Janey Godley’s Blog

Yes, it truly is December. I know this because everywhere I look is fake snow, bright baubles and scented shopping malls. I do love it though.

 

Husband isn’t a big Christmas fan, he has made it clear the tree can go up, but it mustn’t get in the way of the flat screen telly and it better not flash too much, as that exacerbates his Aspergers Syndrome.

 

I told him that him talking about the happy Christmas tree exacerbates my hormones and makes me feel like taking him straight to punchy town, he told me such a place didn’t exist.

I said it was a metaphor – he said he didn’t like metaphors – I said “shut up or I will poke your eye with a Christmas bauble” it went on for ages, suffice to say I won and he dragged the tree from the cupboard with an annoyed face.

 

Every year we go through the same crap. I don’t want a gift as I don’t need anything and I can buy stuff myself. He doesn’t want anything as we can never get him what he wants (his own house with padded corners, a butler and a Lazy-ee Boy seat) so we compromise by just buying Ashley stuff.

 

She loves it and has made a list of what she wants. Husband who is great at searching online for cheap deals, ends up buying two things and getting loads of stuff thrown in for free, that’s Aspergers and too much time on your hands as far as I am concerned.

He doesn’t have the ‘interesting’ Aspergers Syndrome, just the annoying type.

 

Why can’t he just count cocktail sticks thrown on the floor? That’s a great party trick, yet his Aspergers Syndrome doesn’t accommodate such tomfoolery, he is just good at repeating verbatim all the stuff I say in anger.

 

He would make a great actor if he could just tell his face which emotion his words were displaying.

Anyway I must stop saying things about him; he will find out and smile but shout fiercely, which is disconcerting to say the least.

I have just realised – that’s why he doesn’t get on well with cats! They also smile and bite you at the same time, or wag their tails and purr.

Cats are Aspergic animals and don’t mix well with other Aspergic sufferers.

The past week has been busy as hell; I gigged at Edinburgh Stand and got the most awesome review…

 

"The queen of Scottish comedy...A bold, take-no-prisoners type of comic... Comic gold. Brilliantly painted scenarios, uproarious and touching in equal measure.... Intelligent and skilful comedy of the highest order."
(Edinburgh Evening News, 2nd December 2009)

 

That is a lovely thing and cheers me up no end. It nice when you get good things said about you, especially when you work hard!

 

I wrote a comedy article for a newspaper this week as well and did warm up at BBC which can be tiring and long, yet fulfilling.

 

Am off out today to get myself a pair of leather gloves, as this is what I am buying myself for Christmas.

Things are happening in my life that keep making me look back, its not good news. Recently when I was in London it happened. I immediately recalled the first time I went to London to stay with my pal Finlay.

 

It was 1994; I was hardly doing any comedy and was running my pub at the time. Just the sheer excitement of being away from the pub, husband and my child made me giddy with happiness.

 

Soho looked like the most amazing place in the world; the big bright lights of Piccadilly dazzled me like the oik I was back then.

 

It was fantastic to be free from domesticity and just be me and just be with my pals. I recall looking in Time Out magazine and wondering how I could possibly contain my bursting exhilaration at the thought MY NAME one day might be in those listings as a comic at a club, it just made me foam at the mouth.

 

Years later when I wrote articles and was featured in Time Out, I giggled and had a wee heart warming feeling, recalling the Janey who thought that was THE DIZZY heights of fame, and it was a good feeling.

 

But somehow I now feel a bit flat, it might be because I am getting older and am becoming tired whilst travelling, I am not sure what this feeling is, but I miss the excitement of being so amazed at doing stand up.

 

Does that make sense?

 

You need to know I LOVE doing comedy; I feel I am finally me onstage. It is the best feeling in the world and I honestly am blessed that I get paid for doing something I think is easy and wonderful; I know I shouldn’t say that. I should say how comedy is so technical, a skill that takes years to hone and blah blah about the art- but I love comedy and I it doesn’t feel like hard work to me.

 

Please don’t take from this that I am poo-poohing my art, or being flippant about all the years its taken me to get to a decent level, but I just get worried someone is going to walk up and say “you are just talking, why is that a job?” and I am scuppered! I have been told be many people in my life growing up to ‘shut up’ and now I get paid for talking, that makes me giggle inside, yet there is this awful foreboding feeling inside me.

