets. I sat down with my jeans round my ankles and rested my head on my lap. The realisation that I was indeed going to vomit came upon quite suddenly and took me a little by surprise. I stood up and before I could turn round and aim for the toilet I threw up all down myself and the floor. Which included of course the insides of my jeans which were still around my ankles.

In the style of all nightclub toilets there was about one piece of toilet roll in the cubicle and that was trodden into the floor slighly sodden with others urine rather than in the dispenser. So I did the only option left to me, gritted my teeth and pulled my jeans back up again. I walked round the nightclub (doubtless dripping sick from my ankles as I went) looking for my boyfriend but he was nowhere to be seen. Having lost track of time whilst in the toilet I assumed he must have gone home without me so I staggered out of the nightclub, found a taxi (which in retrospect could actually have been any random car which just took pity on me actually!) and got back to his parents house. They opened the door, took one look at me and assumed we’d had a row so pointed me at the stairs and left me to it to go to bed. Where I slept, still wearing the jeans if I recall correctly!

The next morning my boyfriend told me he had wandered the streets for hours searching for me having waited at the nightclub til it closed for me to return from the toilet and finally come home as it was getting light only to find me sleeping peacefully in his bed, stinking of sick and cider. Clearly he had never been so pleased to see me!

The second incident which was unfortunately far more public is one more often recounted by Bloke. He probably tells it with more comic effect that I, given he has no level of embarrassment about it, gets to play the hard done by hero of the tale and embellishes it wildly too. However he is not here so here is my version.

I am ashamed to say this story is very recent, infact it was earlier on this year. So Banana and Maidstone were with us. I was a 30 odd year old mother of two who really should have known better.

We’d all been invited to stay with one of Bloke’s oldest friends for a night. His girlfriend (who was quite new and we’d not met before) worked for someone rich who owned various properties and made them available to his staff at weekends as incentives for good work performance. This was a brand new appartment in a seaside marina development. It had only been finished and furnished about a month previously and she was the first person to stay there with Bloke’s friend. Very modern living in its decor, filled with laminate floors, ceramic and chrome, soft furnishings in browns and creams and in order to accomodate as many guests as possible had two bunk beds in the guest room we were using.

So we arrived early evening, settled Banana and Maidstone to sleep and having got over our shock at how much older than Bloke’s friend his new girlfriend was her and I sank a bottle of wine each while bonding as Bloke and his mate went off to collect a takeaway thai curry we’d phoned an order through for. I realised very speedily that my empty stomach now sloshing with wine needed some soaking up before further wine was added to the mix so I ate my thai curry with great haste, washing it down with a little more wine as it was pretty spicey.

I managed a bit of conversation before starting to feel distinctly unwell and having to spend a short while reminding myself of the mechanics required to stand up and walk to the bathroom. I didn’t quite get it spot on, I launched myself from the sofa too quickly, so staggered and murmered someting about ‘goinforawee’ before cannoning off the door frame and both sides of the hall corridor before reaching the toilet, closing the door behind me and imediately throwing up.

Here I will have to refer back to Bloke’s descripton as I’m quite vague about what happened next. I know that I ended up on the balcony with Bloke’s friend and girlfriend, while they made me a cup of tea and I smoked a cigarette (I don’t smoke!) talking nonsense about the sea view and apologising profusely for my behavior! Bloke was using up every cleaning product in the house and then showering himself off after clearing up what he assures me was the worst case of room decoration by vomit he’d ever seen. Apparantly it was *everywhere* as if I’d *started throwing up and instead of leaning into the toilet I’d span round as fast as I could while it sped out of me using centrifugal force to cover every surface.

I went off to bed, in disgrace while Bloke stayed up to try and continue the lovely evening catching up with old friends he had been hoping for.
Yes, the beds. So they were two bunks. Banana and Maidstone don’t like top bunks so they were in the two bottom ones. I clambered, probably slightly less than gracefully to the bunk above Maidstone and she woke up. She wanted to be in bed with me so she climbed up with me. We laid for a little while close to sleep until suddenly I realised I was going to be sick again. So there I am, stuck on a top bunk, with a two year old, knowing if I move I would vomit calling for Bloke in a soft manner so as not to rouse Banana who was sleeping in his own bottom bunk across the other side of the room.

