I BELIEVE I CAN FLY.....but I didn't at first...

How I wish I could harness self-belief. I would be a millionairess, no a billion... trillionairess, because I could sell case-loads of miniature bottles of it to the human race. You know, we would each only need a tiny amount of it, because a little goes such a long way and too much self-belief can make you think you're the President of FIFA.

We are all born with it - this self-belief – so what happens? Where does it go?  Well, in my case parents/teachers/friends/
boyfriends/bosses (blimey, it seems almost everyone I came into contact with) have had a jolly good go at bashing it out of me. For instance, let me take you back... I am about 5 or 6 years old and in primary school (some names have been changed .....mainly because I can't remember their real ones)

ME excitedly jumping up and down and being very proud of the new hand puppet I had just made out of a brown paper bag (this was the 1960s remember): Miss! Miss! Look at Mr Brownbag! He can dance and talk – do you want him to sing you a song?

MISS GROWBAG Snatches Mr Brownbag and slams him face down on her desk, which really hurts him: TIARA! FOR GOODNESS SAKE - WILL YOU PLEASE SIT DOWN! IF YOU DON'T GET BACK TO YOUR CHAIR RIGHT THIS INSTANT, YOU WILL SPEND THE WHOLE OF PLAYTIME CLEARING UP THE WENDY HOUSE! SIT! DOWN! NOW!!

ME welling up because a) she had shouted at me and I couldn't work out why, and b) I was really proud of Mr Brownbag, he could sing and everything and he had a really big toothy smile and she had just chucked him on her desk without even looking at him: Yes Miss Growbag (in a very small voice)

The biggest spotty dog you ever did see

Of course, I didn't understand timing at the age of 6 years old. I didn't realise that Miss Growbag was having a mare of a day because the class were playing up and the last thing she needed was some skinny kid waving a brown paper bag with a face on it, believing it was the best thing since the Woodentops. The result of this encounter was that I never put myself forward in class again and forever after had school reports that said “needs to participate more in lessons”.

It didn't stop there either. Fast-forward 10 years and we are starting to talk about a possible career.

CAREERS OFFICER: Well, Tiara. I see you have filled out your career options form. It's a little ambitious don't you think?

ME: Umm...No

CAREERS OFFICER: Well, there's not much call for being a Cabaret Artist these days.

Trying to convince the careers lady that this is a suitable job 

ME swinging the chair around and sitting astride it like Christine Keeler…: Maybe, but I know I can do it. It's my dream...

CAREERS OFFICER sighing: This is real life, not dreamworld and you are not Liza Minelli. Liza Minelli is a talented actress, with famous parents; you are Little Miss Tiara from Nowheresville. You would do much better in an office.

ME: But I've got the hat and stockings and everything.....

CAREERS OFFICER: Good, I shall put you down for the Civil Service then.

And so she did.

So, feeling crushed and totally useless, I packed away my outfit  and learned to type and do all the other boring stuff I grew to hate when really, all I wanted to do was believe in my ability......

Skip a couple of years to the end of 6th Form:

ME: I want to go into the theatre. I want do do costume and set design.

MOTHER: Don't be silly. We had all this nonsense when you wanted to be a Cabaret Artist.  What you need  is a proper job with a regular wage until you can manage to find a man that will be daft enough to marry you and then you can cook and clean and have kids.

ME: But I don't want to do that. Look, I've made new designs for Jesus Christ Superstar (it was the 1970s by now)....

FATHER not even looking at my crowd-pleasing creations: That sort of thing is not for the likes of us. There's hardly any jobs like that out there. You'll never get your foot in the door.

So, believing I was just saving myself a lot of heartache in the long run, I walked away without even trying.

And I regret it to this day.

You know, I might have made a lousy Cabaret Artist and I might never have had my designs chosen for the local Amateur Dramatic Society, but I'll never know, because at the time I didn't believe I had a right to even find out.

Thus I promised myself I would be different with my own children; I would never pour water over their dreams, no matter how wild or unattainable they may seem and I have stuck to that - even though I have had to bite my tongue sometimes.

