The tale of my Brother and the Cow Pat

I'm struggling to think of a subject for my post today so have decided, randomly, to write about my brother and his wilderness years.

My bro, B, has a very successful career and a beautiful fiancée but it hasn't always been so. A few years ago, I moved back with my parents, post divorce, at the same time as B. My poor folks had finally considered themselves free of their kids but realised that they were mistaken when their 30-something daughter, 20-something son and four-something grandson moved back home.

The Parents coped admirably and tried to get on with their lives in the midst of their troublesome children. Part of this approach involved going on as many holidays as possible to absent themselves from the family home.

It was on one of these occasions that my brother experienced his Week From Hell, a week that has been committed to the annuls of family folklore.

Monday

B was working in Bristol at the time, 20 miles away from home. As he couldn't afford the tax and insurance for his car (and therein lies another story), Mum had kindly said that he could borrow her car whilst she was away, so that he didn't have to rush for the bus.

'Excellent,' thought my bro on the Monday morning, 'A few extra minutes in bed'.

Unfortunately, he took a few too many extra minutes and arrived late for work. In a rush to find parking near the office, B squeezed the car into a tiny space, (my brother is An Excellent Driver) and rushed off.

In his haste, B hadn't noticed that the back wheel of the car was parked a couple of inches onto a double yellow line. That evening, he left the office and walked back to where he had parked the car that morning.

No car.

With a sinking heart, B realised what he had done, made some calls and was told that the car had been towed. He was also told that it would cost £120 to release the car from the compound. Plus an extra £20 for each day that the car remained uncollected.

Did I mention that my bro couldn't afford car insurance? And not only could he not afford insurance, he couldn't afford to release the car from the compound.

In fact, he couldn't even afford the bus fare home.

He decided to hitch-hike and started to walk the 20 miles. It began to rain. It began to pour with rain. He had no coat. Strangely enough, not many drivers wanted to stop for a bedraggled and soaking 6 foot tall bear of a man walking along a speeding dual carriageway.

He was finally picked up 10 miles from home and, as soon as he was dropped at the house, made his way to bed.

Tuesday

B woke up with a sore throat and raging temperature. The stroll in the rain had done for him. He went back to bed.

Wednesday

After waking with a minor dose of the flu, B hauled himself out of bed. Late.

He had missed the hourly bus at the nearest stop, so decided to take a short cut across the fields to a different bus route. He was sweating and shivering and probably not in the best of spirits as he stumbled across a cow pasture.

I imagine that he wondered if the gods were truly against him as he tripped on a hummock of grass and fell, face first, into a large cow pat.

Covered in manure, he decided that the day probably wouldn't improve and returned home to bed.

Thursday

Reader, I'm sure that you haven't forgotten that the car compound clock was ticking - Mum's car was still trapped and the bill for it's release was growing by the day. To make matters worse, our parents were due back on Saturday.

Something had to be done.

B called his best friend, Tommy T, and, with a rising sense of hysterical panic, pored out his woes. Gallant Tommy offered to lend him the release money and to drive him up to the compound in Bristol that afternoon.

All thoughts of work were pushed aside by this point - the day would be spent getting the car back.

The pair drove to the compound and Tommy paid the fine. B finally saw light at the end of the tunnel. His life was back on track, he thought to himself.

Until he realised that he had left the car keys at home.

The compound was about to close and there was no time to return that day. B went home and to bed.

Friday

Release Day. B found the keys, hitched up to Bristol and paid the car bail. As he drove home, he was full of the joys of a beautiful late autumn day in Somerset.

The clouds lifted, the sun shone, birds sang and it was Carnival weekend. B and his new girlfriend would be partying all night. The Parents would return home, unaware of the trials of the week and all would be right with B's world.

That night B's girlfriend dumped him for gallant Tommy T. The Parents returned the next day and bawled him out for leaving the house in a mess. The following Monday, he received a court fine for unpaid car tax.

The Week From Hell.

PS - I ran this post past my brother to check that he was OK with me using his sorry tale as blog material. His additional comments below:

'As a post-script, I'd probably add that on the Monday following 'Hell-Week', I was low enough to attempt smoking for the first time.

Having spent £1.35 (yes that really is how much they used to cost) that I'd managed to scrape from various coat pockets on a packet of 10 Embassy No.1, I opened the pack and (knowing nothing about smoking lore) held the packet upside down as I removed my first smoke. Imagine my surprise when the other nine came with it, and all of them sank to the bottom of the puddle over which I was standing......... '

Puppies

Today I'm wearing a new dress and have just realised it makes my boobs look like they are in a hammock. Unfortunately, it's an eBay purchase, so I can't send it back.