Do I finally have depression and my brain can’t compute what that actually means? Can that happen?

 

I have never had depression before and always rail against it as I have been surrounded by depressed people my whole life and they really annoy me (sorry if that’s sounds unsympathetic, but if you live with someone with depression it basically means when they are sad and don’t want to go out- you are NOT going to the beach either and You don’t have depression) There is nothing for people who DON’T have depression but live with people who have depression –they get therapy- you get moaned at.

 

So I don’t know why I am feeling strange and odd lately. Maybe I am just going through an odd phase, yet the only thing that makes me happy is going onstage.

 

Ashley is all grown up and writing for a living and doesn’t need me so much, husband is happy and fine and I might be suffering from some empty nest thing. As everyone knows how much I love being with my daughter and I talk about her all the time. I know I do…but you have no idea how proud I am that she is just lovely and funny and such good company to be around.

 

I think I might be having a mid life crisis, I may end up like those women who get their hair cut like Suzie Quatro and start wearing fringey leather jackets and start visiting the Hard Rock Café’s all over the world collecting beer mats, tee shirts and getting photos taken with Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar. Can that happen to women overnight?

 

Why is looking back to me being all glowy about comedy and visiting new cities not making me happy?

 

Or maybe I shouldn’t write a blog in a damp Manchester hotel room with a really bad period pain and a colonoscopy to look forward to? It might be that then eh?

I haven’t had a decent lie in since London. Honestly you would think I had a proper job or something, having to get up early and be places is the very reason I became a comedian. I do nowt!

 

This morning I had to get up and go see the specialist about my ‘bowel’ issue suffice to say I am getting a colonoscopy quite soon which I am sure is sexual to a few hard nosed politicians yet evil to me.

 

I have NEVER found excitement in shoving things up my back bottom, seriously -its exit only- and those folk who shove hamsters and lava lamps up theirs need executed or put in a special ward. Ok that might have sounded extreme, but I am having a strange day as a pigeon attacked me as I slept.

 

Here is the story; my bed is beneath my window, so my pillows are basically where your knees would be if you were hanging out of my top floor windows. I like it that way but sometimes I push the windows open full and birds come up under the eaves, spot the gaping window and do a wee peep in. They see me in bed two feet away from them then don’t understand they need to be quiet and let out a big loud squawk or make a pigeon warbly noise. We stare at each other as my eyes open, big fat bird sitting on the inside of my window ledge, me lying on the pillow hoping it doesn’t come any nearer. I throw up an arm it shits on my pillow and flies out into the back court. That what usually happens, but today was funny.

 

I slept after the hospital appointment and I woke up at 11am to see two pigeons pecking at my jewellery box on my window ledge. They clearly fancied a wee wander in and tapped across the shelve ten inches above my skull and then sat there warbling to each other.

 

The noise woke me up, I gently lifted my head, the bigger bird panicked and just fell out of the window…screeching…like it forgot how to fly, but the sassy smaller bird pecked my velvet jewellery box and eyed me side on. It was challenging me! I am sure it was a ‘she’ as ‘she’ gaily tip- tapped across my window shelf, shit on it and deftly flew into the grey Glasgow sky.

 

This is what I miss about Glasgow, the sheer audacity of its pigeons.

 

It is good to be home though despite the colonoscopy and the pigeons.

Late blog – I know. Sorry, I was either really busy or asleep in London.

The time just flew past and I didn’t quite catch up with myself.

 

And I have been partying a wee bit, I do that in London – I rarely go out in Glasgow and save all the time up and end up staying out at The Groucho Club till 2am, then sleeping in like a fat old dog.

 

My trip here has been really interesting, firstly on arrival in London I decided to call up Gordon Smith who is the boss of the Scottish Football thingy and I applied for the job as Scotland football manager. The fact I called it ‘thingy’ should indicate I am not really suited to the job. But the press were touting Sean Connery as the next manager and because I actually live in Scotland, I thought I should be more in the running so to speak. I can order men about, I can actually play football and I am great at strategy, what’s not to like?