Yet, I look around and still I see the human race bemoaning their own lack of self-belief on the one hand while knocking it out of someone else with the other. And I ask: why do we do it?

So, if some kid comes up to you with a homemade hand-puppet and asks if you would like to hear it sing you a song, please stop and listen. It'll only take a minute but it will make them happy, reinforce their worth and help that little bit of self-belief on it's way.

SO.... HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?

I really didn't want to bore everyone with my health updates so I shall spare you the pictures of my scars and accompanying spreadsheets of my latest painkiller regime. I wasn't going to blog about it because I didn't want to sound like one of those grannies you hear in the doctors waiting room – you know, the ones comparing their ailments and tablets with each other.....

Granny 1: “Well, the blue and yellow ones I was taking for me waterworks weren't working, so Dr said, 'well...' he said, 'they're only 25mg, that's your problem. What you need is 75mg'. So now I take 75mg of those and 50mg of the pink ones three times a day with food.

Granny 2: (not to be outdone in either the illness or medicinal brawn stakes) “Really? I have to take 100mg of the white and red ones and 250mg of the creamy coloured ones, you know the ones that are really big...like horse pills...”

Granny 1: (realising she is now partaking in a game of malady one-upmanship) “Ooh I know, and now the Dr is talking about giving me these new tablets that aren't even on the market yet. They are very expensive so they can't give them to everyone. I'll need 500mg in the morning and 750mg at night. The doctor has to get special permission from the Health Department to give them to me...”

Granny 2: (ignoring all that because she is on a roll, continues with gusto) “ ….and the Dr looked at me and he said 'Bunty, I don't know how you keep going like you do. You're an absolute saint. I've never seen a uterus like yours in almost 20 years of medical practice'. And he was in the Médecins Sans Frontières for 3 years, so he's been around the block a bit and has seen a thing or two!”

Grandad: (sitting opposite, leaning heavily on his walking stick) Well, this new cream I've got to put on...

So, I'm not going to be like that but you've all been very kind and asked how I got on (OK, well 2 of you did, but I know you're all very busy) so I will just say:

The facet block injections did indeed hurt like hell. I had to lie on my stomach with my bare ass in the air (so dignified don't you think?) while they injected along my spine. They gave me a local anaesthetic, but I think it must have been faulty or flood-damaged stock because I felt everyone of the the buggers go in....and there were eight of them. Yes, that's right - EIGHT! And although I couldn't see it, I'm sure the needle they used was at least a metre long... and I love the way healthcare professionals are the masters of understatement:

“just a little scratch coming up” (this is where I stifle a scream – no – that's not a little scratch – that was a centimetre-wide blunt instrument skewering my skin like some spatchcocked chicken)

or

“this might be a little uncomfortable” (for 'uncomfortable' read 'agony' – I mean, what are these people made of - because it's obviously not the sensitive, rose-petal delicate muscles of this mama's ass.

Seriously though, the fault lies entirely with me being an complete wimp (I would have been absolute rubbish in the Blitz) and the hospital staff were brilliant. It was very sore afterwards but the Consultant had warned me that the muscles don't like this procedure at all (direct quote). Still it does seem to have had some positive affect and I can move a little easier. I suppose I thought it was either going to work or not – I hadn't considered that it might work a bit. Now we have to see how long it lasts because it's only a temporary measure - for some people it lasts 6 months – for others, only 6 weeks. I fear the fandango may have to wait a little longer......

THIS WON'T HURT A BIT

Tomorrow I go to the hospital.  I am due to have facet joint and SI joint blocks and ligamentous/tendon blocks injected into my spine in order to ease my back pain.