Didn’t quite work. Bloke was finally alerted to my need by the sound of retching, followed by vomit splashing on the laminate flooring and all over the rug and bedding, dripping through the matress on the top bunk onto the one below and both children wailing ‘Mummy Sick! Mummy Sick!’

Maidstone was being quite caring and stroking me as I vomited, for this she ended up getting in the way and her hair got a dousing Bloke came along, took Maidstone off to be showered, put me into bed with Banana and a bowl, then brought Maidstone back, stripped the beds and cleaned up the carpet. In the morning he took all the bedding to the local launderette and returned with it clean and dry and back in place before anyone else was awake.

My punishment was avery bracing brisk walk along the very hard going beach in very warm sun, followed by a ride around the marina in a speedboat with hearty meal in the pub afterwards. I managed to both participate and to not further disgrace myself for the rest of the day, but living it down took slightly longer!

I blog therefore I am. Can’t really remember how I used up all my words before I used to blog. They must have gone somewhere… So I’m probably verging on blogaholism, I should probably enrol on some sort of 12 step programe to lessen my dependance on unloading my every thought, fear and dream into a blog and cluttering up the internet with it all. But for now, it seems there is still enough space left to house it all out there. I have not yet been blocked from blogger, wordpress or blogsome so in the style of someone constantly transfering balances from one credit card to another here I am again with a brand new blog. Some of my blogs are passworded, some are out there for all the world to see. This will be an out there for everyone type of blog but it will have the protection of concealed identities for those featuring in it. Still unsure what my disguise will be - will probably ponder further on that later. My husband will be Bloke which is probably not hugely imaginative but describes his gender which at this stage is probably all you need to know. I have two children, one of each variety and in homage to recent celebrity trends for naming children after fruit and the names of towns and cities I will rechristen my son Banana and my daughter Maidstone. Classy eh?! So the purpose for this blog is one of my ‘in another life…’ type fantasies. I have long cherished the thought of doing stand up comedy. The comedians who make me laugh until my stomach hurts, tears run down my cheeks until all my mascara has run and mingled with the snot which has come out when I snort attractively with laugher and generally help me to become all the more gorgeous as a result of listening to their humour are those who push the boundaries of good taste. I like the idea of exploring subjects which would not be suitable at a dinner party, talking of the taboo, mentioing the unmentionable and saying words which make you wince and sqirm in your seat. Hopefully it also makes you laugh. I’m working here on the basis that there is nothing which isn’t funny.

We have an odd collection of neighbours around here - infact one day I really must write about them all in all their delightfully, charming and mainly harmless lunacy but the cream of the crop is John and Janet - a brother and sister who are both well into their 40s and live opposite us with their mother Doris. They all used to live in London (not sure where) but their father died, their mother was mugged and the ‘final straw was when the road started to fill up with ‘darkies’ buying all the houses’ (their words obviously, not mine) so they moved down here to Sunny Sussex by the Sea.

None of them work, although I would imagine that at least one of them is getting some sort of carers allowance for Doris and they seem OK for money so they spend every day loading themselves into their silver Mondeo (John always but always drives, perhaps the other can’t drive actually) and heading off to country fairs, village walks and cream teas around Sussex.

They are all very sweet, adore Banana and Maidstone and regularly bring them things like cuddly toys John has won at country fair hoopla stalls and sweets.

Anyway the other night as I was unloading Tescos shop from the car John and Janet were off out for an early evening walk (not too far, the heat knocks me out and I have a pile of ironing this big (hand held up to shoulder height) to do when I get back) and mentioned it was Janet’s birthday the next day.

We duly waited until they were all out - not too keen to get past neighbourly chats on the lawn and into going in for sherry and voluvants or anything like that - and I headed across the road to shove a birthday card through their letter box. Bloke (hilariously he thought!) took a photo of me running down their drive having done it But it was safe, they were all out and not hiding behind the sofa waiting to catch me having parked the car up the road to trick me (which would have been really hilarious if they had as they would have seen me running (an odd sight) and Bloke photographing me and wondered why!).