“Do you have a valid coaching license?” Gordon Smith asked.

 

“No, but I do know Hologram Tam and he is the worlds best forger and he can get me one” I laughed.

 

Well, they never called back, so I guess the job is not for me.

 

London is wonderful at this time of year as the Christmas lights are up in Oxford Street and I LOVE the lights, I am such a sentimental twat at times, but I just love the wintry feeling and the twinkling lights.

 

Hyde Park is just a carpet of crisp golden leaves and the sky at teatime over London is scudded with crimson smudges that reflect onto the oily surface of the Thames, it’s just amazing!

 

It’s as if someone had taken a whorey pink lipstick to the sky and had dragged it over the dappled clouds.

 

The pale blushing sky creates an inspiring backdrop to the Houses of Parliament; you have to see it to know what I mean. I love London.

 

I don’t love drug fucked alcoholic men with skinny hard faced blonde women who come to comedy clubs to scream at comedians. I hate those bastards more than anything and yet Camden seemed to draw them in on Friday and Saturday night.

 

It can be exhausting verbally fighting with coke fuelled men in front of 200 people for money, but I am an MC and that’s my job. I won, they were thrown out and the comedy went good. Ok, heres some tips for anyone who fancies coming to enjoy a comedy gig.

 

1. Don’t snort Peru up your nose; it doesn’t make you amiable in a crowd of quiet people listening to one person.

 

2. Don’t patently ignore someone with a microphone speaking to you and try not to carry on foaming at the sides of your mouth as you scream at other comedy goers asking you to shut up.

 

3. When 200 people shout ‘LEAVE! LEAVE!’ accept that they don’t like you and just fucking leave. The people have spoken my friend.

 

4. Don’t abuse someone for being Scottish then try to cover that abuse up by declaring you are half-Scottish, that’s just mental and invites some of the best retorts from a Scottish MC.

 

5. Never go anywhere where you want to talk more than the people everyone else has paid to listen to. It really is that simple, stay at home and shout at yourself, is all I am saying.

 

Other than that life is good. Meetings went well and I now have some serious writing to do.

 

I got to hang out with Monica my best mate in the world and it was so good to see her, we get to talk really fast Glaswegian and not worry about pronunciation or slowing down for other people. Though she does speak amazing Italian, French, Spanish and possibly seven other languages in a fabulously funny Scottish accent, I hear her talk to some of the European chefs she represents and piss myself laughing – she is amazing.

 

Nothing strange, funny or weird happened for me to write home about, am sorry- I feel as though I am letting you all down if I haven’t punched a Politician or fell down a flight fo stairs in front of a Hollywood superstar, but sometimes my life is dull and is all about looking at the awesome skies over London. Am home tomorrow…speak soon.

I was in Aberdeen last week doing a show at the Lemon Tree, a storm lashed the Granite City, and sideways rain like a giant fire hose was drenching each street at a specific annoying angle. The new shopping centre was lovely but unfinished and the cash machines gobbled up cards and refused to spit them out, like a greedy plastic swallowing hooker.

 

The hotel had a wee single bed which slid along the floor when you sat on it and to top it all the fire alarm screamed us all awake and made us all stand in the sideways rain in our pyjamas, I wanted to burn to death instead.

 

Touring is so sexy.

 

I was tired when I hit Aberdeen station to get the train home. There was a big fat steely haired woman in a rail workers jacket at the ticket gate. “What ticket do I put through the machine to get onto the platform? There are nine tickets printed for this journey, I don’t know which one to slide through the machine!”

 

She sneered and shouted “the one that says journey ticket, why don’t you check?”

 

The tickets have tiny writing and there are so many of them it really is hard to figure out which one is the valid ticket.

 

“Listen up fatty, NINE tickets here now tell me which one? They all look alike. What is your job? Staring at pigeons?” I shouted at her.

 

Just then two really old people came behind me with a deck of tickets (why is there so many wee orange tickets printed out for A JOURNEY?)

 

“What ticket do we use to get through there are so many?” the wee old stooped man asked fatty fuckwit.

 

“What do you think? The one that says journey…” she started to yell.

