I’ve made the decision to do more.  I came to this decision thanks to a few influences - the new “Star Trek” movie, Nikki making me feel old, the weekend away in Cardiff, needing to lose a bit of weight.  Don’t you just love how the human brain works?  So many different things all pushing me to make one decision.  But the human brain and it’s many wonderful and frustrating ways are a post for a not ever day.

You know how it is: winter comes upon you, it’s cold and wet out and all you want to do is snuggle up on the sofa, watch films and eat warm food.  I think it’s perfectly normal to get a little chubby through the cold months (isn’t it survival instincts?  May be just laziness actually).  I always become a home-body when winter hits.  I like being snuggled up warm inside and watching the snow and rain fall out the window.  It’s sort of romantic.  And there’s lots of hot chocolate and soups and stews.  It’s also about cuddling up with Ray under a blanket on the sofa to keep warm.  Francis goes to bed and we snuggle up and end our days at about 7:30pm.  We might stay up later than that but our minds and bodies switch off at 7:30pm.

This year I decided to fill my weekdays better because I didn’t want Francis to get bored.  I did that very successfully - this week alone we’ve gone to a museum, cafe, visited the in-laws and have still got an animal park to visit and the shopping to do.  But my nights still stop early and I end up doing nothing much but surfing online.  For some reason I stopped writing a few weeks back.  Well, that was the final straw.  If I’m not writing it’s time for a lifestyle change.  It’s corny but when you’re a mother it is very easy to lose yourself and your own needs and wants in the day-to-day routine of being a mother.

So now when Francis goes to bed I make sure my brain and body stay switched on and I actually get stuff done!  It’s like I’ve suddenly found all these new hours - as if there are more than just twenty-four in a day. 

Forget about the part about needing to lose weight, though.  I think I’ve only dieted once in my life.  When I was in my late teens and people who should have known better convinced me my life was a mess because I was overweight.  I wasn’t overweight.  I was perfectly healthy.  I got obsessive with it and eventually had to quit it for my own sanity.  Since then I haven’t really thought about it much.  I know I carry a few extra pounds, I’ve always been quite happy with those pounds.  They’re mine and I love them, mostly because they make my bum wobble when I walk.  But even I have to admit that I’ve got a few more few pounds added to my body now.  Too many biscuit and cake making sessions with Francis.  He also rarely goes in the buggy now so all walking we do is at a slow toddler pace.  So I asked my girliest girls who are always on diets what I should do.  I got a response and found out that how I eat is how they eat when they’re on a diet, only minus a couple of biscuits.  So I’ll just do what I always do: cut back on the biscuits I’m dunking in my cups of tea and be a bit more active.  I hate exercise so I’ll never be one to do a work-out.  I have my pelvic/core stabilizing exercises I do every night and I walk the dog most days but apart from that I do not exercise.

Basically, my plan is to get into my usual Summer Mode even though the weather is wetter than it was in winter, and it’s still too cold to go out without a coat.  I can’t wait for the weather to warm up - long days in the garden, playing in the park, always wanting to be outside, being active, everyone happy and friendly, which makes me more confident and out-going…

Hurry up already, Summer!  I have to start doing more!

This weekend I went up to Cardiff for The Big Reunion concert.

It was a show that appealed to the pop girl within.  The girl who went to see Five and Steps, before I got too cool for catchy pop songs and started going to gigs instead of concerts.  I’ve (pardon the pun) popped out the other side of that angsty time now and am back in love with all things pop.  This programme, and tour, were timed perfectly for me.  I could look back nostalgically at the pop bands that saw me through my teenage years and get the opportunity to hear all the scandal that led to their split, only to see them reunite, older and wiser, and go out on tour again.

I’d like to be able to say it was amazing.  That from start to finish I was so glad I’d gone.  But to be honest the first half was quite flat.  Five opened the show.  Five were the band I wanted to see - the others were just fillers, really.  Apart from Liberty X I wasn’t really a fan of any of the others, I just knew their music.  It was upbeat and exciting and the crowd were energised and screaming.  We all sang along, lots of us remembering the old dance routines.  Their section ended and the rest of the bands came on and it just got flatter and flatter. 

Then there was the 30 minute interval.  Yes, a 30 minute interval in the middle of a concert!?  Now if you’ve never been to a pop concert (how? why? HOW?) then you won’t know how the energy builds and has to be kept bubbling through the 2-hours.  You cannot stop it midway so that the artists can have a rest.  What are we in the crowd meant to do?  Sit there and be bored.  Luckily, I wasn’t that hyped when the interval was announced so I had no cooling down to do.  And even more luckily is that everyone at a pop concert is hyper and happy and super friendly, so we just chatted to the girls around us.

Actually, in this case, for me anyway, the interval was a good thing.  Because when the bands came back on (in almost reverse order to the first half) I felt energised.  Not at first, of course, but they seemed to get the billing right this time.  The energy grew, the excitement and by the time Five came back on the whole crowd went mental.  It was just like being 18 again!  I was young, slightly crazy and had a whole world of possibilities ahead of me.  When every day you woke up wondering if this was the day your life was really going to start.  And, when spending the week harassing boybands, wondering if this was the night the world was going to spin on its head (no, it wasn’t ever that night with Five).

I had so much fun that when I got back to the apartment we’d rented for the night, I searched for tickets for Five’s November tour, got eight rows from the front and promptly bought them.  Looks like I’ll be getting all nostalgic again at the end of the year.