Got home yesterday to find a thank you card from Janet. It has a little picture of a teddy holding a card up saying ‘Thank You’ and inside (in gold pen!) is a thank you for my birthday card message, followed by a brief round up of what she did on the day (went out for a meal to a Tapas bar) and signed with lots of love.

It is the first time I have ever had a thank you card for a card. I am so inclined to send one back thanking her for her thank you card and see whether I can start a communication through the ‘power of the thank you card’ which could go on for years. I have the message planned already:

Dear Janet,

Thank you so much for your lovely thank you card. It is on our mantlepiece where we admire it several times a day.

I am particularly keen on the teddy picture - it is sooo cute and I also really like the square design - a refreshing change from the usual rectangle shape of such cardboard greetings products.

I would of course send this in a slightly bigger card than she sent us, perhaps one with glitter or a foil effect. She would then return with something with dangly home made feel bits on, I would then start to add a small gift such as an individual chocolate to my return, her’s would come with a hand tied posy of wild flowers, mine would graduate to a larger box of chocolates, hers would come with a small bottle of champage, mine would come with a helium balloon in a box which floated out when you opened it, hers would come with a larger box containing a gorillagram, mine would contain the keys to a new car tied with a red giant ribbon like the Bully’s special prize on Bullseye, her’s would have tickets for a luxury mini break, mine would have tickets for a round the world cruise…. oh, it could be so much fun!

Or maybe I’ll end the madness right here right now before it gets out of hand. These things can escalate you know

The last time I had a smear test it was the day after Bloke had had his wisdom teeth out. We live across the road from the doctors so although we had left the hospital with strict instructions for him to not be left alone for 48 hours after the anaesthetic we decided he’d be fine left alone with Banana and Maidstone while I nipped across the road for ten minutes to have my cervix scrapped. It seemed like a better plan than bringing them with me for what would have undoubtedly been an educational and eye opening experience for them but also possibly one resulting in many years of therapy.

So I settled down with a magazine and waited for my name to be called. After half an hour the receptionist came in to the packed waiting room (why does it always rain when I go to the doctors - the waiting room is always filled with people bedecked in dripping outerwear with steam slowly rising off them as they dry out while reading copies of Womans Weekly from 1997 and Hello! magazine featuring the wedding of Posh and Becks) and spoke in that shouty but without inflection way that doctors receptionists have the monopoly on to a very scared looking girl. She told her that the nurse had been caught in traffic but should be arriving any moment. She seemed to be being very careful to be discrete and then blew it by saying to room at large ‘and if anyone else is waiting for smear tests then you will be delayed too’ before flouncing out, leaving the young girl puce and hiding behind her leaflet on pneumonia jabs for the over 65s, several old women who didn’t have smear tests in their day tutting loudly and being drowned out by the obligatory old bloke with the rattly wheezy cough. Resigned to a longer wait I started thumbing through a tatty copy of Top Sante circa June 2001.

Half an hour since my appointment time my old Health Visitor (well I suppose technically she still is our HV but both Banana and Maidstone have been signed off as not needing any further development checks until they are of school nurse age) called young girl in for her smear… this worried me slightly. I first met her when I was 8 months pregnant with Banana, then weekly at baby clinic after I had him until he was 15 months old and we moved up north. She had reduced me to tears by being kind to me when he was 10 days old and slept for just three hours one night, she had reassured me that he and I would not end up on Jerry Springer ‘my toddler weighs 8 stone and he’s only 18 months old’ when he had a big weight gain one week, she similarly reassured me he did not have some sort of juvenile bulimia when he sicked up every feed for three days; she debated MMR with me; share the triumphs of first smile, crawl, words and full nights sleep and gave a big emotional speech when I went to the last baby clinic before we moved away. She was thrilled when we moved back home again and did development checks on both children and pronounced them wonderful! As HVs go I quite like her.

And now she was going to be sticking a speculum up me and having a good old look!

Waited a further half an hour and started to worry that Bloke may not be ok left with the children alone for this long in his groggy state. He had been up since 4am Maidstone had woken and I went to her but she was adamant she didn’t want me and woke Bloke up by yelling, he then needed to take some more painkillers so would not have been able to get back to sleep and offered to sit with her and then sleep today when I got back from the docs. He had then run me a bath and brought me a cup of tea in bed before collapsing back onto the sofa in his dressing gown.

