Lost rolls and last rolos....

I just had a little Brighton-style mummy to daughter eco chat with Sadie. I was trying to explain to her that trees are very important as they provide oxygen and without this we would all die. She replied "Yes mummy and not having any trees in the world would be really bad as we would have nothing to wipe our bums on after we've been to the toilet......"
Ah kids- don't you just love em.....
It's Paddle Around the Pier weekend at present and we are off in the drizzle to watch a load of loonies attempt to get their home made silly rafts around the pier. Yesterday we enjoyed being surrounded by surfer types as we hung out in the sun at the Brighton Visitor/Orb stand on Hove Lawns with the lovely Nat and her cool box of white wine (in that order of magnetism). Sadie excitedly sat inside the giant, but stationary, Orb (which is basically an enormous hamster ball for humans that normally rolls down hills in a terrifying mannner..). Then the fantastic Tatiana popped over last night for beer, a Brunswick barbecue and a very bad film. We watched 'P.S. I Love You' because we knew we wouldn't actually watch the film for all the nattering we would be doing and we both fancy the arse off Gerard Butler. Hilary Swank is so irritating in it, or were we just jealous that she got to snog that man....Awful cheesy film though..But Tat got given the last chocolate biscuit by the man in the video shop (I can't take her anywhere that girl) so it was worth it. It was a bit of a rolo moment I have to say...

Soundtrack: Wombats- Moving to New York

Get away from the bar.. tell your boyfriend hold your jar....

I am so glad I wasn't involved in a horrific accident as I cycled to work today as a) it would have hurt a lot and I might have died and b) I was carrying an item in an Asda carrier bag on my handle bars that would have made the paramedics think twice about resuscitating me. In my possession today was a copy of The Worst Book In The World… The Rules. A lovely, possibly quite naive girl from work had lent it to me when I mentioned that I was out of touch with the “dating game”. She said she followed “the rules” to the latter and that maybe I should do the same. So just being myself is a bad idea then? I think not. I will stick to my own set of rules thanks, and they seem to be working pretty well at present, even if I am only attracting unobtainable tree surgeons who smell of beeswax. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t need such a pile of wank to read thank you very much, so I borrowed it. It has sat on my bookshelf for the last week, unread and with the spine hidden from view in shame.
I once ran the self-help section of a chain of Books Etc and it never once occurred to me, in the two years I was there, to pick up The Worst Book In The World and take a peak at what gems it had to teach me. ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ was more my cup of tea. This book changed my life. After reading it at the bookshop till one day (oh it was a cut throat profession), I resigned from my job. I then went home and told my flatmates I was moving out, before calling my boyfriend to finish our relationship. I changed three major things in my life in 24 hours and to this day never regretted the decisions I made. Susan Jeffers is a star as opposed to those corrupt and patronising Fein and Schneider twats.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes....

Sadie is going through that phase that friends warned me about when kids deal with parents separating; 3 months in and she is starting to play us off against each other. She has told him that she loves him more than me (which he took great pleasure in telling me) and has whinged every time she has gone to stay with him because she "likes being with me more than daddy" (which I haven't told him, being the more mature member of the team). She is also testing her boundaries to the limit. My guess is that when she's with daddy for the two or three days a week he spends with her, her boundaries get broadened. So much so that by the time she returns home to me she has a whole new set of rules and unless I am consistent with his teeterings into insane parenting (sweets for breakfast? playing next to a main road for fun? Late bedtimes where she gets to watch DVDs until she passes out? Christ what am I up against???) all hell breaks loose and I end up having a semi-nervous breakdown for half the week. It is hard to remain a calm parent when this is up against you, but I am trying my best. Friends say it will settle and she will get used to one set of rules for daddy's place and one set whilst at home. I just wish this glimmer of hope would leap at me from it's seemingly distant and unobtainable place. I love her to bits of course. None of this is any of her fault and her dad and I just need to keep it together, and despite all this tension, she is the one keeping me grounded and happy. But at the same time, I think I should forgive myself for those times when the pressure is off and I am free to let out my angst and whizz around like a let loose Catherine Wheel......

Gunk

I now realise that in the picture of me below I look like someone has sneezed all over my face....
I have just had a rather surreal and disturbing conversation with my boss. We do get on and have a giggle together, but he used to be a sexual health nurse and just saw fit to randomly sit down next to me at my desk and lecture me on the dangers of oral sex. I didn't bring this subject up of course- that would be weird. I merely mentioned my recurring mouth ulcer problem at the moment (which is more to do with late nights than the possiblility of an STD incidentally- I am not that irresponsible) and that was it he was off. It is very odd to hear your boss uttering the words 'cock', 'suck', 'swallow' and 'enzymes' whilst attempting to go through the renal ward invoices.

Soundtrack: Wombats-Backfired at the Disco

I see you stumble......