When the Consultant at the Pain Clinic suggested this was a way forward it seemed like a jolly good idea at the time.    If it works I will be able to dance the Fandango, cut the grass, do cartwheels, jump on the trampoline with my daughter, hoover the living room and do the hokey-cokey barefoot whilst balancing a pint of beer on my head.  I will also be able to put a pair of socks on without cussing.  I will stand for the 2.5 minutes the electric toothbrush takes to clean my teeth.  I will run a country mile in less than 3 minutes.  I will cycle around the village shouting at the top of my voice "look at me everybody - Superwoman returns!"  I will burn that bloody walking stick (or jump on it at the very least).

Only now I am filling out the consent form for the procedure:
Hmm... Religion, ok, merely a formality;
Next-of-kin?.....right now you are starting to scare me a little;
Increased pain expected for 2 or 3 days (occasionally longer)....not so good;
Headaches and a temporary increase in weight....oh, just great;
Not a long-term relief/long-term effects not known....30% chance it may not work.....no procedure is risk free....what the blue blazes have I signed up to?

Now why does my stupid brain constantly latch onto these negative things?  Why can't I focus on the fact that I will be able to dance the Fandango rather than worry about being fat and paralysed from the waist down with a blinding headache.....and that's only if I don't die in the process.  Supposing it hurts?  Worse still, supposing it doesn't work at all?  Supposing nothing happens and everything remains the same.... well, then what?

Of course, there is always the illogical and bizarre thinking that my brain connects to the "supposing it does work" scenario.  This is where I am a little afraid that the procedure will actually be successful.  Where I wonder if maybe I am mentally comfortable with this pain - after all it's what I've become used to after 12 months and it has, in some perverse way, become my "comfort zone".  If these injections work I will have to change how I have been behaving for the last year - I will have to do things for myself again....scary eh?

No, stop thinking about it. Just do it. I know I don't want to live exist like this.  I want my life back.  It may not have been the most exciting roller-coaster rides in the history of the universe, but I want to regain my crown for having the highest score on the Wii "Just Dance 2" for dancing to "Proud Mary" by Ike & Tina Turner.  I want to dance with my 9 year old daughter again.

Ok I'm ready. Let's do this.

WEDDING PLANNERS 2 (The Bride Strikes Back)

I have been married twice. Unfortunately, marriage #1 went south after about 10 years and I quickly learned that working full-time when you are a single mother of 2 isn't exactly a bowl of cherries. In fact, for a while there it certainly felt as though the whole of my life was heading south too. But then I met someone...someone who held my hand, dusted me off and even pushed my dishevelled hair back from my face so that I could see the world again.

Well, Mother was just as gobsmacked as the next man that someone was willing to take me on again and it proved the dozens of candles she had lit down at the church had not been in vain after all: ”oh, please, please, let this one work out.... she's driving us potty... she's 35 years old and needs to move out …now.... we want to paint the spare room in 'Hint of Hawaiian Dawn Blue' and turn it into an office..."  Anyway, Mother's prayers were answered, the spare room was repainted and Wedding Party #2 (WP2) was duly announced.

Having had almost no control over WP1, fiancé #2 and I decided that this wedding was going to be just about us. We were financing it ourselves so no-one, and I mean no-one else, was going to interfere..... We excitedly began to flick through those countless Brides magazines that you instantly buy the moment you get engaged and Mother gave helpful suggestions on what I should wear, including a "lovely" 2-piece silk suit she had seen in the Berketex catalogue:

“This one looks nice – green flowers – it's spring-like...and look, you can use the jacket again afterwards – so that's handy isn't it?”

I diplomatically tried to steer her away from the “Princess Anne/Linens Direct mash-up” look, but I admit I was beginning to feel a bit down. I mean, the 2^nd marriage suggestions in the magazines were nice enough, but they were all so...well.... boring and just not us. Then  fiancé #2 said: “well, it's our day; what do we want? The safe option?....Or the fairytale?” and we looked at each other, closed up the stupid magazines, chucked the Berketex catalogue in the recycling and.....