 

“Ok, you annoying pedantic fat pain in the butt, I will stand here and I will show people which ticket as the TRAIN is LATE I will do your job and help elderly people with the tickets” I screamed. Pigeons flew away in fear.

 

 

 

 

So I stood there at the gate and pointed out to people who were staring at a fist full of tickets and who asked fatty sarcastic arse for help.

Every time she attempted to use her nasty sneering attitude, I butted in and helped the people. It wasn’t altruistic I was just annoyed at her and bored to be honest.

 

She then told me to stand back from the gates and I refused.

 

She got the station master bloke who came over, listened to her moan about me standing at the gate and then came over and told me to move.

 

I explained that she was ignoring people’s pleas for help and explained the whole situation and the elderly man and wife came over to back me up. Fatty was told off and made to go back to the hut where I hope the chained her to a radiator and let her piss her own fat legs. What a cow.

 

They put a young Polish bloke on the gate and he politely explained to people who were struggling to figure out which ticket to slide through the machine. Screw you Aberdeen station ticket woman.

 

The journey home was pleasant except I had a screaming kid on the seat opposite. I didn’t get angry I merely got off my seat and went into first class where the ticket checker let me sit the whole journey for no extra charge, see some people on trains are nice.

 

I went up to Easterhouse to do my one woman comedy show on Saturday and it was awesome. Lovely to see so many people turn up for comedy and the show went well; Ashley sold 25 of my books for me, what a lovely child!

 

This week I am off to London, I have some gigs, some meetings and another big audition. Scary stuff but contrary to the rumours, I am not going into the jungle…don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

 

Yes, Christmas has a particular scent, its cinnamon and spices and supermarkets pump it out discreetly in case we forget what the spending season smells like.

 

I hate being manipulated like that don’t you?

 

Christmas or winter to me smells like wood burning and the frosty bright mornings remind me of the seasons changing, I don’t know anyone who boils cinnamon, makes spiced oranges or who mull wine not from present day nor my past, because I wasn’t alive in Victorian times when Christmas came into its own.

 

It seems we modern folk can’t have our own Christmas identity; we have to hark back to the olden days to get one. Cards and TV adverts show small Victorian dressed children with rosy cheeks and furry muffs staring through bevelled shop windows as their ankle boots are deep in crisp snow. Is there anyone alive who can recall that? NO!

 

To me childhood Christmas memories are of musty socks hanging over our old coal fire in the front room and my brothers fighting each other with tangerines in socks as weapons. So keep your cinnamon scented wafts, it means nothing to me Mr Supermarket psychological manipulator!

 

We will be having a quiet Christmas as always, just me husband and Ashley. I might go see my dad on Christmas day as this will be his first as a widower and I would hate that he was lonely. We don’t do family at Christmas, to be honest I don’t really have much contact with my family and the less said about husband’s family the better!

 

My own brothers and sister are just busy with their own lives, they have kids and husbands/partners of their own and I rarely see them, which is fine with us all. But when I hear of people who all get together and have dinners etc, it makes me hanker for a big family of love. Which is probably nonsense as I am sure that those big families all fight like hell, and are just being nice to each other, at least my brothers and sister don’t fight amongst themselves ( as we don’t get together!).

 

 

 

Went to the docs today and explained about my colon pain and stuff you really don’t need to know which involves my bowels. He told me I would be referred to a specialist called Dr Dover to which I replied “is his first name Ben?” To which my doctor said “No, Why?”

 

“It was a joke…Ben Dover...the bum doctor…its funny when you say it all together” I quipped.

 

“Ah, you are a comedian, I forgot” said my doctor with a sardonic look.

 

So, maybe I am not a comedian after all, Dr Shaw has exposed my lack of humour right there in the surgery at 10am

 

So life at Godley’s World is ticking along fine, been busy -had an ear infection, went deaf had loads of work and writing hard and this Saturday I am doing my one woman show at Easterhouse Platform The Bridge at 8pm. Do come along if you want, it will be fun!

Today I realised that I had written my 1,000 online blog. It all started in 2004 when I wrote a blog to help me get over writers block when I was writing my autobiography. It turns out I loved the blog and can’t quite let it go. It is syndicated to over 170 sites across the World Wide Web, it gained thousands of regular readers, it enjoys over half a million hits a week across the sites its published on. I have made many friends, learned loads about myself, annoyed people and ended up writing for a prominent Scottish newspaper and got freelance work throughout the world. That’s what happens when you write down all your thoughts for people to read!