I asked the receptionist how long it was likely to be as I’d been there for an hour now and my ‘childcare’ would be getting worried. She assured me I would be soon but I told her I needed to nip home and would be back shortly. Ran across the road to find Bloke still in the same position he had been when I left him but now covered with glow in the dark road safety hedgehog stickers which had arrived in the post and the kids were decorating him and the house with. Not actually sure if he registered me coming back and going again but he did smile vaguely at me….

Back to the surgery and sure enough Jenny the HV called me in. Asked if I was ok with her doing the smear as she knows me and then proceeded to regale me with her awful morning story. Checked my bp which I explained may well be high due to the hours wait in the waiting room and then running back and forth across the road. Turned out it was below my usual rate, clearly the sitting with Take a Break child free for an hour had done me the power of good relaxation wise!

I’ll spare you the full details of the smear although it was lengthy and does have comedy value if you are of a mindset to laugh at gynaecological procedures on women lying on a couch with their legs open naked from the waist down while the HV tries to find scissors in order to fashion some sort of bastardised tool using a finger from a pair of surgical gloves. She also confirmed that my cervix has abrasions on it, which I already knew, it’s never really held me back although I did use it as an excuse for not hoovering for a while when I first found out - No I can’t possibly whip round with the Dyson, I’ve abrasions on my cervix! Turns out she thinks I may get recalled anyway as she got lots of blood cells on the sample

So a full hour and a half after my appointment I finally arrived home and Bloke, now sporting glitter on his chest hair where the dressing gown had fallen open (not sure whether to berate the children for decorating their father during his weak hour or whether to be concerned at what he gets up to when I am not around!) went off to bed.

Woke up on Friday morning with that unmistakable feeling that I was menstruating. Removed the children who had woken me by leaping about on top of me and went to the loo. Sure enough, there was blood.

Looked for my mooncup among usual bathroom clutter including greasy roots dry shampoo spray, the body cream which matches perfume I’ve been bought for Christmas in a gift pack and always seems either too special to use everyday or is not the same as the perfume I am wearing that day and therefore sits in the bathroom until it is chucked out in one of my grand bin liner filling crap from the bathroom culls and several tubes of mascara. Failed to locate it.

Children were mithering me for milk, breakfast, to come downstairs and see their drawings of The Wiggles, to come downstairs and change the channel on the TV and there was a cat weaving round my legs in the manner of Felix from the cat food adverts on TV. I wadded a load of loo roll between my legs and did a sort of shuffling legs together to the knees walk downstairs to meet various child and feline demands.

Some time later, still walking like someone who’s mistaken an aerosol container of super strenth glue for feminine deodrant and trailing a small amount of toilet roll from behind like a really crap dressing up outfit of a lamb I went to the downstairs bathroom to try and find the mooncup there. Swapped the now soiled loo roll for a fresh handful and rumaged in the bathroom cabinet. This action triggered a Niagara Falls type attraction from the bathroom cabinet into the sink below of toothbrushes (I always stock up when they are doing BOGOF in Sainsburys so we always seem to have a sort of toothbrush mountain stashed in there) assorted sticking plasters with little transfers on them, some organic toothpaste I bought once which tastes of aniseed and no one likes (on the basis that we have both had bad pernod experiences and leaning over a sink with the taste of aniseed in our mouths makes us gag with the deja vous of it all!) but we have not thrown away yet, and various miscellaneous bathroom type products including a tongue scraper (the gagging thing again) a magic flannel (the ones which are really tightly packaged into ‘fun’ shapes and when you undo them and add water you get a flannel), two mini bottles of mouth wash (clearly stolen from a hotel sometime and undoubtedly out of date now given how long ago it is since we stayed in hotels with complementary toiletries) and a digital thermometer. (Maybe we should do a flickr group of bathroom cabinet contents). But no mooncup.

Changed the loo roll over again, bundled all the stuff back into the bathroom cabinet, closing the door really quickly so the same thing will happen to the next fool who opens it (probably me!) and rang Bloke. Surely he must have moved it then?

His phone was answered by his colleague as Bloke was driving. Now this is a single, childless man in his early 20s. A sort of Men Behaving Badly type who already thinks we are slightly odd by virtue of the fact we are married with children. So not the right person to be relaying a ‘where is my mooncup dear?’ type conversation between myself and my beloved. He assures me he will have Bloke ring me back as soon as he is free.