I got married in a beautiful full-length, ivory wedding dress with a short veil and tiara. Just like I wanted, and.....

all the men wore morning suits, just like fiancé #2 wanted. Father caused a terrible stink over this because he didn't “want to look like a bloody toff”, but then was actually quite smug when Mother said she had never seen him look so handsome, and.....

we were married in a beautiful country hotel with chandeliers and chintz and goats in the car park. The ceremony was followed by a carvery meal- meat/fish + vegetarian options (no sausage rolls or ham sandwiches here would you mind). We had balloons, bubbles and confetti for the kids (OK...well, actually they were mostly for me because fiancé #2 had drawn the line at my suggestion of a mass custard pie fight) and.....

we wrote our own vows and chose our own readings and.....

we decided on our own music: Pachelbel's Canon in D Major for my arrival; Louis Armstrong's “All the time in the world” for the register-signing and no-one said a word when we walked out to a recording of Morecambe & Wise singing “Bring Me Sunshine”. Well, Mother-in-law #2's face was a picture but everyone else smiled.. (I don't know what she would have done if we had used our back-up songs - Billy Idol's “White Wedding” and  Mitch Murray's “Down Came the Rain” if it rained – luckily it didn't)

“Bring me Sunshine” was important to us, not only because of the “feel-good factor it brought from our childhood, but because of the lyrics. We all laugh at M & W doing their final number of the show, but few of us really listen the words:

WP2 took 2 years of planning and was probably the singularly most “selfish” thing we have ever done. Having said that, we didn't do anything intentionally to cause hurt or spite. We didn't say: “well, we don't care what you think – things are going to be done this way, so you can like it or lump it”. We did however, hold our ground when other people tried to force through their own opinions about how they thought things should be done.


Many years ago, a therapist once told me the word “should” was one of the most difficult words she ever had to deal with. We are all governed and chained in by those 6 little letters...... “should”.  If I learned one thing from that therapist it was this: as long as we are happy with the consequences of our actions, then perhaps the word “should” should be shoved out of the dictionary and no longer allowed to exist.

Because in the grand scheme of the world it really doesn't matter if I get married in full wedding garb instead of a suit or a day dress, or if we have Eric and Ernie instead of Ave Maria. WP2 may not be everyone's idea of a perfect wedding – but it was our fairytale and because we had chosen and arranged everything, we were relaxed and happy on the big day. In fact, we both enjoyed every single minute of it, so much so that 11 years later, we can still say we wouldn't have changed a thing – not even the goats in the car park....

Bring me Sunshine, in your smile,

Bring me Laughter, all the while,
In this world where we live, there should be more happiness,
So much joy you can give, to each brand new bright tomorrow,


Make me happy, through the years,
Never bring me, any tears,
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.

Yes, it's me!! I'm with a tiny guest - not a tiny groom - just to clarify
(and no, I wasn't constipated, he was giving me a kiss)

THE WEDDING PLANNERS

The recent royal nuptials has brought forth a flurry of wedding-based blogs, so here I am, grabbing the bandwagon's tailgate with a small offering about my own first wedding (Part 1 - the New Dawn).

Wedding Part 1 (or WP1 as I shall now call it, though not to be confused with VPL) was a loooong time ago and both fiancée #1 and I were, in that appallingly familiar and well-worn phrase, very young: too young as it turned out... but that's a whole other story. So there we were, 2 kids getting married, but with very little control over what was meant to be one of the biggest days of our lives.  For, perhaps like Kate and William, our self-appointed wedding planner was the grandmother - but we are not talking about any old grandmother here ..... oh no, this was my grandmother....

Now, my grandmother may not have been the Queen, but she could certainly act like one.  Best described as “a very strong character” –   you can keep your Boudicca,  your Virgin Queen or even your Iron Lady... my grandmother could arm-wrestle them all... at the same time....blindfolded....whilst annihilating a pint of whelks with only her bare teeth.  This was a novel little trick grandmother used to perform most Sunday teatimes: not the arm-wrestling you understand – the whelk eating - I don't think the Queen participates in either activity, but who can really know for sure. No, the matriarch of an East End family is never to be trifled with.....and especially if she's wielding a plateful of whelks.