My boobs seem to have a life of their own. They are a recent development, so I don't think I'm naturally busty. They are just fat. Two large mounds of fat. Think of a double helping of school dinners mashed potato, served using an ice cream scoop (remember that?), and increase to a 72 font.

It comes to something when a 'super curvy' blouse from wardrobe for big 'n busty sufferers, Bravissimo, doesn't do up. I brought a dress from there last year which made me look like I'd been swaddled. Like a large baby Jesus. In sky blue silk. Not a pretty sight.

I remember, years ago, watching a buxom victim of Trinny & Susannah being bundled into a Rigby & Peller dressing room and ridiculed for her poor bra choice. Apparently the unfortunate bra gave her a three tier bosom: original boob layer, under-boob recoiled fat layer and top stomach layer. 'Poor cow,' I thought, 'How did she ever let herself become THAT?'

Eight years and a triple bosom later, I've also started to grow a double stomach, which is an interesting development.

But let's not go there, girlfriend, am here to talk about my amazing boobage.

Soon I'll dispense with my 34FF (measured last year, so have probably grown exponentially with my stomach), and will starting using a Baby Bjorn type of construction. Much easier than fighting with a triple fastening when I can't even see past the boobs to my hands.

I'll just sling those puppies into a baby sling and off I'll go.

Am going to Google patents pending for Boob Slings. This time next year, I'll be a millionaire!

Pay later...

The new school term has started and the clock is ticking down to the beginning of my term as Chair of the school governors for our local primary school. I've been a governor for about 18 months and, back last September, agreed to become Chair this October for a year, if no-one else stepped up.

Of course no-one else has stepped up. They're no fools.

Back in 2009, agreeing to do this was rather like buying a sofa with nothing to pay for the first 12 months. A gradual feeling of doom descended on me as the academic year progressed. A year of watching, via email, the current incumbent struggle through teacher appraisals, parental complaints, resignations and resource gaps.

As this summer wore on and the email frenzy increased, a feeling of panic would bubble up each time I opened my Hotmail inbox and I'd gulp down hysterical laughter.

And now the first full meeting of the new academic year is a couple of weeks away and I remember nothing, NOTHING, from the detailed and prolonged handover which the outgoing Chair has given me.

Why, oh why have I got myself into this situation? Again? My sad and desperate need for validation, that's why. I was flattered into it, like so many stressful jobs in the past.

'FK, I think you'd make an excellent chairman/bazaar organiser/support manager/PTA helper/scone maker/kid's club chair/fancy dress coordinator...'

'Really?' I simper, 'How nice of you, of course I'll sort out 20 Christmas stalls and clean the Santa outfit/take on 36 direct reports and do quarterly reviews/bake 120 scones by Saturday/cover 100 tampons in silver foil for bullets in ammo belts.'

I've recently started having a recurring nightmare of myself at the end of the December term. I'm sitting on the floor of the deserted school hall, surrounded by the scattered pages of a ruinous Ofsted report and draped in a Father Christmas beard and cloak in dire need of a dry-clean.

I'm rocking slowly backwards and forwards and, if you lean closer, you can hear me softly keening the words, 'Special measures...special measures....special measures'.

I've started so I won't finish

My exercise regimes over the past decade:

2001: Dancing at the Redback (Australian bar), Acton, West London

2002: Weekend dancing that the Redback, plus daily trips to the gym

2003: Occasional dancing at the Redback. Daily trips to the gym.

2004: No dancing. Some gym trips but have started to notice the way my bits wobble and I don't really like it.

2005: Time to give myself a stiff talking to. Twice weekly personal trainer sessions. Occasional swimming.

2006: Nothing. At. All.

2007: Ditto. Apart from one morning of Davina's Power of Three. Hideous.

2008: Time to give myself a stiff talking to (sound familiar?). Occasional trips to the gym. For about three weeks.

2009: Oh, what's the point?

2010: Why, why, why?

I need to dig up some will power from somewhere before I have to be lifted out of my deathbed by a fire crew using a crane and some heavy duty cutting equipment.

Pride comes before A Fall

I spoke to my dad this morning - he and my mum are on holiday with friends in France and apparently my mum has 'had A Fall' on the beach, (once you're over 40, you don't fall over, you 'have A Fall'). She's fine, thank goodness, just a 'bruised ego', according to Dad.

This put me in mind of the great Falls of my life. Falling Over/Having A Fall is a family trait. Dad fell over last year when my son took him off to show him his den in nearby fields. Dad fell into a river and Husband arrived home to find the contents of our first-aid kit strewn across the hall and Dad bleeding in the toilet. A swift trip to the Minor Injuries unit followed. We have a loyalty card there, so it wasn't all bad news - free sterilised swaps and an extra stamp towards a bottle of Dettol.

