Family Affairs and other matters

“THE PRIORY” REVIEW AT ROYAL COURT

I went to see “The Priory” at the Royal Court Theatre last week with a girlfriend – a new play written by Michael Wynne.

The title referred to a Gothic style building rented by Kate, an emotionally damaged singleton, for a group of her thirty-something mates over New Year’s Eve, although it probably meant to vaguely refer to the well known drying out clinic housing dysfunctional addicts, because that, in the end was what the play was all about.

Kate had amassed a fascinating and humerous bunch of people together with their unwelcome attatchments….Rupert Penry-Jones provided major eye candy (and sexy dancing), whilst Rachel Stirling did a brilliant job of coming over as prize bitch – but only for a minute before Kate quietly stepped into the role.

It was all very easy to watch and pleasing to the eye. Lots going on and I enjoyed it. The problem for me was that it was all a bit tame and predictable. Is that because I’m getting old and cynical? Cocaine, swearing, unrequited love, the token gay, the token affair, the token bimbo – I think it could have been a lot funnier or a lot cleverer….

Which is a worry frankly. When dysfunctional becomes the new functional it must mean my life has gone even more off track than I thought and frankly I think it’s time for me to bring out the play.

“ME & MISS M” BY JEMMA FORTE

As I mentioned, one of the girls in our book group has just released her first novel. It’s doing really well.

She’s had some excellent reviews already:-

Marie Claire – ‘Romantic dilemmas, harsh life lessons and huge dollops of salacious tittle tattle make this a scandalously fun debut, loosely inspired by Forte’s own experiences as a Hollywood PA.’

NOW magazine ‘Dubbed the British answer to The Devil Wears Prada’ , I personally thought it was better.’

OK – A laugh out loud read

Heat Magazine:-

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VOMITING BUG IN DA HOUSE

Sorry. No way of commenting on my previous post today. I don’t know what happened – I think it’s sorted now.

I have spent the entire night and day mopping up sick. My house smells of “eau de Vom” – and I am burning smelly candles and spraying air freshener in an attempt to disguise the smell. My youngest son came back from his dad’s with a stomach ache – I was furious when I was warned by my ex that he might have the norovirus, because his “fiance’s” (sorry, but I’m going to have to put it in inverted comma’s until I get used to the idea) children all had it….I pointed out how irresponsible I thought it was to merge the kids if they were ill – he told me I was being unreasonable because everybody’s got it anyway and then I had to clean up sick every hour through the night.

The worst bit was when I put him to bed in his very high bunk. This might have been a stupid move, but it was vaguely in the hope that he would be fine once asleep. Instead he woke up vomiting and by the time I got to him he had managed to cover himself in it and before I had a chance to get out of the way, he lent over the side of the bed and vomited on top of my head.

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SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

What an unusual day I’ve had. Surreal, almost.

Firstly I had to deal with a kitchen explosion created as a result of the highly successful meal we had last night served by five gorgeous boys to 15 impressed adults. They did a great job and it was lovely to have them about. They made the most bloody awful mess, but what the hell….here is one of their choices of puddings with attractive centrepiece:-

Then Builder Bloke came round and took me out for lunch. I haven’t seen him much of late, but he’d asked me a while ago if he could see me over the weekend and lunch today was the only time I was free. He helped me move everything back to normal, mended my back gate that had been broken into and then off we went in my car. It was pissing with rain. You could hardly see a thing.

Ten minutes into the drive my ex husband called, who I haven’t talked to for ages. He asked me if I had a few moments as he wanted to talk to me about something. “As a matter of courtesy” he said, “because I’ve told the children and they’re all really happy, I thought I should let you know that we’ve got engaged and we’re getting married next year”.

In case you haven’t been following my blog, he is getting married to Builder Bloke’s ex wife, so it was completely bizarre that he called at that moment when we were together. I told him I hoped they’d be very happy together (slightly through gritted teeth but I said it anyway) but that it all seemed so sudden – they’ve been together 9 months now – ever since she phoned him when we went away on holiday together back in February. He disagreed, obviously.

I went very quiet. It’s a lot to take in. I wasn’t sure how I felt or how my children were feeling about it and Builder Bloke was remarkably calm in comparison. It was still pissing down. He drove me to one of his favourite pubs. He parked and as I got out and walked round the corner down to the river there was the biggest, brightest, double rainbow I have ever seen. I could see the whole thing. Both ends. But look where I was standing….right in front of the pot of gold:-

We had a lovely lunch mulling over all that the latest news could mean and during that time he got a text from his ex wife informing him of her impending nuptials. It said:-

“Hi, and whilst on the subject, just as courtesy I thought u should know that we’ve got engaged and intend to get married next yr. Boys know. They r happy. Hope u can manage to behave appropriately with regards 2 children as a parent should cos if they get messed up emotionally again cos u don’t want me 2 (not that it’s any of your business who I c or marry) there will be action taken 2 keep them happy and away from horridness”.

