Baby guilt

I'm still feeling horribly guilty about breaking a baby at the weekend. I honestly don't see how I can possibly take them anywhere ever again (assuming their parents would ever permit me to, which I wouldn't if I were them). My guilt is such that I have to hope E doesn't ask me for anything she shouldn't have before I have time to get over it. You want to watch telly even though I'm in the middle of Hell's Kitchen? Of course you may! You want to wear my very fragile owl necklace? Yes, go ahead, break it! You want my first born child? Take it! It'd probably be safer with you anyway. In fact, have anything your little heart desires, just please stop looking at me with your pretty chin all scratched up and that reproachful 'you were supposed to take care of me' look in your eyes.

A royal flush

I've been putting a fair amount of effort into ignoring the whole royal wedding extravaganza, but it's becoming more difficult. I emerged from my house this morning to find that three of the houses in my row have sprouted plastic bunting emblazoned with pictures of a certain couple; a sight which caused me to stop dead in my tracks and let loose a 'Gah!' of horror. I just don't understand what all the fuss is about. I love a wedding as much as the next hopeless romantic, but surely all the enjoyment comes from witnessing and basking in the joy of somebody you care about as they hitch themselves to somebody they care about. Anybody deciding to declare their love for another human being, and their intention of sticking by that person for life, is lovely, but I wouldn't dream of popping along to the local church this weekend, taking a picture of a random couple, getting it printed onto a plate and slapping it up on my wall for posterity. I like to cultivate eccentricities, but that's a step too far even for me, and I see no difference between this and the purchase of any of the abundant Kate and Wills merchandise that's out there.

Having said this, I will be attending a royal wedding party, and with Americans no less (I anticipate shrillness and over-excitement). I've had my arm viciously twisted with offers of food, drink and good company, so I've given in. I have every intention of watching the wedding in my pyjamas and a plastic tiara, and of heckling. I would throw crisps at the tv screen if I weren't going to be in somebody else's house. This is patriotism the Meg way. As with many things done 'The Meg way', it will involve a glass of something alcoholic stationed firmly in my hand, and a spectacular display of cynical indignation. I can already feel my hostess releasing her hold on the arm behind my back......

Fishy feet

I got a fish pedicure on Friday. In case this fad has thus far passed you by, this involves dunking one's feet into a tank full of small fish (and water, obviously) and sitting there for fifteen minutes while they munch away at your dead skin. For the record, it is an odd experience. Once you get used to the tickling it is by no means an unpleasant tactile sensation, but it's hard to relax when you have that suspicion in the back of your mind that at any minute your little piscine friends are going to rise up against their oppressors and devour you from the toes up. There seems to be one fish in each tank that is at least twice the size of the next largest fish in there, and it is this fellow who seems to bite harder and more enthusiastically than all the others. It will be him who eventually draws his metaphorical sword and leads the other fishies in glorious revolution against the foot overlords. Of course, having done so, their source of food will be obliterated, and their community will wither and die, but this is the price one pays for social freedom. I'm sure Marx would approve.

Bad Auntie Megs

I took the babies to the park today; the first time I've taken them out anywhere unsupervised. This was supposed to have the dual benefits of allowing me to spend some quality bonding time with my nieces, and giving their mummy a break. Hah! It wasn't long before I realised the difficulty of taking twins anywhere. How do you watch them both?! E has a habit of grabbing the monkey bars and just swinging herself out into space. Of course when I went to hold on to her she wanted to do it "all by herself", so I held my hands a fraction of an inch from her sides and poised myself to grab. Then N called me from the other side of the climbing frame and, at the instant I turned my head, the dangling baby dropped. I caught her before she hit the ground, but she sort of flopped over my hand and went face first into the floor. I calmed down somewhat once I'd ascertained she was still in possession of all her teeth, but my hands were still shaking as I mopped up copious amounts of blood, deposited kisses on her and assured her that she was a very brave girl. As I was bundling them both into their buggy and starting to panic again, this time about the fact that I'd have to tell their mummy that I broke her baby, the uninjured infant declared "My want hurt myself too". I strapped her in double-quick. It's bad enough that I got one of them hurt, without the other one going all lemming on me. I think it may be some time before the waves of guilt subside, and even longer before I'm brave enough to take them to the park again. Oh, the baby's fine by the way. She has a scraped chin and a bitten lip, but she'll be ok. Or she will so long as evil Auntie Megs isn't entrusted with her care again anyway.

