I'm sorry I appear to be repeating myself myself...

Yes - turning into my mother. Like we all do. Won't bother quoting Oscar Wilde - you know the script.

Just kind of apologising for the last post - going over all this 'I'm crap but happy' malarkey again. But at least it got me rebooted. Not that this may be desirable.

But what of the next generation and our duty to inspire them to greater heights than we ever reached? What kind of motherly idol should I be trying to emulate? (Sorry - cliche alert!! Deduct three points...)

Should I have urged my 'good at' football Cheetah Boy to switch teams - to leave behind the boys who are never going to impress anyone and go with his disenchanted coach and the cherry-picked boys he's devotedly played with for five years to form the basis of a new improved squad elsewhere? It would mean sticking with the newer boys he thinks are rubbish, but remaining loyal to his best mate, not cherry-picked by the old coach. C Boy had no doubts at all - he's staying put. Even if it means losing the whole of his beloved team bar this special chum. It does show a certain strength of character (I know - cliche - I KNOW). Friendship over ambition. Surely a quality of which any parent should be glowing.

Mind you..... he ain't the most positive coach in the world. And despite the dramas and rumours of the past week - it probably won't even happen - but C Boy has hoisted his flag.

And I have saluted it.

And as for Minxie-babes.... She's back on the ice - and stronger than ever. And along come the Kent Opens - our 'home' competition. But due to a printer with a headache and a mother with blancmange for brains, we didn't (OK - I didn't) get her entry in on time. Her class was full. I got told off a bit - but then she moved on and is happy practising her funky moves for the Xmas show instead. Then all of a dirty great sudden I get a text saying someone has dropped out of her class and she can have the space. She looks a little startled and pouts 'No I haven't been working on my routine now.' Lulu-Cheese chirrups in with 'Oooh you'd get all nervous for nothing - it's not worth it.' 'No mum I just want to watch this year.' my gal reiterates. This is fair enough considering the summer break. But I'm all stewy. Can't help thinking she's just thrown away an opportunity. Is this how I've brought her up? Where's HER ambition? Or am I trying to live my life thro' her? Oh what are you supposed to do? I would save me £25....

I saluted her flag.

I ain't no Mama Rose but should we chuck in the occasional prod? Just to remind them we exist maybe? A grown-up and thoughtful hand on the shoulder.......?

SO not ever going to happen in this house. I may be turning into my mother in the 'take your jumper off inside or you won't feel the benefit' bracket but I don't ever remember her screaming 'Oh for fuck's sakes do I have to do fucking evderything!!!' at me aged five for taking my time to put a seat-belt on. (Bad example that - they didn't exist when I was five. Deviation.) Wankendom.... I ain't no Ma Walton neiva. I seem to swing from screeching 'I didn't bloody wake up the whole bloody household before bloody dawn and bloody drive at break-bloody-neck for an hour and a bloody half with the howling bloody banshee bloody brothers for you to mope a-bloody-bout for ten bloody minutes whining about your bloody blisters so get back out bloody there and bloody practice you ungrateful bloody brat!!!' to hopeless shrugging when one of them's bleeding volcanically from the head down.

But you know wot - they're all still alive and contentedly busy my lot. Despite sibling slaughterhouse activities they're all pretty damn happy. I may be scooped out, slumped in fetid slime and demonically warped like a pumpkin that's been left in the fireplace for six days - but am also pretty damn happy. But should I share my 'Crap is Good - Good is Crap' philosophy, or do I have this duty thing to be inspirational and gaspilicious?

Cheetah Boy's current team have been playing much better than usual lately and he's been scoring and making goals and making his normally horribly honest father all gushy and hair-ruffley. His natural golf swing is apparently much better than poor Roving Blade's life-longily-blood-sweating one. And he still doesn't give a knackers about reading and writing. Why should he when he can plainly hit the right button for Nat Geo Wild? Carefree and free-range.

Minxie and some other Home Ed chums (including our lovely nutty Lulu-Cheese) have been swept up by their enthusiastic Youth Theatre chappie to do an Arts Award thingie, and not only can she do ice skating as part of it (how jammy is that?) but the Trinity Theatre have been asked to have some involvement with the temporary ice rink in Calverley Park this December.... guess who's filling in that blank? Their latest play went screamingly well last Monday - a disturbing and scary show, mentioning Macbeth alot, featuring lots of fake blood, performed in a church (albeit deconsecrated, on Halloween - rock 'n' roll reckless! Was also in the School of Shock horror film-making gang. Teen Group's going strong - she organised the food for their Halloween party herself. She's even got the bus back to our vampired neck of the woods from Tunbridge Wells all by herself without falling asleep and ending up in Brighton. I'd say she's doin' alright!!

Little Rock Godling started at the Trin Youth Theatre too - and landed 'the lead role' (well... first name on the cast list) within two weeks. Learned his lines without any trouble, (causing suspicion that he may actually be able to read.... but obviously won't admit it in case I get over-excited and MAKE him read stuff), and was such a natural star in his show that I couldn't speak. And thankfully couldn't whoop. All in a day's work for him it was. (OK - cliche-addiction is hard to crack - oh doh!!!) He even managed one morning's football training without pretending to be a rogue robot dinosaur alien in jelly-flavoured quicksand. We're forging ahea.... No we are marching ever onwa- dammit - the boy dun good.

I might not mention Thuglet just now. An ex karate teacher I know was seriously impressed with his kicking action this evening. His brother's left knee was not so enamoured. I'm losing my voice, patience, marbles yelling at the child to cut it out. His hit rate is 100%. Maybe it's something to boast about. It's all I got!