 

Whatever site you are reading this on, please enjoy and accept my heartfelt thanks for all the support, here is my 1000^th blog…

 

Nut Brittle and frayed tempers…

 

I love Lidl as the moment, their fresh trout and their low fat frozen yoghurts are the best I have EVER eaten in my food noshing life.

 

“Excuse me do you have nut brittle, I got it here last week and it was in your Greek produce section, where is that been moved to?” I asked a podgy faced man in the fresh veg aisle.

 

He pointedly ignored me and carried on talking about some bank loan he applied for to a wee red haired bloke who was stacking up Christmas cards against chocolate flavoured Santa’s.

“So, I called the bank and they have refused my loan…” he droned. I watched the red haired bloke bend down deeply into the display as if he was trying to hide inside it. Podgy face carried on regardless, his bank conversation needed to be aired.

 

I walked off and decided, rather than do my usual thing and argue with spotty penniless podgy man, I went in search of the nut brittle on my own.

I got absorbed in my wee Lidl shopping experience and as I turned into another aisle I stumbled yet again on the podgy bank loan refused shelf stacker, he was still droning onto the red haired man “So, I then asked to be put through to head office and they kept me…” at that the red haired bloke leapt up and screamed “Shut the fuck up you annoying smelly bastard”

 

The red haired man threw a big tantrum and started to pull down all the Christmas trees and boxes of cards whilst screaming at the top of his voice “Fuck you Colin”. Fat podgy man (who I assume is Colin) stood there aghast, and then decided the best thing to do was run away from the devastated Christmas area and leave red haired man to explain himself to the manager who was fast approaching having dashed from the Polish fish display.

 

Just at that moment the woman from Afghanistan who sells the Big Issue outside (she is called Tick Tack- I swear to God that’s what she told me) well anyway her dog which is called ‘Bad Dog’ got off its leash and ran towards the melee and bit the poor ginger haired shouty man, then tried to rape a Christmas tree by humping it hard with it wee pink tongue hanging out.

 

Chaos ensued, Tick Tack started running after Bad Dog and chased it back out of the store and ginger man had to be calmed down. The Lidl is just so crazy on Tuesdays – I found the nut brittle, it is so delicious you should try it.

 

So after my Lidl experience I headed up to Easterhouse Platform Theatre ‘The Bridge’ and got some posters prepared for their display, ticket sales are going great and you can come see the show on November 14^th, just call  0141 276 9696 or email them info@platform-online.co.uk for tickets, give them your details and they will get back to you.

 

Am still reeling about the closure on some Jongleurs comedy clubs after a take over of the company last week, loads of comics, staff and management have lost- jobs, cash and future work and I am just hoping they all recover at this difficult time near Christmas.

 

 

Firstly I cannot escape Cheryl Cole’s new single…everywhere in Belfast was battering it out on radio etc…making me insane, though it does sound better after it has been electronically voice tuned - she was shit singing that live. I didn’t recognise the damn song from her military dance display on X factor.

 

Secondly I LOVE the way Irish people say ‘wee’ all the time.

 

“Do you have a wee key to your room? Do you want a wee help with your case? Do you have a wee credit card so we can have a wee swipe at it?” that’s awesomely lovely. I also flew on a wee plane called Kevin Keegan (yes it really was called that) and couldn’t stop giggling that I was inside Kevin Keegan and arrived at George Best airport, football players are so big in aviation.

 

The Ulster Hall was just lovely and I did enjoy the Amnesty gig, all the people were so bloody good onstage.

 

So after all that I went for a ‘wee’ cup of tea outside Oscars champagne bar in sunny/rainy Belfast. It didn’t look like a champagne bar as it actually sells Danish pastries and breakfast buns. I just sat my arse down on a wee seat when a woman sat opposite and called me a cunt for no good reason. She then told me all about Frank in 1967 and how he was a cunt as well. She had a mullet hairdo and skin that look like crumpled tin foil that had been flattened out but refused to go smooth, I called her Scary Betty. She had the haunted eyes of a woman who could set fire to trees just with her memories. Her continual rant never stopped when my niece Ann Margaret called, in fact she could hear Scary Betty in the background.