Anyway, my bare-knuckled, whelk-munching grandmother paid for the WP1 (I'm sensing a royal pattern forming here), because she was the only one with any money and the rest of us, to use another of her many phrases, didn't have a pot to p**s in. Naturally, grandmother took this financial responsibility as an entitlement to run the show entirely to her own taste.  As a result, I didn't have the dress I really wanted, or the veil, or the tiara, or the music, or the flowers or the food or...well, anything really. And fiancée #1was no help, he just hovered in and out of the scene, wheeling and dealing and making “arrangements” - such as the one with the photographer who threw in a white Mercedes + driver as part of some dodgy deal.... cash only - to be paid on the day.  One can only hope Kate fared better....

But why, I hear you cry, did you even think of getting married at such an early age and without the means to purchase whelks or indeed, a pot to p**s in for that matter? Ah, my answer lies in our ingrained East End mentality. It was simply expected that the females in our family would grow up, learn to read and write (basics only), work in some menial job for a few years before getting married and having children.  (This is beginning to sound more and more like the Royals as I go on, but without the washing/cleaning/ cooking bit).  It was an eternal circle - back to the beginning and start again. The family female didn't have an education or a career, there was no need for any of that....they had a home and a husband and children to care for. The family female washed and cleaned and cooked. That's what they did and that's what I was expected to do. And so I toed the line...at that point....

Anyway, enough of the Royals -back to WPI. Grandmother's idea of a good wedding was to follow the time-honoured pattern of all the previous weddings in our family: namely a huge affair on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm, with relatives (who mostly hated the sight of one another) being bussed in from around the Mile End, Stratford and Upton Park areas – all to have a bloody good knees-up with a table-breaking spread, plenty of booze and the compulsory dancing of the conga. There were to be bridesmaids....loads of them and all in height order...page boys...a huge bouquet...a bloke in a kilt with bagpipes... a Chimney sweep..... the works. OK, maybe back to the Royals it is....

“I don't want all that” I pouted, but I had no support or back-up - fiancée #1 just shrugged... anything for a quiet life. So things resulted in a one almighty “pout-off” with grandmother . She sulked, she skulked, she moaned and groaned, she whined and whinged and tutted and wondered what the world was coming to because she'd never heard anything like it, but in the end, she relented. Two bridesmaids. No pageboys. Small reception with sandwiches, plates of ham and sausage rolls. No bus-loads of warring relatives. No conga. No bloke in a kilt with or without bagpipes. And definitely no Chimney Sweep.

And so it came to pass that an albeit toned-down East End WP1 went off without a hitch, apart from it being a bit of a windy day and my veil got caught in a rose bush outside the church oh, and the driver of the Merc acted like he was in The Italian Job... and yes he was paid in cash...on the day.  Still, though I may have regrets about the arrangements, WP1 also taught me a very valuable lesson about other people controlling my life. For since then I have done my own thing and trod my own path, even though it may have been rocky and included some whopping great pot-holes.  Oh, I am still immensely proud of my roots, but WP1 began the process of shedding some of that constricting East End skin and breaking loose.   I do hope the Royals find a little of the same freedom...

Which leads me on to Wedding Part 2 (the sequel).....or WP2 as I shall now call it....

PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE

• It's no secret that I struggle with technology; it just does not sit comfortably with me – my brain is too scrambled and illogical to cope with the black and white binary world of Mr Babbage – I mean, why doesn't a computer automatically know what I want.  After all, it's blindingly obvious in my head how I want a page to look, so why doesn't it instinctively understand my thought patterns instead of playing play silly beggars with bullet points and wrap-arounds?   If you ask me how many Kbs or Mbs my file is, I will answer: “uh, I dunno, how long is a piece of string”. I don't know my JPEGs from my PDFs or whether I have Office 2010 or Office 2007 – to be honest there are times when I think I must have Office 1889 on a machine that is fired by 2 cotton reels, a length of wire and a yoghurt pot

And, I don't have an iPhone because I really cannot fathom it. “See what you think”, says the eldest daughter handing me what has now become her prize possession (the cat having been relegated to 2^nd place, kids 3rd, husband 4th and mother approximately 97th). So I have a go and the images shoot across the screen and refuse to stay on the same page. “It's because because you're not pressing it properly” advises youngest daughter. Oh, being patronised by an 8 year old is guaranteed to turn this lady into one Angry Bird: “Haven't you got a room to tidy?” I mutter, trying to get off the "PeopleofWalmart" site - “how do you make a call on this thing?”