This was also my first whole night away from Francis.  I think I handled it well.  No tears and only a little bit of sulking.  I missed him and Ray like crazy, though.  That never used to happen when I went following boybands.  The difference is now my life has started properly.  I’m no longer escaping; I’m just enjoying.  I can’t wait to do it all again in November!

All photos © me

©me

Madge, Sweepie’s mother, engaging in her favourite pastime: barking!

I always used to be too busy, or lazy, to click on the links people posted online.  You know the ones that people post on Facebook or on their blog, the ones that they say give them goosebumps and change their whole view on the world.  But since I’ve started finding ways to avoid writing very often I have actually started clicking on the links and reading the entire articles. 

I find I start out the same way every time: hopeful that this will be the article that changes my whole view on the world.  Which is actually how I approach new people.  And, much as the acquaintances rarely bloom into proper friendships, the articles I read rarely inspire anything good in me.  In fact, the more I read the more I realise I was never ever that high on myself.  I was told I was.  I was told I was too opinionated and that people didn’t care what I thought - and it always reminded me of that line from “Doctor Who” when Donna’s grandfather says to her:

What I’ve forgotten over the recent years is Donna’s answer: I can try!  I mostly just retreated into myself.  Whenever I have started to rant those people who told me I talked too much would roll their eyes and make me regret ever opening my mouth.  It spilled over into my online stuff too.  I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve stopped and started this blog.  It was behaviour I was aware of but it only really hit me when a friend who I haven’t spoken to properly in years and years said that was one thing that had changed about me: that I don’t talk as much, and don’t offer my opinion, whereas I used to when she knew me before. 

That coupled with my recent foray into reading online articles has made me realise I need to find my voice again.  The amount of pretentious, self-involved nonsense that is put online - not on blogs, which are meant to be those things and more, but as articles - is mind-boggling.  The absolute crap I’ve read over the last few months!  People telling us how we should live our lives, how we should be filling every second of free time with personal growth because heaven forbid you should just flop down on the sofa after a long, exhausting day and just zone out in front of the TV for a few hours.  Or the really pretentious articles about feminism and class. 

This epiphany has come a bit late.  All of my opinion’s are in a state of flux at the moment.  Does having a baby screw with everyone’s head or was it just mine?  And I don’t mean hormonally (although that was hell of a ride too!), I mean the way I look at everything has changed.  I actually no longer want to shout at everyone who makes a stupid decision, and I don’t necessarily have to voice my opinion on everything that affects my life.  But it’s nice to feel like I could, if I wanted to.  I mean, surely my theories on life, ever-evolving as they are, cannot be as pompous as the nonsense I’ve been reading online lately.

So go get a little high on yourself!  There’s no harm in a little indulgence.  And, hey, you never know, you could be writing the next big Think Article and changing everyone’s view on the world!

*Where I stole the exact quote from (I remembered it mostly correctly!) Planet Claire.

When I was about 13 years old I read a series of books called Making Out (originally titled “Boyfriends & Girlfriends” apparently).  When Katherine Applegate’s name came up on Facebook one day I remembered this series and decided to buy them and re-read them.  I wasn’t expecting much.  I’d just read “The Hunger Games” and “Twilight” (great and poor respectively) and didn’t know if I could handle another teen book.  But I remembered the characters fondly and even remembered some of the story-lines.  So I went for it.

Most importantly: they didn’t disappoint.  No, they’re not going to win any awards for creative writing but they’re well-written, not at all condescending and quite gritty considering the target audience.  In the series the topics covered are: alcoholism, child-molestation, blindness, infidelity, drug-abuse, and long-lost daughters to name but a few.  All the serious stuff is wrapped up nicely in a bubble of teen-romance where one character is in love with another for one book before declaring ever-lasting love for another in the next book.  At times it’s a bit silly but overall it’s a really great series. 

I remember when I read them at 13 I had already progressed into adult books so I found them a bit tame.  So much over-the-shirt touching and procrastinating over whether or not to have sex.  Despite what boys throughout my life have thought of me, I have never procrastinated over having sex.  Yes, I’m a “good girl” but sex was always just something very natural that you did with whoever made you feel comfortable and horny enough to do it with.  Not that this series is especially pro-virginity.  There’s a fair bit of sex going on; it’s just not written about.  I guess that’s the only time the book censors itself.

My favourite character when I was younger was Nina.  A kind of outcast amongst her friends.  She shuns fashion and is into grungy music and style.  She’s sassy and cute but vulnerable with it.  She also bags the hottest guy on the island, Ben (who is blind and three years her senior).  Despite the fact that her sister is super hot and all the guys want her.  I related to her more than I’d ever related to another female in my life.  Before and since, if I’m being totally honest.  I’d forgotten just how much I adored her, and somehow drew strength from her strength.  Up until then I’d just gone with the flow and tried to keep up with everyone else, just tried to fit in and not embrace my odder tendencies. 

Soon I’d be an angst-ridden teenager of my own, dealing with painful operations and my friends all abandoning me (aren’t girls lovely?), and I so I quickly forgot about silly made-up Nina.  But parts of that series stuck with me.  Subconsciously it wove its way through my creativity and I see a lot of my writing style in those pages.  More than that, though, the characters and their decisions and personalities imprinted on me.  In a way it’s totally freaked me out reading them again because I honestly didn’t realise it had influenced me so much.  Maybe it’s true what they say: what you read/see as a child really does stick with you for life.

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If you can get your hands on these books give them a read.  They’re a good size.  I tend to read one every two days, only one if I have a heavy reading day.  There’s 28 books in the series.  I’m on book 18 right now.  Only ten more to go…oh no!