Author: Alison

Turning the page of the newspaper today, I was rather tickled to see that the little girl in the BT advert was wearing a long sleeved t shirt that is stained with tomato sauce of some description. Very clever BT – you are making your advert so real.

My memories of my kids’ clothes from age 4 months to about 6 years, was the fecking stains. Let’s face it – their staple meals were: being weaned – carrot purée, daughter 1 organic carrots, daughter 2 bog standard carrots, daughters 3 and 4, HIPP baby jars of carrot purée. They then progressed to pasta. Aaaah pasta. Where would we be without pasta? But oh my the pasta sauce – what a bugger that was to get out at a 30 degree wash. We all know the adverts are bollocks: Persil, whiter than white? What a crock of shit. More like Persil at 30 degrees: ingrain the stain. I ingrained so many stains over the years, but still those clothes were handed down. Down they went: from daughter 1 to daughter 2, via daughter 3 to daughter 4 at which point I had reached denial about the stains and would offer the rejects to my sisters’ children. How often have you held up an item of clothing to the light, examining the stain and thought, sod it, it’s not that bad – that’ll do another rugrat.

Bibs took a lashing. I had those ones that each had a day of the week on them. Monday-Friday always lasted the longest, with Saturday and Sunday getting covered in the most crap. I would suggest that dad did more of the feeding at the weekend and took less care – but this could be untrue. It could be that during the week I fed the babies more natural products and by the weekend I had lost the will. Chicken nuggets anyone? Makes a change from carrot. Tomato ketchup on toweling is a challenge.

It has to be said that even now, really bad stains get sent to Granny to magically disappear. How does she do it? I guess it’s a skill of the over 70’s, because I can scrub the shit out of a tomato stain with every potion in the Betterware catalogue, but only Granny B seems to be able to get it out.

I’m not going to lie – the most stains I have to deal with these days are red wine. Red wine circles on the sofa, red wine circles on the coffee table, shed loads of red wine spilled on the cream shag pile rug on loan from my sister and have you ever tried to get a red wine stain off a long haired, white dog?

So I applaud you BT, for embracing and not shaming the stain. Stained clothes are an integral part of growing up and nothing to be ashamed of. The wine stains, however, are shameful.

Put your tits away! I’m confronted with yet another tit selfie on Instagram. I know I’m the wrong side of forty and my tits are probably heading South, but I promise you I’m not jealous. Prolific use of a sports bra over the years has stood me in pretty good stead. In fact, as well as ‘boys only want one thing’ (their X Box) and ‘don’t ever squeeze a spot on your forehead’ (it only makes them last a lot, lot longer), I think that ‘wear a good sports bra’ is the best bit of parental advice I have given my girls. As, ‘Active Wear’ is de rigeur, there is currently no shortage of fabulous bras. I can’t get into one at the moment, as my shoulder won’t allow that sort of effort – let’s face it – we’ve all needed rescuing from a sports bra. I would frequently get half way into or out of mine and apart from it giving me a cleavage to die for (quick, grab the selfie stick!), I would actually be stuck and need the back tugging down.

No need for any of that malarkey at the moment, as I have been confined to the sofa under strict orders to relax. I whizzed the Dyson around the kitchen yesterday morning one handed and blacked out. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that glass of wine after the anesthetic? One day on the sofa and I feel like a moose. That, combined with not shitting properly (lactulose just makes you fart). So I’m sitting reading the papers and I see that the thigh gap is out and muscle is in. This pleases me greatly for two reasons 1) I have never owned a thigh gap and only recently discovered what it meant and 2) I love weights, I encourage women to use weights, weights are the answer to so many problems (they can even be used as door stops).

So, in my moose-like flatulent state, the thought of getting my hands onto my weights again fills me with excitement. One of the best things about weights is that they celebrate the curve. They don’t try to make you something that you are not, like starving yourself does. They embrace you and everything you stand for. They make you stronger inside and out. They don’t give a shit about a tummy overlapping the top of the lycra, because they know that you are still healthy and strong, whereas the woman who is denying herself food is weak and undernourished. Go grab some weights, ladies! Don’t sell yourself short either. You can handle the big ‘uns. Don’t feel you have to pump those plastic coated pink 3lb’ers up and down a hundred times, thinking about how many loads of washing you could have had done in the time that took. Big it up! You won’t bulk up because we just aint made that way. Take advice so that you know what to do – this is one thing you can’t wing – and I promise you – you will never look back!

