Wigs and fish...

I have been hiding in a cupboard....

I do apologise once again for not posting as regularly as usual but I am suffering from extreme embarrassment. A terrible affiction which results in an inability to pull one's hands from over one's eyes and therefore renders you temporarily blind. So, please accept my sincere apologies for seemingly having disappeared off the planet.

So, what I hear you ask is the cause of all the embarrassment and mega-cringing???

I shall tell you...

Do you remember me saying that I was being roped into wearing a pink wing and reforming with another third of Bannerhanger to sing backing vocals at a local bash??

Well, we did.

Badly.

We were even given a new band name.

It was "Ron. R. Slicker and the Liquettes".

I was a "liquette".

Nice.

You see, although inside (after a few gins) I believe myself to have the voice of an angel crossed with Dame Shirley Bassey, crossed with Leona Lewis, the truth is that one note of my warbling could shatter a conservatory at twenty paces. The result is that although my mate is actually a fabulous singer and gets requests to sing at weddings, funerals etc, I only get requests to leave the stage promptly and to call an ambulance for the poor souls with perforated eardrums. I had tried to explain this to our friend who was hosting the party but he was having none of it. The result is that I had to don a pink wig, go go boots and a sparkly mini dress and found myself, three sheets to the wind, shaking a maraca and dancing around like a loon to disguise the fact I can't sing.

Now, ordinarily this would have been a private affair but thanks to the medium of technology, I am now broadcast across the world as I am officially on you tube. At first, when I heard of this, I retired to said cupboard and died a thousand embarrassing deaths. Now I am fortunately over the horror and can actually bear to watch it. I have included the link on here; you have to watch it all the way through to appreciate just how bad my dancing becomes and how singularly untalented I am in the performance stakes. I am definitely not destined for a career on the stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbVRg16VIco (have a look from about 2 mins 40 for about a minute - pure raw talent...)


I particularly like the way my wig keeps falling off and how we keep having to stop for photos taken by various members of my family and friends. There were some fab costumes there; I know I'm biased but I think Tom's was by far the best. We got him a complete 1966 England strip, including boots and then tied a leather football onto his foot. This meant that the poor sod looked fab (gorgeous legs) but couldn't negotiate a busy party room without getting his feet wrapped round something and almost falling over. He coped with this by sitting with my mate's boyfriend all night and aiming to stack Europe's biggest can mountain from all the lager they were downing.

We were actually rewarded for our "efforts" on stage and were paid with a four pack of babycham which found me, at the end of the night, dancing around on my own and swigging babycham direct from the bottle. I am class.

After getting over the embarrassment (and the hangover) I could now get to grips with the hospital chaos. I had a call the day before we were due to attend our appointment with the consultant to say that we couldn't attend. I was rooted to the spot as I thought we'd been rumbled but apparently the consultant was ill. This has meant that we've had to re-schedule for the 24th (this coming Tuesday) and we'll finally be on our way. I had a long chat with the fertility nurse aswell to let her know that I'm so stressed about not knowing when we'll start. She said that she'd seen our notes and that we were allowed to start the process but that the PCT wouldn't fund any of the surgical side until February so that we can fulfil the relationship criteria. I felt loads better about this as we've truly been living in limbo and not knowing at hat point our lives are going to be turned upside down by the fertility process. It's typical for me to be embroiled in a tricky situation. They said on the open evening that none of the couples there should underestimate just how stressful and difficult fertility treatement could be but at least they know when it's going to start! We haven't even got a clue when it's all kicking off. I guess we'll know for certain on Tuesday so it's not too long to wait.

I've also been being "dutiful daughter" in the absence of my brother and am spending much more time with my mum who is finding Will being gone a terrible strain. He's the apple of her eye and she's finding it tough knowing he's not going to be back until late May/early June and so I've been trying to call in most days to support her. It doesn't help that Will and Jo keep sending CDs of hundreds of photos with them hanging off things, leaping down into things and being thrown off very high things. Poor mum. They do look like they're having a fab time though and they look so happy and healthy - it's brill to see.

I've also been doing the extra round of visits to relatives etc to make up for Will not being there. I'm a slightly less charming (and hopefully less manly) replacement and everyone misses him.

Tom's also run off his feet with his new job; he's loving being back on the pub circuit and he comes home reeking of beer but happy rather than reeking of garlic and hating work.

I've also been up to my eyes in work. I'm running three separate projects for the Local Authority as well as mentoring a student teacher in my class and taking on board all the new headship stuff in preparation for my new role in January. Eek, it sounds pretty scary when I actually write it down.

I have been having lots of little interesting evenings out to counter the work though and one was the other night with my mum. We went to this market research thing where we had to taste all these lasagnes at our local pub. We found ourselves in this strange back room of the pub which I never knew existed (it was like Narnia except that it had more beer taps and bottles of gin). We were sat with 4 other strangers and given labels to wear. Mum was a gammon and mine said "fish". (Always nice to have a label saying "fish" attached to your lapel when meeting new people.) We had to try three different lasagnes and say what we thought about the look, taste, smell, singing talent etc of them all. There was so much paperwork to fill in and my mum hadn't brought her glasses. We kept getting told off too for messing about but it's hard to take it seriously when you're being asked to make written comment on the smell of a bechamel sauce for the third time in 15 minutes in a dimly lit pub where your mum can barely see. It was also enhanced by the random stranger sat next to my mum and who kept banging on about how to swirl wine round a glass correctly. What was really odd was that the three other people on our table turned out to be the best friends of someone I had interviewed and employed the previous week. What a small world. It was actually a case of "what a small table" as by the time we had all three of the lasagnes, all the gammons, fish and chicken from our corresponding labels, as well as the piles of paperwork, there was barely room for a quick game of "hunt the cutlery" to eat the damn stuff to fill in the forms. The good thing was that we got all the food for free, free wine and a ten pound note! Unfortunately, I fell prey to the cunning market research plan and my crisp tenner ended up straight back into the pub till. Oh well, shame to waste it on something sensible.

I have been a very good girl too and have only two more people to buy for for Christmas. I am a sock-ironer of massive proportions when it comes to Christmas and (last year aside for obvious reasons) I love to have all my pressies wrapped, ribboned and placed festively under the tree really early doors. I even have a little notebook which lists all the people I need to buy for and all the ideas I have throughout the year and all the things I have actually bought so far. God, I am a boring cow! So, it gives me more time during the holiday season to concentrate on the important stuff like egg nog, sherry, advocaat, Bailey's and various other Christmas spirits.

I've actually got Tom's work's do coming up next weekend where I'll meet everyone he works with from across the UK and have to meet the big boss. This is combined with an evening of free booze and lots of nerves on my part. I smell a disaster coming on...

Anyway, I'd better sign off for now, I have't even taken my coat off from work yet and I'm due at Tom's about an hour a go! So, I'll say bye for now.

Lots of love and speak soon,

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