 

“Aunty Janey, I can hear a nutty woman in the background are you sitting beside a Looney?” She asked,

 

“Yes, I am” I answered, Scary Betty leaned over and whispered “Tell her to go fuck herself”

 

“She can hear you Ann Mags, you’re not really helping by talking about her” I giggled.

 

Scary Betty stared hard at me and then a great thing happened, three Asian men sat down. Scary Betty shut up, she knew that shouting at them would be really bad, so went back to hissing filth at me, as me being white could not take offence to her abuse…apparently!

 

 

Eventually the waitress came out and told her to leave, Scary Betty stood up and told the Asian men that nobody likes their music (which was the least racist thing she could say) I meanwhile breathed audibly and went back to my newspaper. The smell of stale sugar puffs magically disappeared as she left and that was just a bonus.

 

Bigger news was taking afoot but I didn’t know that, though I was about to find out. Jongleurs comedy clubs had a big meltdown. If you are unfamiliar with Jongleurs they are a comedy chain that hire loads of comics every weekend and huge amounts of staff in their popular clubs.

 

Apparently, and I am not sure of the entire facts, but the company got bought out and it means that in the hand over five clubs have been closed for good. Nottingham, Southampton, Bristol, Oxford and Bow have been shut. I was gutted as I am booked into Nottingham this weekend, any way my personal grief gave way as I realised that almost 200 jobs have been lost, throughout the company. I will miss all those lovely people who made me welcome and who always checked my happiness levels before I went onstage. Bless all those poor folks who have lost their jobs, I wish I could do something for them. I am thinking of you all as Christmas approaches.

 

So therefore I have the weekend free, and will have some weekends to fill but am not that fussed as I am a comedian and will pick work up anywhere.

 

On another note, I am looking forward to Christmas as I am going to be home this year and near my dad. I love him and he will need me this year as he is alone, it will be nice to share it with him.

 

Also have a big audition coming up in London and will need all the luck I can get for that one!

Speak soon.

Leeds was sunny and I love autumn, isn’t that something? The drive through Ilkley and Skipton and all across that area with the trees and foliage turning bright gold to vivacious red was awesome. That’s officially me getting old, I am a leaf peeper! But I have to say the Midlands countryside is just stunning to see at this time of year, and Leeds looks so quaint, who knew it was hotbed for terrorists? It looks so peaceful and nice as well!

 

As I was walking through sunny scary hotbed of terror that is Leeds, I sat by the little river and took in the view. A man approached wearing inappropriately short shorts, you know what I mean, over 40s mens shorts should be below knee, under 20s men shorts can be showing some clam if they want, they are young and their skin still fits them. This man was in his 50s and was grossly over weight, the shorts were disgustingly tight, and I couldn’t stop staring at his crotch which is disturbing to say the least.

 

Of course saggy ball man sat right beside me on the lonely tow path, what else do you people expect?

 

“Lovely day isn’t it? Do you like robin red breasts?” he shouted into my face, I realised he look a bit detached and possibly slightly special needs.

 

“Erm…yes they are nice” I stuttered.

 

He then pulled out a Christmas card with a robin on the front and shoved it in my face. “Nice” I said and prepared to leave. He grabbed my arm to sit back down; I looked anxiously around for some help as tight short baggy ball man might throw me into the river.

 

“My name is Barry and my mum is dead” he whispered.

 

Now, in my head all I could think was ‘has he just killed her?’ or is he disturbed because she died years ago?…I was getting scared by the minute…I always imagined how I would die, but I never thought I would end up in the river at Leeds by a fat man wearing shorts wielding a robin red breast Christmas card.

 

“My mam died years ago and she gave me this card” he said as I sat back down and his arm was gently now resting on mine.

 

I suddenly didn’t feel scared, I felt sad for him. We chatted for a while and he told me things about his mam and how she used to sing to him and after she died he lived in a big home and made pottery.

