Smash 'n' Grab

A messy week at Axis Towers as, inexplicably, crockery and glassware have suffered heavy losses in the field. I gave my round Ikea glass lamp the long kiss goodnight after Kong, fiddling around with the bookcase ('Kong, stop. Kong, stop. Kong, it's going to fall off and - oh.') finally succeeded in the quest, begun by his ratbag brother seven years hence, to topple said object and see if it bounced. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. I attempted to repeat the 'does it bounce' experiment by chasing Kong up the stairs to his room at top speed; I am mildly surprised to report that, when chastised at volume and velocity, the Kong does not bounce either, but rather glides, sylph-like, ascending the staircase like a blithe spirit, free of irregularity in his step. The toad. 

The next day, following a very pleasant afternoon with DMC and the kids, a Pyrex bowl that had been returned to me minutes earlier by one of the other mums fell out of my handbag approx 30cm to the floor, and smashed. On carpet. Despite the bowl being about half an inch thick all over. Mystified, I banished the Axis to their room and cleaned it up. Didn't realise Pyrex could smash like that. 

This morning, the last of the melamine bowls Daddio and I bought together fell clean out of the cupboard and split neatly in two when I was making the Pie's breakfast. Again, I am mystified. Since when does melamine smash on impact? 'Ooooooh,' said Pie. 'I reckon that's a sign.' He nods portentously, then barges into the living room to thump his brother over the head for watching Pokemon without him. Cue carnage - sofa demolition, hurling of medium-sized objects, issuing of threats, nothing unusual. However, I am left to mull over his comment about it being 'a sign'. I have long had signs myself, and the odd prophetic dream - predicting pregnancies, the return of old friends out of the blue, not much, and not often, but there, nonetheless. I recently sensed that a friend of a friend would be present at a 30th birthday party, despite the fact that he was most definitely in Beiing. I don't know him well, so there would be no reason for me to think this at all - and no-one else knew he was coming, so there was huge surprise when he walked in - but I tell you, I knew.

Unfortunately, I thought I was being a bit mental, and so didn't tell anyone. When I did reveal that I had, in fact, had second sight of the wanderer's cameo, I was roundly disbelieved. 'Bollocks,' said the Welshman, before bursting out laughing at my protestations and proceeding to indulge in a slightly Orwellian anecdote about his mum working in a garden centre. I scowled at him and made a mental note to burn his toast and accidentally stuff rooibos in his teapot in the morning (no, that's not a euphemism, even if it does make a pretty good one). The Birthday Boy made an attempt to take me seriously, before cracking up himself and repeatedly asking me what number he was thinking of (69, obviously). 

My powers of prophesy are clearly pretty rubbish, however. They don't seem to be able to predict that Pie will lose two teeth in a week, thus necessitating a double visit from the Tooth Fairy (who, last time, left a narky note with the pound coin attached, reading 'NOAH. Be kind to your mum and your little brother. TF') and a desperate search for change behind the sofas just before bedtime. They couldn't predict that I would lose three bowls in a week, two of which definitely should not have smashed owing to their supposed supertough properties. And they couldn't predict that Kong would remove one of the sets of bolts from the right hand side of the toilet seat, chuck it in the pan, and flush it down the toilet, thus blocking the bog as well as rendering said seat extremely hazardous to the Pie the next morning, who slid off it, luge-style, midway through his morning ablutions.

They could, however, very accurately predict the shade of blue that the air turned that day as a result of my language. Kong's days of destruction are numbered. As, now, are my plates. 

New Year's Evolution

New Year. I, rather stupidly, took the opportunity to do a bit of a stock take, mainly by way of looking through old photos and depressing the hell out of myself when I realised I had once been young and beautiful (ok, ok, perhaps not beautiful, but certainly favourable when compared with the back end of a bus), and now - well. A spot of self-improvement is in order,

I must say, in my defence, that I feel a bit as if I've spent the past few years crawling on my hands and knees to try and keep Axis Towers afloat. I've been really lucky in having amazing friends and neighbours, and that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow seems to be drawing closer. We've got something approaching stability now, so, in accordance with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I can move towards self-actualisation - perhaps.

To this end, I've drawn up some resolutions. I was prompted to do this by Slutdrop, who materialised like a vision from a Kate Bush song at Axis Towers towards the end of New Year's Day, having conducted herself with alarming impropriety at a party the previous night. 'Ugh,' said the slutternly one, collapsing into an armchair, clutching an ice pack to her head. 'What a nightmare. I dressed up in my best three piece suit and bowler hat, and some bitch came and asked me why I'd come dressed as a policewoman...' Slutdrop had then pretended to her questioner that she was a genuine police officer, via the unlicensed use of some dodgy handcuffs metaphor and the 'where do police officers live?' joke*.