Anyway - like I dun said - they're all busy and happy so wot's the grief dude?

I've even booted Old Mother Hubbard up the jacksie with forward planning by stocking up with inhuman quantities of chicken burgers and oven chips just in case it really does snow. Wot wiv his lordship larking about in America for a couple of weeks, I'm not venturing forth for to catch a mammoth if the land doth be coveredeth in that bastard white shit.

I'd say we're all doin' alright.

Unfortunately, so are the mice.

Mr Roving Blade when are you coming back to be all manly? Or at least put your buttercup pinny on and sweep up the floor for me? I'm so busy being Chauffeur of the Year I'm too bleedin' exhausted to be the sweet parlour maid too. It's becoming a bit of a thing.... My maternal qualifications are proving to be heinously fabricated.

Bollocks. Unmasked.

Hey... I reckon I've finally discovered my mumsy role model! .....Just popping upstairs to sit in the window....

Mother!!!!


MOTHER!!!!!

Born Again Twat

Just decided as I'm still breathing that I would attempt another posty type thing - obviously not a real post. Still not back in the saddle. Bottom seems to have got too big for that anyway. Back in the bloody saddle indeed! As if I even know what that means. Just a stupid stream of words. My fingers tap this shit out without my brain even noticing. For a while everything I did was being simultaneously translated in my head into Blog Post Speak - which is really sad. Even that phrase I've just thrown in 'simultaneously translated' now rankles. Cliches. This stuff just rolls out when I start trying to communicate. I hate the way I prattle on - but hate more the stuff that seems coherent. Like I'm just spouting uniform phrases for easy consumption. So prattling on it shall be - even if just to avoid being anywhere near slick. Easy consumption! There goes another one! Thing is I will never be slick so floating into cliches is just lazy and naff. So just in case anyone thought my absence was due to completing a cool creative writing course or summink - get a hold of yourself. So, point one: I hate the way I write.

Now for point two: I hate the way I draw.

I've whinged on before about how I once thought I was 'good at art' but more recently realised I was always crap. Well - here's some more... A couple of weeks ago a few of us had a session with Shadric Toop - Brighton artist. Six kids (two of mine) and three adults in all. The previous week I'd finally gone through my big old portfolio - and chucked away tons of drawings and paintings etc - things that in my head had been good ('good') but were SO not in real life! It was fun dumping alot of the old schooly things that were still polluting my stash. And I just decided that of the 60 or so remaining sheets of life drawing from years back I would get it down to 20 and that was that. And I did. Got rid of some that even I thought were quite good ('good' - ????) - but I just loved clearing out anyway. Funny how there's about 3 bits from my Foundation course - and nothing at all from my degree course. And very very little of anything since then. But in my head I was Mrs Art's-my-Thing. Now my rank old A1 black portfolio is out in the rain waiting to be bound up and binned - and I've got everything I've reprieved wedged into my ancient sticker-stained A2 maroon cardboard folder. I've probably kept more things from up to the age of 10 than from after. But it feels right. (For now - will probably thin it out more in another couple of years!) It was the first time my paper recycling bin was ever full. Such a glow from hurling this ballast away. ANYWAY - back to the drawing session with Shadders - surrounded by others who either weren't sure of their abilities or were pretty certain they've never been able to draw - there was me wondering if I was gonna be a star or a plank. The others were very kind - lots of 'ooh it looks just like him' etc but when I protested and redrew things in a 'worse' quicker way - a less drawingy way and said 'I prefer that' to the others' perplexion (I just made that word up I think - I like it) - Shads understood my pain. He quietly said 'I know what you mean' - and so I've had another Damascus moment.... You can be good at something and totally crap at the same thing at the same time. Being 'good at' something is limiting in itself. Being 'good at art' has been a cage for years. It's coloured my opinion (oops another cliche) on other 'art' for years - instead of just thinking if I like something my brain tries to determine if it is 'good' first. And it totally stuffs up your own creative attempts. If you do something crap (like pretty much everything I now feel) it stops you doing anything again. If I tried to shoot an arrow and missed the target I'd still be thrilled I'd even let it fly. If I try and draw something and miss the target I kick the door in.

Point three: talent is pointless. Talent is transitional. Fleeting. Nice but dull. Fervour, enthusiasm, diligence, passion, bravery, naivety, fun - all way more important.

And success? (This might be point four but I'm being so prattley that I've really lost all sense of cohesion and don't give a fuck....) Success is for losers.

There you go....

I'm now happy to be crap at writing and drawing. Two things I always wanted to be good at. I've never cared less about being good at cooking or making curtains but I've done both and got away with it. I'm hopeless at knitting and love it. Split the eardrums of my children with my horrendous singing and laughed at their agony. So now I'm gonna carry on splurting out ungrammatical and futile blog posts and start drawing again - like I've just landed from the Planet Dickhead and have never heard of Winsor and Newton.

Freedom!!!!

Didn't Picasso say something about it taking him 80 years to learn to draw like an eight year old? Ohhhh... ish.... So I'm the new Picasso me I am! Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm not!!


PS - Trying to find another word for 'dickhead' which I love so much.... No thesaurus matches found. Tried 'twat'. No matches. 'Cretin' - disappointing results... Just banged in 'idiot' and got this:

Notes: an idiot is a stupid person with a mental age below three years, while a moron is a stupid person with a mental age of between seven to twelve years

See even a total flaphead like me can learn summink every day. Feels GOOD being rubbish.