I have noticed a fact about life, that when you are feeling your most shitty and vulnerable, everyone around you appears gorgeous and in control. When you are about to be operated on, this is a good thing. Ana breezes into my room, Spanish, bubbly and lovely. She asks me to pee in one of those pots you get chutney in with your take away curry – to make sure you’re not pregnant, she said with a smile. I fell about laughing and told her I have enough already. How many have you got? She asked. Oh yes, that is enough, she replied when I told her.
Next the anaesthetist shimmyed in: suave and swarthy in a white open shirt and smart trousers. He went through my form. 3 glasses of wine a week, he commented, liar! I tried to explain that I’d written 3 glasses 3 times a week, but he remained sceptical. I decided to stop explaining, as it was a lie anyway. He proceeded to tell me in great detail what he was about to do to me with his blunt instrument- it was him who emphasised this, not me. In case I hit a nerve, he said and there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance you’ll die. Any questions? It seemed unimportant after his final statement but I asked if I could have a glass of wine that evening. One of your three, he laughed and with a wry smile on his face, he shimmyed out.
In came the physio, petite and pretty. Can this hospital possibly parade someone in front of me who looks as crap as I do (by now I was wearing the sexy, white support stockings and feeling like shit). She told me that I would need lots of drugs after the op: the pain will hit you when you wake up tomorrow morning, bang!
The surgeon was next in to see me. At least he was in his gowns, so looking as fashionable as I was. It’s the left shoulder, isn’t it? he said. I presumed that it was a rhetorical question, as I’m (mum’s) paying £5000 for the privilege, but he looked at me wanting reassurance. I confirmed it was and while he was scribbling all over my arm, where I felt a small X marks the spot would have sufficed, I asked if he did bogofs, as both shoulders need repairing. He laughed and breezed out, still brandishing his marker pen. I was left imagining the pen transforming into a scalpel and looked down at his scribble, hoping they weren’t the lines he was going to follow.
Next thing I know, my bed is on the move. My driver asked if I had kids. Can’t be bad, he said. They go to school this morning and mum’s taking class A drugs! The suave anaesthetist was there to meet me – looking less metrosexual in his overalls. As he put me to sleep, he was telling his colleagues about my wine consumption: three glasses, he was chuckling to them and with that, I was gone.
I awoke to an male Irish accent- wow – you really do get what you pay for here, I thought. I was shaking uncontrollably, so he warmed me right up…by placing a lilo over me and blowing hot air trough a a large tube under the covers. It worked.
Back in my room I had what tasted like the best cuppa ever and a packet of biscuits was staring at me, so I attacked the packaging with my teeth. In fact, my only complaint about my private hospital experience, was that they hadn’t thought to open the biscuits for me.
I thought it would be churlish to write this in the feedback questionnaire. So I just put that everyone was wonderful and beautiful and kind and wondered what experience the right shoulder will have on the NHS…if the waiting list ever moves.

Hands up who saw Heidi Alexander’s response to Jeremy Hunt’s statement on junior doctors in the House of Commons? If you didn’t and you support the junior doctor’s, or fuck it, even if you don’t, it’s really worth watching and to make your life a lot easier than theirs, here’s the link:

https://www.facebook.com/labourhealthteam/?pnref=story

Brilliant. It reminds me of me telling off one of my daughters. They do something that really bloody pisses me off, but I know that the only way I have a hope in hell of getting through to them and even then it is really simply an exercise in: you are going to bloody well listen to what I’ve got to say, is by remaining calm. I’m talking at them. They are looking anywhere but at me. They are even looking at the garden, if there is a window nearby. They never look at the garden! I try to remain calm throughout the grilling. I am desperate to get my point across to them, but I don’t want to loose them – I don’t want this to be yet another exercise in door slamming. So I place layer upon layer, almost gently, but my line of thought is anything but a tea dance. My message is heartfelt and passionate and I have to get it through to them. I realise that I am sort of winning, because they haven’t moved. I very much doubt they can hear much beyond: bla, bla, bla, but I am on a roll and I am in control.

Does my approach change anything? Sometimes. Did Heidi’s? Time will tell. Of course she, just like I will never know whether it was our influence, our carefully chosen words that made a difference.

I’m sitting in a hospital room as we speak, so this is all the more poignant. I’ve (my mum) has paid £5000 for the privilege. I get an en suite. I can remember after having daughter 1 as a medical emergency, dragging myself down the corridor, bleeding and sore to a toilet where other new mothers had been evidently bleeding and sore. Leaving my newborn daughter in her crib, alone and shuffling back, as fast as my stitches would allow. I’m no political animal, but I am not so ignorant that I can’t see that we need change.

I can see that many politicians have not yet reached their teens. They are still petulant, ego-eccentric toddlers, who throw tantrums when they don’t get their own way. I used to ignore this kind of behaviour when the girls were young, but what is the parenting method that will make these people listen?

Meanwhile, I will sit in my private room, frustrated, but eternally grateful to my mum.

I’m going to share with you a truth. It’s one that I struggled with for ages and I know that some of you struggle with it too. I’ve seen it in your faces, or heard it in your voices: I hated picking up my children from their primary schools. I hated that time when we weren’t allowed into the playground, because the gate hadn’t been opened. I felt anxious as I approached, seeing the groups of mums who all looked engaged and happily chatting and I had no idea where I fitted in. I felt like an outsider and I felt awkward, just like a child might feel when they don’t have anyone to play with. I would approach a group where there were the most people I knew on a day that I felt I had it in me to do so and on other days I would wait in the car, until the gate opened.

Once open, I had to leave the safety of my car and brave the playground, as my kids could be released from their classrooms at any time and I never wanted my hate of the situation to mean I wasn’t there for them. So I would go and hover. There was nothing to distract me from the awkwardness, so I would focus on the notices that were pinned to the classroom window. Some days, if the girls were let out late, I would have read these notices twenty times, but if you’d asked me what they said, I couldn’t have told you. I could see that I wasn’t the only person who did this nervous hover. I can’t tell you how self conscious I felt, every day.

Every day I and many others, had to repeat this ritual. I’m making it sound dramatic, aren’t I? Those of you who I would see chatting and laughing with other parents may not understand how anyone could possibly feel like this. It was no-one’s fault, except my own. I needed to be braver, to be more sociable, to make more of an effort. But I really struggled with it. I struggled with it in a way that I don’t struggle in any other social situations and that made me feel even worse.

The last day I had to pick my last child up from primary school, I didn’t cry like other mums. I didn’t get sentimental about the 11 years I had spent doing it. I didn’t feel an ounce of sadness that their time there had come to an end. For the first time in all those years, I felt free.

I’ve been shortlisted in the Best Writer category for the Mumsnet Blogging Awards! Please vote for me by clicking on the link below – it takes literally a millisecond. Thank you 🙂

http://www.mumsnet.com/events/blogging-awards/2016/best-writer