I was completely shocked. In the spirit of attempting to heal rifts et al, you’d think she’d be a little more sensitive to how he is feeling and to his situation. He will now have to deal with my ex husband living with his children in no doubt a big house. Given what I went through with my ex he is not particularly enamoured with the idea.

A few hours later I found myself at Wellington College with a friend and my son listening to a debate entitled “Is Atheism The New Fundamentalism?” with Richard Dawkins arguing against the motion. So interesting. I’ll write a separate post about it – as we went in we had to say whether we were for or against the motion and I was really struggling to get my head around the question, so need a bit more time to process thoughts.

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LIFE AFTER DIVORCE – WHAT’S IT LIKE FOR YOU?

Last week’s question about affairs prompted 22 responses and a plea from a woman in South Africa for advice and support. This is one of the main reasons why I have changed the structure of my blog. By having a designated “divorce” section we can share, support and advise fellow readers…..

This week therefore my question is going to be “what is life like for you after divorce or separation”. What has changed? Are you happier? Stronger? What have you gained from the trauma/experience? Are you still in the middle of it all or have you come out the other side? Is it true that you have to work on the basis that it takes half the time that you were together to get over the whole thing?

In my case an awful lot has changed. Firstly, I have now lived on my own with the children for nearly five years, having moved twice in that time. My daily life with the children hasn’t changed significantly as my husband had a very busy job and was rarely home before the children were in bed. It certainly hasn’t been easy and I’ve had huge ups and downs along the way. My blog has been a by-product of my divorce because I started it a form of cheap therapy and a way of finding others in a similar situation. A huge new world has opened up to me as a result.

In addition I have developed with my work and have now become a trained Pilates teacher as well as a deep stretching teacher. I have become far more independent and can almost say that I am happy on my own. That is a big step for me.

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BOY’S PROMISE!!

My father very generously bought the following “promise” at the auction we organised back in the summer to raise money for a South African school and then gave it to me (probably knowing full well it was going to be carnage):-

Boy’s promise!!

To serve a three course meal (starter, main, dessert) to you and your guests (max 8 people). The meal will be prepared beforehand (ingredients at your cost) and cooked on arrival and served by a team of five students.

My son is one of the five students involved. The evening is happening tonight at my house. It unfortunately isn’t quite going according to plan. I’ve been asking my son for weeks to decide what to cook and to delegate the duties. Earlier this week he suggested Thai green curry. I was slightly worried about how and when they were going to be able to cook everything and therefore suggested to him that maybe everybody should cook a portion to the same recipe and bring it along. “But mum, that’s really cheating, it’s fine, we’ll do it on Saturday after rugby”.

So here I am on Saturday. As it turns out I now have 17 people coming for dinner (plus the five boys who will need to eat) because when I asked the parents of the boys who are serving they all (slightly unexpectedly) accepted saying “wild horses wouldn’t keep us away from seeing this”. Because the boys are part of the same rugby team they are all playing an important away game today. They will back at school at around 6.30pm and with me by 7.00pm. They are proposing to arrive, start cooking the main course, prepare the starters and make chocolate brownies. In an hour. Before 17 people arrive. They are also meant to be setting the table, sorting out the drinks, getting everything cold and doing all the other numerous jobs to do before guests arrive.

Bollocks.

Guess what I’m going to be doing with the rest of my day?

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CLUB PENGUIN BAN

I had a call from the mother of a child in my youngest son’s class today. There seemed to be some sort of problem involving Club Penguin. I wasn’t completely concentrating because I was about to go in to a “Business Meeting” in Central London and I was feeling very important and Club Penguin dramas didn’t quite fit the image I was trying hard to portray.

It’s really not easy for me to get up to town for a business meeting because there is so much to do here. With the kids. I had to make arrangements for all of them and then get easy food in for the older two to cook and even then I got a text from teenage son saying “can we both go to local thai restaurant for dinner pleeese”. I was invited to go out after the meeting but couldn’t because I had to rush back a) to go to a Christmas drinks party at the studio where I teach and b) to help out at Cubs.

On my return, I checked the older two kids were OK, walked up the road to lovely ridiculously early Christmassy party, said “hi” to everyone and came back home half an hour later. Youngest son arrived back from being at football with a friend and then I had to rush him straight out to cubs. Anyway, I had been informed some time ago that it was my turn to “volunteer” to help. I was initially given the job of marking each child out of 10 for clean hands and proper uniform. Given that my child had turned up with soaking wet hair having been playing football, white shiny football shorts instead of navy blue trousers because he didn’t have time to change, a green sweatshirt but no toggle and scarf because we couldn’t find it in time – I could hardly take points off any of the others. So the six-pack (or whatever they’re called) that I inspected got full marks, which meant that they each won a packet of Smarties which caused huge dissent in the ranks because frankly my group looked a bit motley with dirty hands compared to some of the other six-packs and perhaps I shouldn’t have been so generous.

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