Unfortunately, it transpired that her combatant was, in fact, a real live rozzer - well, a PCSO. Slutdrop apparently learnt this fact, shouted 'BULLSHIT' and 'POLICE BRUTALITY!' before legging it to hide in the loos and attempt to refashion her costume into Alex from A Clockwork Orange. On waking up this morning dressed as a cross between Oliver Hardy and a Droog, Slutdrop proceeded to stuff as much junk food down her neck as possible in order to assuage the hangover. Some of it remained on her jumper. I felt the only thing to do was to innocently point it out.

'Slutdrop, what's that on your jumper?' Slutdrop began dabbing furiously at the splodge with a bit of damp kitchen towel, which began to disintegrate all over her. 'Dammit. It's Fray Bentos steak pie. It was rank on the way in, and it smells like bloody dog food on the way out.' I stifle a giggle. 'What the bloody hell are you doing eating those?' Slutdrop looks gloomily at her jumper. 'I'm cheap and nasty and I shop in Poundland for food,' she says, eyes downcast. Then, she brightens up. 'But did you know - those are only a pound in Poundland, and in a regular supermarket, they cost three quid! Honest!' I think my reaction was not as impressive as it was supposed to be. And she wouldn't tell me how the hell she knows how much those things are in a regular dupermarket, anyway.

Slutdrop and I had a little disco in the living room (Neneh Cherry, Kelis, House of Pain, Nicki Minaj and the Sabres of Paradise), which got us excited enough to believe that we could go out tonight. After scouring the listings and finding that pretty much the only thing open was the local youth club, we decided we'd be better off going to Nando's and writing some New Year's resolutions.

So, here are mine. In 2014 I resolve to:

1. Be a better recycler - I'm pretty good, on the whole. However, I don't use the food bin. Yes, I know, I know - it's just that the Kong can't tell the different between the food cupboard and the food bin, and I have no wish to discover him perched on the worktop scoffing a delightful salad of potato peelings and two-day-old mince, ever again. It takes 20 sodding minutes to take all the bins from the side of my house to the dumping zone on the side of the street and I always end up using the kind of language that brings down the property prices in our neighbourhood. But, I guess I'd better add the vile leaky food bucket to the pile. Sigh.

2. Be more organised - My friend Cod is very organised. She is so well-organised that, in her organiser, she has organised a time for when she is going to do the following week's organising. I, however, am always running into school with half a Fray Bentos pie stuffed into the Axis' lunchbox**, bearing a note saying 'Eat it up or no sweets for a week'. PE kits are lucky to make it into school by half term. Most of Axis Towers is about seven deep in books most of the time. This year, goodbye to all that - I am going to be Miss Squeaky when it comes to being prepared.

3. No fear! - No, I am not going to start dressing in badly cut 90's leisure wear. I'm going to stop being scared of things. I am strong. I am resilient. I am woman, hear me roar (except when I need to check my tyre pressure, because I can't use the home gauge, and I'm scared of accidentally exploding the tyres on the forecourt. Can that happen? It can, can't it?)

4. Write more often - Average 2000 words per week. And get that bonkbuster about a load of randy social workers finished. With any luck, it'll earn some money, even if it does have the literary merit of an old bog roll.

5. Trust your instincts - If I'd started doing this, ooooh, 10 years ago or so, I might not be in the pickle I am today. Your gut has feelings. Listen to them. (I don't mean, for example, in an 'I need Imodium' sense. Although, it may be the case that you need exactly that. In which case, chemist followed by bathroom is usually a good move).

6. Not seek the opinions of trivial people  - there are some right twats about. Luckily, I don't know very many of them. But, just occasionally, they crop up. When young, many people are very externally focused, seeking the opinions of everyone around them to justify their actions. This year I will be ignoring them and their stupid thoughts, ideas and feelings, and instead listening to my wise friends (ok, and Slutdrop, too).

7. Learn more about India - it's long been a source of constant shame to me that I know very little about India, and have never been there. There, I said it. There is an argument to be made that not a lot of that is my fault, but still, it's me that's been constantly teased about it my entire life, me that's felt I don't belong here or there or anywhere, really. It occurs to me now, that I can change this - I can learn about India, I can learn the language, I can save up and I can GO THERE (although this latter will be a resolution for next year, no way will I have enough money any time in the next 24 months to make that particular dream a reality).

Finally, the standard

8. Lose four stone, marry Benedict Cumberbatch - standard.

I'm quite proud of my resolutions. I pass them to Slutdrop, explaining how I really think that treating resolutions as an opportunity, not a burden, can really broaden a person's horizons, how it can improve and develop your life. Slutdrop nods, thoughtfully. 'Go on, then,' I say. 'I showed you mine, you show me yours.'

Slutdrop hands me a tattered page from a notebook. Same as last year, plus a little less booze, it says.

I shuffle to the kitchen to fetch the brie, which apparently went off yesterday. Happy New Year, lovely people.



*999 Letsby Avenue, of course
**Not really. I've never eaten one and certainly wouldn't feed one to my kids. So there you go, ubermum brigade