Mine

I went with L to have a tattoo put on the back of her neck today. She's a Virgo (I try not to hold her belief in astrology against her, in the hope that she will be equally forgiving of my multitudinous insanities), so she had decided to have the appropriate symbol inked on. The thing about the Virgo sign is that it does look rather like a letter. As she emerged from the back room calling "Meg, Meg! Look!", and turned to show the letter 'M' just below her hairline, the teenage boys sitting next to me made an instantaneous and obvious assessment of our relationship. Part of me is indignant that anyone, even a complete stranger, would think I'd allow my lesbian lover to mark herself with my initial, but the other part is tempted to start treating her as my bitch on the basis that she has just officially branded herself my property.

Disappointment and design

As my dad is given to saying; if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The process of selling my house appeared, for a moment there, to be going remarkable smoothly. However, we found out this week that the buyers have decided to pull out because the brickwork was such that they wouldn't be able to build on the extension they wanted. This isn't such a blow for me, as I hadn't actually found somewhere to move to, but it must be annoying beyond all sense for my brother and his girlfriend, who have an offer accepted on a place they really like, which may now fall through in consequence. Given that the buyer was the woman who irked me by being late that time, I suppose I ought not really to be surprised that she has proved unreliable, but I allowed myself to hope that the process might actually be straightforward. Foolish girl. The house selling/buying process is absurdly complex at the best of times, and the involvement of myself, the queen of un-looked for and improbable inconvenience (see evacuated graduation ceremonies and getting punched by strangers on public transport), just makes it even less likely that a hitch-free transaction will occur.

Despite not yet having a new home, I've been mentally decorating my as yet unidentified future residence for some time now. Unfortunately, I seem to be suffering from some sort of Seasonal Affective Decorative Disorder. While it was still winter and the sky was grim and steely, I wanted to paint my living room concrete grey. It seemed dramatic and different, and would match my cat. Now that the sun has come out, though, I'm favouring a nice buttery yellow with old-gold velvet curtains (Gold velvet curtains? Never mind the SADD, I should be more concerned about the fact that I appear to have travelled back in time to the 1970's!). Into this I would insert my nice brown leather sofas and my growing collection of fur (It's just occurred to me to wonder if the poor defenceless vegetarian who's planning on living with me is aware of my penchant for strewing the house with bits of flayed animal. Or of the fact that I name each one, which may make it better or even more creepy, depending on your view point. Of course this is probably a moot point given that she may well be comfortably ensconced in a retirement home by the time I actually manage to move.). I've also decided to put up a trellis against one wall so I can staple fake ivy and climbing flowers all over it, and strew it with surprising features for the curious viewer to happen across. Like a bird nest. And caterpillars. And an ocelot. Well, maybe an ocelot would be a little hard to acquire, but I would definitely get one if I knew of an ocelot supplier. I would call him Gerald.

10,000! Where are the fireworks when you need them?

I'm feeling still more celebratory now. Not only have I hit the 10,000 mark, but the lucky viewer was the Chameleon, who has been my most loyal reader since the birth of this blog. She was utterly determined to be the one and, since I told her it was cheating to just click refresh repeatedly, clicked on and read random articles until the count hit 10k. Fatefully, the ultimate post she clicked on was one in which she is actually mentioned. Clearly it was meant to be!

What do you think her reward should be?

Milestone

I'm nearing a milestone. If just 14 more people look at this blog, I will hit a stunning 10,000 page views! That probably doesn't seem like a lot to most. It certainly wouldn't to any of the online world's blog big hitters, but it seems like a huge number to me. The most I was hoping for when I put this out in the public eye was that people might occasionally take a peek, and that nobody would be too mean about it, so I'm pretty thrilled that it's been viewed as much as it has.

Please tell me if you're my 10,000th viewer!