And Facebook is a nightmare - I never know if I've put things on my on wall or someone else's wall or what the idea is behind poking and I struggle to see the point of Farmville. And who on earth are these strangers that now want to be my “friend”? I've never even heard of them. Although I politely ignore their requests, I am uncomfortable about it because I have been brought up to believe it is rude to ignore people, but apparently it's perfectly acceptable if it's done through the protection of a computer screen.

And I really don't get the gaming buzz that the younger members of my family seem to enjoy. I pointedly ask the 14 year old: “why are you being an assassin again on that computer, why don't you read a book?” From the look I receive, I might as well have asked him to colour in a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine with chunky crayons and glitter pens. Just as an aside, I did point out that he wouldn't make a very good assassin anyway, because he is dressed head to toe in white whilst everyone else seem to be wearing dark colours. “You stick out like a sore thumb”, I said, “doesn't the “International Guidebook to Good Assassins” say something about being inconspicuous?” I pick up another of his games: “Homefront? When did you become interested in interior design?” The 14 year old gives me a look of disdain that says “stick to what you know grandma” and swaps the disc for “Call of Duty Black Ops”.

And my heart sinks when I see the word “SIMPLE” attached to any instruction involving the computer. For instance, I recently tried to change the page layout on my Etsy account. “CREATE A SIMPLE BANNER”, cried the Google search. “This is so simple to do that you can change your look with the seasons”, gloats the smiley, shiny lady surrounded by a banner of blue skies, bunting and tiny rosebuds. “Oh, great....let's go”, says I. Many hours later, I have at least six files on the computer all marked “draft banner #1, draft banner #2 etc., and meanwhile the Etsy page stubbornly remains with the original default look. I am now very suspicious of the word “simple”, it's merely a hook to lure me in and I am no longer fooled.

CTRL, ALT, DEL is one of my best friends, along with what is affectionately known in our house as: “the blue screen of death”. I have at least two versions of iTunes on my desktop and my (very patient) husband has had to become my own private IT Department. He is able to converse in HTML, whereas I just yell: you stupid *”$%&+@* machine, what do you mean **£$%^&*!! file not found? I know I saved on here somewhere, it can't have just !@?+*&%$£! disappeared!” My personal IT Department frequently asks: When was the last time you backed this up or checked for updates?” But the most common thing you will hear my him say when I am sitting looking blankly at the netbook screen is: “what did you press?”.

And don't even get me started on the printer......

BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES

Mother's Day

I am a mother of 3 beautiful daughters.

The eldest is studying to become a teacher, even though she hated school herself.

The middle one has finally got her dream job in the place she has wanted to work ever since she was 17 years old (and after 5 years of applying).

The youngest is a huge diva, who thinks of nothing but her next stage performance and can remember very little of that dark time when we almost lost her, but for the miracle work of a surgeon, when she was 5 years old.

I am so proud of each one of them

and even though they sometimes make me sigh, swear and shout, I love each one of them - deeply and unconditionally,

But someone is missing.....

The one that never got to wear the tiny babygrows we had so carefully picked out...

or graze their knee in the park...

or hold a buttercup under their chin...

or make a daisy chain...

The one that never got to bring home a finger-painted Mother's Day card from nursery...

or make a toilet-roll fairy castle...

or ride a trike...

or hold my hand...

But I haven't forgotten.....even after 10 years

the one that Heaven wanted.

The one that left on Mother's Day

of all days...