 

His speech was rather stilted and childlike and I didn’t feel threatened. Then we just sat in the quietness and he had a wee sleep! Yes, he napped as he clutched a Christmas card in his hand. After about half an hour I heard a woman shouting at us along the pathway. She hurried up to us as he jolted awake.

 

“Barry, what have you been told about wandering off?” she shouted at him. She wasn’t being angry more concerned and I explained he had been sitting with me chatting. Barry was all confused and stuttering out sentences trying to explain himself.

 

“Barry was having lunch with us at the river side pub along there and just disappeared, didn’t you Barry?” she calmed down, but still looked harassed.

 

He got up and staggered a wee bit, I think he was tired. The woman just took his arm and walked him off. They got about 30 feet away when he turned and shouted “Bye Katherine” at me. Nice to know he paid attention when I told him my name! I hope Barry had a nice day.

 

I walked slowly back to the flat and noticed that Leeds has its Christmas decorations up in the town centre.

IT ISNT EVEN HALLOWEEN PEOPLE!

Either that town is obsessed with Christmas or they want to shove Christianity down everyone’s throats and wipe out their reputation as a town that breeds bombers of the Muslim fundamentalist nature.

 

Now don’t everyone comment and write hateful things about me slagging off Leeds, just don’t shoot the messenger, by the way as an addendum to that four counter-terrorism detectives have been arrested for allegedly abusing corporate credit cards to claim up to £120,000 in fraudulent expenses while gathering intelligence after the 7/7 bombings.

 

Is everyone corrupt?

 

Either way I had a great weekend in Leeds, and I had fun.

Ashley has been really ill; we didn’t know what to do other than kill her quickly with a firm pillow pressed against her sick face, but husband offered another option, how about we take her to hospital? I am the kind of person who if I cant fix it- I will kill it. I am sorry I sound cruel but I am crap with sick kids and sick people/things in general. If you don’t believe me I used to have a hamster that had eczema and a goldfish that swam sideways. They are no longer here.

 

It turns out Ashley may or may not have Swine flu…I think she has a viral infection but then am the woman who drowns fish so what the hell do I know? She has been told to drink plenty fluids and get bed rest and this she is really good at doing, so that’s a relief, though she is really sick, I am being sarcastic and I do worry.

 

She gets really hot then shivery and cold then I get bored listening to it and hide in my room. When she was a tiny baby and used to vomit all down my back when I picked her up I felt like squashing her wee cheeks hard, though I never did that- I merely wiped up the vomit and hugged her till she felt better. But I thought it would be honest to admit that sometimes your kids can make you insane. People underestimate the power of sleep deprivation, it is used a torture technique during interrogation and yet babies can induce sleep deprivation and people – usually mums suffer it in silence. I am not saying I am about to snap, am just saying it can happen.

 

Luckily Ashley was a sleepy baby, but once or twice when she did scream in her cot at 4am and I had a 17 hour shift in the pub to get up to, it was horrendously annoying.  She wasn’t wet or hungry- she was just determined to get me to lift her up and I showed my mothering skills off by ignoring her and sleeping through the throat wrenching screams. She never really did make it a habit. I have little patience for that kind of behaviour.

 

The same goes with my patience for husbands Aspergers, I no longer care about his deeply inconvenient syndrome, he has been a tad screamy and insanely picky the past month as he is going through his Aspergic episode – a pillow to his face might happen soon as well. Did I tell you all I have stopped smoking? I am loving it and feel I may have passed the worst of it now…but I think I am slightly short tempered.

 

So I woke up today to discover that all the electricity in the surrounding area has been cut off. It was like the power strikes of the 70s, I walked about the house trying switches, as if some magical power had stayed in one wall and would give me light! I called people, I moaned, I worried about my frozen foods and I huddled under the covers with Ashley and told her about the dark days when I was a kid and our electric got cut off, how we sat with candles, how we walked about with blankets to keep us warm, she got bored and fell asleep. I woke her to continue the story, she was ill, what else did she have to do but listen? The bitch…anyway she got a fever again and I got heat off her back. So sometimes a viral infection can be good.

 

I am off to London this week for a bunch of meetings and a few other things and then off to see Monica and Elaine my buddy’s. I am doing a one woman show at The Platform in Easterhouse on November 14^th.

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