At this point the children have started playing with some dental floss which was in the torrent of stuff from the bathroom cabinet but never made it back in there. They are pulling it free from its little plastic container and winding it round things in the lounge in a large scale, minty fresh cats cradle sort of fashion. Decide that it is a small price to pay for peace while I continue the search for the moon cup so leave them to it.

Am about to start the climb up the stairs which I anticipate being a tricky business with the whole keeping my legs together thing. Consider packing a rucksack with some kendal mint cake for a midpoint stop and rest. Decide I can probably make it if I do a sort of clutching the loo roll with one hand style dash and can therefore walk properly. Am half way up the stairs and the blood is seeping into my cupped hand when the phone rings. Consider momentarily whether to continue up the stairs into our bedroom for the phone there, or double back downstairs for one of the phones there. Decide to go back down and take the phone into the kitchen where I substitute the loo roll for kitchen roll and answer the phone.

It’s Bloke.
‘Hello Babe, do you know where my mooncup is?’
‘your what?’
‘my mooncup - you know the little rubber cup thing that I use for - ‘
‘your WHAT?’ at this point I realise that the line has that curious echoy quality to it which is a good indicator that either the person on the other end is somewhere like an underground tube station with tiled walls and odd acoustics or you are on speakerphone in a hands free incar set up. Realise simultaneously that Bloke knows full well what I mean and is trying to somehow shut me up before I launch into a graphic description which will irrepairably damage the future relationships with women of the colleague sat next to him. Thinking on my feet I say ‘oops about to go into a tunnel, losing you….’ and hang up. Let’s hope the colleague was not aware Bloke had called ‘The Wife Home’ and not ‘The Wife mobile’ or Bloke manages to explain why we have tunnels in our house!

As I return upstairs having checked first on the progress of the dental floss decoration in the lounge (commendable efforts - Tracy Emin would be proud of such creations) I am hit with a flash of inspiration. I distinctly recall having to empty my mooncup in the public loos at The Eden Project. This means I had it with me on holiday so it must be in one of the bags we took away with us. We took 3. One with Eden Project packing, one for the children’s packing and one for ours. Upon our return home I repacked them in an equally organised manner with one for dirty washing, one for wet clothes and toiletry bags and one for clean and unworn clothes. Can’t quite recall which bag was nominated for which purpose though so realise I will probably need to find all three and go through all the pockets in them and of course it will be in the last one I look in. I try to cheat this murphys law phenomena by pretending to be going to look for one of them and casually going to the wardrobe in our room which is where the larger holdall is stored, and then suddenly at the last minute veering off into Banana’s room to check in the loft space cupboards where the other two are stashed. I realise at this point that although kitchen roll is certainly more absorbant that toilet roll and would now be my first choice for sanitary protection fashioned from random household objects I am upstairs, the kitchen roll is downstairs and I am in need of clean dressings. Grab some baby wipes from Banana’s drawers and begin moving all the toy boxes which had been placed infront of the cupboard door to prevent children from getting into the loft spaces last weekend. Baby wipes are a new sensation. Not hugely absorbant and slightly slimy in feel, the blood is soaking in to it in a random fashion and making a pattern not unlike the splodges you used to get on old fashioned blotting paper when you shook a newly filled fountain pen to lose the excess ink before writing. Carry on regardless.

Pull all of the various stuff out of the cupboard which has been crammed infront of the holdalls. This includes a childs IKEA chair, several fleece blankets, a train set in a box (which is falling apart and leaks a couple of pieces of train track as I yank it out) and one of the cats who keeps trying to get in the loft and has appeared as soon as she heard me opening the door. Reach the holdalls and drag them out. Nothing. They are not empty - obviously! - but contain things like a really old dummy (possibly so old it actually pre dates Maidstone being born and belonged to Banana once), some cotton wool balls and three hair bobbles. Leave the dummy out to chuck away later as it is covered in dust, hair and the teat is all squashed in where the rubber has shrivelled up. Remove the cat again from the loft and push everything back in again.