I am going to have to start another, anonymous blog where I can actually say what happened this weekend. Belle Du Jour I am not, but I am teetering on the brink of becoming a bit of a lady of the night of late. And I am loving it. It all started off innocently as ever and then inevitably spiralled into a hedonistic twirl of tongues, mod haircuts and my old school uniform. And I will never see Thomas the Tank Engine in the same light again. Oh my lord. Hormones have a lot to answer for. And lager.....
I am listening to far too much local radio at present, since the ex gained custody of the digital radio. Gone are the days of listening to the fantastic and ever-tasteful 6 Music. Now I spend most of my days having to be subjected to '80s Hour' or just soppy chart singles by the likes of Duffy and Rhianna. Bros's 'I owe you nothing' is on now tinkling in the background as I am about to do a marathon session on The Book. This is not good. My creativity will be completely pissed upon by those Goss brothers. I'm off to put on a John Peel compilation and get on with some proper writing......

Fishfinger sandwiches, facepacks and froot!

I have just spent the majority of this week with one of the best human beings on the planet: Miss Lucy Bullen (or The Bullencia as I have always preferred to call her). She is a sparkling star in a sky of mere twinkles and it has been a pleasure having her to stay and to show her around the quirkiness of Brighton town. We supped enough pints of Harveys local brew to sink a posh yacht in the Marina, ate fishfinger sandwiches at Bills, wore chocolate flavoured facepacks so we looked like pigs in poo, and giggled like sun-crazed indie chicks over the course of 48 hours. I cannot wait for her monthly postings of burnt CDs of her favourite music. It's about time I rekindled my indie roots a little more. I am getting far to into mainstream pop these days....And I am now off to Sheffield for my 31st to hang out with her and her gang of young, guitar-playing friends. I will be back to the old Cathy in no time....

And now, having waved The Bullencia off back to the home of Kendal mint cake at the train station yesterday, I am back to planet earth with a bump as I spent an hour last night bent over the bath, sifting nits out of Sadie's hair. Oh the glamour of parenting. But it's all part of the fun, and Sadie's hair has never looked so shiny and detangled! Poor little lamb. She has a stripe across her face too from running through a thorn bush. She looks like a mini version of Adam Ant only with a glossy bob

Soundtrack: New Royal Family- Anyone fancy a chocolate digestive?

Weddings, waxworks and vampires.....

Well after Friday's nightmare of a date (that turned out to be only marginally less scary than the hideousness that was the dark stinking freaky waxwork Robin Hood museum in Nottingham yesterday) this weekend was one of the fluffiest in a long while. Joy and Geoff tied the knot in Nottingham's picturesque Holme Pierrepont Hall on Sunday afternoon. Sadie was their bridesmaid, which in itself was enough to open the floodgates for a soppy lush like me, but the ceremony had me in tears. I was one of those annoying wedding guests who keeps sniffing loudly with my shoulders jittering, like a dried up old maid who can only experience true love vicariously through her couple friends. Nah- I'm not that bad- I am just a sucker for romance and Philip Larkin poems. And Joy and Geoff are so cute together. They really are meant to be, god love em....
The best man's speech made me think I was living in a chick flick again. For a split second I thought I was hearing things when he decided to announce to everyone at the end of the speech that he and another of the best men (there were four incidentally) rather like me. And then he sat down. This was how he ended the speech. After going bright purple from embarrassment (my best friend Jo who had been sat next to me gaffawed so loudly she had also gone red), I glugged back some champagne and went and thanked him for this information. We have decided amongst the three of us that rather than begin some sort of weird love triangle, I will share them both intermittently as and when it suits. The best man did suggest daily commutes down from Nottingham to Brighton but I think he was being a little unrealistic (and probably a little drunk). Oh what fun. And hark at me- I'll get a big fat head at this rate!
Sadie and I then had an hour to kill before our train back home yesterday so I thought I'd take her on an educational visit to the Robin Hood museum. After entering it became obvious we were the only visitors (it was a Monday morning). I now know why. It all started off great as a very handsome man dressed as Robin Hood came a chatted to us, and, having tried to unsuccessfully entice Sadie from her shy, finger-biting stance, led us into a pitch black room where loud male voices boomed around us. At this point Sadie started screaming and I wondered whether we would actually ever come out alive. Then it got even worse. A door opened into a dark, pretend cavern, and we entered to find 6 creepy waxworks in loin cloths standing staring at us. We couldn't get out until the automated doors opened for us and to be honest I was absolutely bloody petrified. I actually thought Sadie might pass out she was shaking and crying so much. This went on from room to room for about 45 minutes, until we exited completely shell shocked and feeling as though we had just surfaced from the fires of hell. What this hammer house of horrors taught us about Robin Hood I will never know. Sadie will now think that Sherwood Forest is a torture chamber. But at least, as opposed to my date with Ginge, I didn't end up with gigantic teeth marks on my right buttock and a love bite in the middle of my cleavage. I kid ye not. I was almost eaten alive.

Soundtrack: Gabriella Cilmi -Sweet About Me