A few years ago, pre second marriage, I'd started a new job and was quietly on the hunt for a new man. I had a new cream trouser suit, (slimmer and younger then), a new briefcase and excellent high heels. At the end of my first day, I left the office and clocked a 10/10 parked in a spanking new BMW across the street.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the office window. I'm not a vain person usually, (am well aware of my physical faults), and can honestly swear that this is the first and only time I have ever thought to myself, 'I look really hot today. I bet that guy thinks that I look really hot Perhaps he'd like to ask me out.'

Sadly, God overheard and didn't agree.

I was so busy admiring my reflection that I didn't notice a large crack in the pavement. I tripped, flew and landed spread-eagled across the pavement. My briefcase opened and files scattered across the road. I lay still for a few moments, contemplating the pain in my knees and the existence of a higher being.

I'd love to write that the 10/10 jumped out of his car and ran to my aid. Unfortunately, this was not to be the beginning of a great romantic episode with a new father for my poor neglected four-year old. The bastard stayed in his car, staring firmly at the road ahead.

I scrabbled around for a bit, clutching the knees of my torn trouser suit and stuffing crumpled papers back into my briefcase and then stumbled, half crouching, around the corner to my car. My ego, though dented, lived to fight another day. The suit did not.

I won't go in to the details of later Falls. The torn ligament on the ski slopes, the humiliating ride in a wheelie office chair across the packed lunch canteen after I slipped on a pea and broke my ankle. I won't tell you about the fall up the cathedral steps after a christening, when I was wearing a mini skirt. Or the time I caught a heel in my wide legged trousers, stumbled and took out several dividing walls of office pods (although the domino effect as the dividers crashed down was quite impressive).

No, I think I'll leave it at that, as God knows he has won and, although I may continue to Fall, I have not worn a cream trouser suit since.

Menopausal blues

I've been feeling really old recently. Turning 40 last year wasn't so bad. Turning 41 in June was a shock to the system. Particularly as it coincided with me being diagnosed with going through the early menopause. What fun. Just at the time I was about to go back to the fertility clinic to try again with another round of injections, inductions, in-whatever else they could think of.

Ho hum. At least I had an explanation for the hot flushes, headaches and truly incredible mood swings. A couple of months of HRT later and I'm feeling more human. Still partial to the odd low key tantrum, kilo of chocolate and mooch about feeling sorry for myself, but generally OK.

It was our son's 14th birthday this week. He's now as tall as me and I was brought low the night before by memories of the smell of his baby hair and the final realisation that I will never have that again. A couple of hours of mooching ensued.

Husband pulled me out of it by telling me that, if he was granted one wish, it wouldn't be for a baby. He would wish that I would feel better about all of this and enjoy our life together, just as it is. As he's been as desperate for a baby as me, that really struck home and I've started to feel better.

Of course, the fact that we've booked a couple of ski holidays for next year has lessened the blow.

Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious!

It was our wedding anniversary yesterday, so naturally we spent the day cleaning the fridge and oven. I'm ashamed to say that I did indeed buy the drill for Husband. He followed the advice of Cat's Whiskers (see previous post comments) and went for Le Creuset. And jelly beans.

But it's not all bad - we were spring cleaning in preparation for Husband's parents, who are coming to stay this weekend. They'll be looking after the Son for a few days whilst we go skiing. Yes, dear reader, I ditched the idea about skiing in half term and on Saturday, Husband and I fly out for a week in France, sans kid.

All excellent stuff, but it does mean that the house has to be PERFECT before the In-Laws arrive. Well, it does according to Quality Assurance Standard BS900015731354878421, (also known as Daughter-In-Law Benchmark Standard) which states that 'The Wife must prove that all living standards are of a measure equal to or higher than those provided when the Husband was in the care of the Mother-In-Law.'

Look it up, it's true.

Actually, my MIL is fantastic and I love her. I love her particularly as she put up with my appalling behaviour during a holiday in Australia a few years ago. A holiday which she and my father-in-law paid for (flights and all). We forgot to mention that I was mid fertility treatment and in the throes of a forced menopause (don't ask). I'm sure that she thought I was a Mary Poppins DIL before then. Two weeks of mood swings, tantrums and sulks showed her that I was NOT practically perfect in every way. Oh dear.

Although she was understanding, it took another year and a week in the Lake District when I was a very good girl, to show her that I was almost normal and her poor son (nicknamed The Chosen One by his long suffering sister), was not trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage.

Anywho, back to my point. The Great Spring Clean is almost complete. We've used every Lakeland product which had festered unused in the utility room cupboard and the kitchen is now sparkling as much as the new (safety) pin currently being used to stop my Gap blouse gaping in some inappropriate places.

Time to start on Son's bedroom. If you don't hear from me for a few days, send in a search party.