Baby wipes really aren’t cutting it now so I rumage in one of Banana’s drawers and find a swim nappy. In blue. Obviously kept long after he’d stopped needing them but not used by Maidstone as she would have refused to wear a blue one. Rip it open and wedge it between my legs. I know the point of them is that they are not absorbant as such but surely it will suffice temporarily until such times as I find the mooncup or remember where I put all the sanitary towels I happily bagged up to try and sell on ebay when I first got my mooncup! Well actually it won’t, so I quickly go through to the upstairs bathroom and replace it with more toilet roll. Ponder at this point whether putting some pants on to keep the loo roll in place would be a wise investment of my time but decide that actually I just really need to find the mooncup and get on with life.

Open the wardrobe doors and clamber inside. They are a little Narnia-esqu as they were built in the eaves bit of our bedroom when we had it converted from loft. They go back probably four foot and stretch the length of the bedroom 10 foot and have a door at the back which leads to another area of loft space. Hence they are the home of all sorts of junk!

Part the coats and dresses and stuff at the front and climb in further, this necessitates my arse going up in the air, sticking outside the wardrobe and into the bedroom, still with legs jammed together to keep toilet roll in place.

Attempt to drag out the holdall to daylight but fail as it is caught behind various items such as spare duvet, a suitcase, a bulk 48 roll pack of loo rolls (which is probably just as well I reflect) and the other cat who is thrilled to be able to get into the wardrobe. So holding the coats and dresses out of the way with my shoulder to allow some light into the back of the wardrobe to see the contents of the holdall, keeping arse in the air and legs together with one knee bent out at a curious angle in order to keep the cat out I rummage in the holdall. It contains all of the toiletry bags with things like our toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodrant and mini bottles of perfume and aftershave (we go away so frequently that we just keep them in there all the time), more cotton wool, two sewing kits from hotels long ago, a baby monitor with a very tangled cord and more hair bobbles. But no mooncup.

At this point Maidstone appears, with the discarded and very icky dummy from the other room firmly in her mouth (eeww) and asks ‘whatcha doing Mummy? Why you in wardrobe? What’s that by your ‘gyna?’ as she pulls the blood soaked loo roll from its precarious wedge against me. ‘Urgh, s’all bloody’ she says dropping it and holding her now blood soaked hands out for inspection.

Take her to the bathroom to wash her hands, remove the dummy from her, use more toilet roll for catching blood and tell her to go back downstairs. Bribe her to do so with a few creative suggestions of further activities with the dental floss.

Return to the wardrobe to shove everything back in again. Close wardrobe door. Do quick cat head count. Open wardrobe door and retrieve cross cat.

Return to Banana’s room. Realise I clearly didn’t look properly for that mooncup last time. It must have been there, staring me in the face and I somehow missed it. Well it won’t get me this time. This time I’m gonna find it and find it good. If I’d been wearing anything at all I would have pushed the sleeves of the garment up in an ‘and now I mean business’ type fashion. I settled instead for a slight readjustment of the loo roll between my legs.

Got all the toy boxes out of the way again, pulled all of the stuff out of the loft space, removed the cat again, looked through the holdalls in an exagerated and thorough manner even going so far as to hold them up and check underneath them. No, mooncup definitely wasn’t there.

Started to rack my brains to think of where it could be, haunted by that nagging ‘I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere’ type feeling. Did I put it in my handbag? I know its not in the glove box of the car as I checked that last week! Did I leave it in those public toilets at The Eden Project? Does their lost property department have an email address? Start to return all of the cupboard contents to the cupboard in a weary and beaten fashion. Half heartedly remove the cat from there several times with a ‘what’s the point’ air about me.

Decide that I better get dressed and find some sort of material to fashion a temporary towel until I can get to Boots to purchase some sanitary protection, ponder the nature of muslin cloths cut down for this purpose, wonder about cutting old towels into strips and then realise that actually we don’t have any old towels anyway.

Go back to my bathroom and lay down a pampers care mat (designed for nighttime bedding protection for not reliably dry at night children) to sit on while I put my make up on. Go to the bedroom and select dark and loose clothing to disguise the nappy effect that loads of loo roll will create and hide any leakages while we’re out.

Sit down for a wee, glance to my left and there, in the place it always has been, winking at me in the light sat my mooncup.