Skullduggery

I took my dressing gown off this morning, and realised that I still had skull and crossbone transfer tattoos on my chest from Saturday night's pirate outing. How I failed to notice this while I was showering is a mystery. It turns out that soap and water doesn't remove them. Neither does exfoliating body scrub. 'Nail varnish remover', I thought. Do I possess such a thing? Nope. So it was that at half past seven, when I ought to have been at the bus stop, I was scrubbing my boobs with a cotton bud soaked in vodka. Of course I then put my dress on and discovered that it completely covered said area anyway, so I missed my train for no reason and had to turn up at work late and smelling like an alcoholic. What a tramp.

Anyone analyse dreams?

I only got about two hours sleep last night, but in that time I managed to have an astonishingly disturbing dream where I bought a pony called Philip for a friend's birthday party. Philip was placed behind the shed in a large wooden box, as he was to be a surprise. I then proceeded to get horribly drunk. Several weeks later I asked the friend how Philip was getting on, only to find that she had no idea what I was talking about. In my drunken haze, I had completely forgotten to alert her to his existence. We went to her house, ventured behind the shed and prised open the box, to find the decomposing body of that lovely little pony. I woke up crying.

R.I.P. Philip.

Have you missed me?

I'm back! A lovely, lovely friend has very generously loaned me his spare laptop for a while, so I now have a fighting chance of getting some writing done. I'm not going to promise any degree of regularity in my posting, since that would require the additional loan of vast amounts of extra time, most of which I would probably just fritter away on luxuries like sleep. I will hopefully be able to snatch some odd moments here and there though, to keep you updated on the trivialities of my life.

Most of said life is currently occupied with rehearsing for my latest foray into amateur dramatics (that's community theatre to the yanks out there). This time I will be playing a Catholic schoolgirl, and am becoming more and more doubtful of my ability to portray a sixteen year old. I didn't even look sixteen when I was sixteen, and that was a decade ago! Hopefully the audience will be kind enough to suspend their disbelief, or at least to refrain from throwing anything.

Would you like a 'Thing that makes me smile' before I head off? Tough, you're getting one anyway. There's a tap-dancing evangelist on the Piccadilly Line in the mornings. I've seen him three times now, and the dancing is so wonderfully joyous that you can easily ignore the fact that it's far too early in the morning to talk about Jesus.

Things my mother was right about

I scheduled this to appear on Mothers Day, but for some reason it didn't, and I've only just noticed. Better late than never......

• Ironed sheets are really nice. I still can't be bothered to actually iron my sheets, but I do enjoy getting into a bed whose sheets somebody else has ironed.
• I should stand up straight. The combination of appalling posture and the weight of two bowling balls suspended from little straps over my shoulders means that I frequently have a bad back. This leads onto the next point........
• .........Spend money on decent bras that fit properly. See above comment re: bowling balls.
• "If you're that bored, tidy your room". In fact, never mind being bored. Rooms need tidying more often than once a decade. I have accepted this as fact, and will hopefully learn to implement it before I end up one of those crazy old people living in a house full of old newspapers and broken toasters.
• I do need to wear suncream. I went through several years of denial and sunburn before acknowledging that skin as pale as mine just will not tan like my friends' does. Embrace the pallor!
• "It'll give you nightmares". And whatever it was, it did. Every time. In fact it generally still does.
• The sexiest part of a man is the bit between his ears. My mum told me this when I came home from a teenage date with a boy who was very pretty but had no conversation whatsoever. I think she was a little relieved to discover I wasn't shallow enough to think this was ok.

And one thing she was wrong about.....

• "There's no such thing as a free lunch". Actually, sometimes people are generous enough of spirit that they will give you their time, lend you their laptop or buy you a blinky squirrel badge just for the joy of making your world a happier place!

That's why I brought a shawl

It was my cousin's wedding at the weekend so, in honour of the occasion, I bought a frock. As I waited in the hotel corridor for my mother to finish dithering about in her room, I was approached by an old lady. "Oh!" she said as she passed, "You look very beautiful!". Feeling, as I did, a little awkward in my blowsy dress, I was greatly cheered by this comment. Rather more bouyed, I made my way down to the lobby and went to join my grandmother. Her remark on the dress? "You'll freeze".