Sleepless in the Suburbs

It’s now 3:25am and way past my bed time. It’s also one of those nights where I hate my beloved, Love Chunks, with a passion. No, he didn’t sleep with the Penthouse Gymnastics team or gamble away our life savings, it’s much more annoying. He’s one of those lucky, lucky bastards who only has to roll over and say "Goodni---" and be fast asleep before his head has even made a dent in the pillow.

In direct contrast, Sleep and I have a very fraught relationship; kind of like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Once we were very close; soul-mates who spent quality time together and got along like a house on fire, but now we are completely estranged and wonder just what the hell we had in common in the first place. A court case is soon to follow, with me prosecuting Sleep for breach of contract: failure to provide decent, regular service under the 8/24 agreement I signed up for.

Love Chunks isn't the one to blame for my predicament. A couple of years ago he bravely underwent surgery to get his – erm, I’m not sure what the exact medical term is – fleshy ‘curtains on the side of the stage’ in his throat cut out so that he’d no longer snore like an bellowing elephant trapped in quicksand. He endured two weeks of agony afterwards so that he’d no longer be banished to the spare room or be glared at for the entire time the sun was up. It worked too - all I hear now is a faint 'Ooosh Ooosh' sound of air travelling in and out of his newly constructed Heysen Tunnel.

Sometimes the insomnia can be blamed on the pillows. Too flat, too hot (so flip them over, I hear you say - and I do, so often they might as well be set on rollers), too high, too hard, too soft.... The quilt - too cold, too fluffy or LC's hogging too much of it... The room? Too bright, too dark, too creaky. The local hoons who seem to choose our end of the street to do their black tyre skid mark signatures and burn outs? Who the hell knows but surely they're not actually attracting any potential shag partners doing so?

Well, I do know the reason for my insomnia actually. It's my stupid, over-loaded-with-useless-pop-culture brain. It's a well known fact that human beings have been estimated as only being capable of using ten percent of their brain capacity during their lifetimes, but did the lab coats who spent their grant money on Pocket Pen Protectors and Tomb Raider toiletries ever stop to consider the insomniac sufferers amongst us?

For us, a further 60% of the brain is worn out but unfortunately not in a useful way. Instead, we lie awake with our eyes squeezed shut, trying to approximate the state of relaxation when in reality our bodies are completely rigid as we try to block out inane ditties such as the Wiggles' song 'Wobbly Wobbly Wobbly Dance.' My daughter hasn't played that video for five years yet it's that song that tonight decides to superglue itself inside my complaining cranium and replay itself over and over and over.

Even when I try to change the track listing and instead imagine that I'm lying in my childhood bedroom, trying to remember where all the furniture was and what toys I had, the song keeps creeping in: "Wobbly wobbly wobbly dance….Front, back and side to side…..", so that I actually, genuinely want to be having a nightmare but one where I'm the bad guy: kicking over Anthony the blue one's fake drum set, smashing Murray the red one's guitar, violently shaking Jeff awake and giving that smug yellow one Greg a good hard kick in the goolies.*

That poetic visualisation can often make things better for me in the bedroom, but not tonight. I stayed laying there on my hot pillow, under the scratchy quilt, biting uncomfortably down on my retarded mouth guard as though it was a chunk of wood in my teeth to help me get through the pain of a bullet being yanked out of my leg by John Wayne. The Wiggles had finally departed my brain, no doubt being taken to the emergency ward by Dorothy the dinosaur with Henry the Octopus driving and Captain Feathersword seeking legal counsel.

Not for long, unfortunately. They must have needed petrol in the big red car or forgot their keys or something: "Dorothy! Dorothy! Would you like to dance with me?" I tried my damnedest to think of a classic 'Nebraska' or 'Ghost of Tom Joad' Springsteen mope tune to give me a big enough downer to numb me for sleep. But nooooo, I had already moved on to a mental stocktake of what toys I have stashed in the cupboard for children’s birthdays - Sam will be getting a Bionicle pack like all of the other boys' parties that my eight-turning-nine-this year daughter will be invited to. And for the love of god, did I need to try and figure out where sesame seeds come from tonight?

Like all insomniacs, I know that taking a trip to the loo might do the trick bladder-wise, but is fraught with disappointment in terms of seeking any opportunity to slip back into bed, 200ml lighter, ready for Nod Land. An empty bladder, alas, does not equal an empty mind. Still, I go through the standard, worn-out, futile routine. I walk s-l-o-w-l-y through the house, hoping to be quiet but instead allowing each and every 80 year old floorboard to crack and squeak. I make sure to keep my eyes shut in the vain hope that my body will think it’s asleep. I successfully groped my way carefully along the walls into our newly renovated bathroom until I accidentally touch the heated towel rail, flung my hand backwards and cracked it against the door handle. F%$#@!!

Oh who the hell was I kidding? I decided that I might as well stay awake and see what Benny Hinn's got to say to his devoted flock today. Maybe not. Milly the dog, not known for her ability to tell time, got excited and thought it was time for a run. “Get down beast, you're scratching my legs with your claws. No, it's not time for a run or walkies just yet, can't you see that from the silent yet deadly glare from my road-map like red eyes? Get down!" I said in my most furious whisper. A few hopeful licks of my bare feet and a ‘thumpa thumpa thumpa’ of her tail against the coffee table was her answer.

Eventually, I gave in to the obvious and had a squizz inside the fridge. Mmmm chocolate.....such a shame when three rows snap off instead of one. No point in putting them back, is there? There was also a Farmers Union Feel Good iced coffee that had a ‘use by’ date of today and if anyone needed to 'feel good' it was me.

Alrighty then, so Zzzzeds in bed was clearly not going to happen for me tonight – or should I say this morning, so I decided to stay up, eat my choccie, sip my FUIC, enjoy myself and suffer the grumps later on this afternoon.

I’ll just go and slip on a DVD, preferably something featuring John Cusack, lie back on the lounge and give Milly a good cuddle, making sure that no chocolate gets smeared on her ears or the new lounge cushions. Life isn't too bad after all I s’pose. Even if I do get irritable today, no-one will notice anything unusual. So, if we only use ten percent of our brains, and supposing that insomniacs use another 60% at night on useless thoughts, then what is the remaining thirty percent used for..........

* I know it’s Sam who’s the yellow one these days, but it was Greg who sang the stupid song in Sapphire’s old video and therefore he is the one who will be paying his dues. In my head at least.

Playing up

After Sapphire finished her tennis lesson on Saturday morning we wandered over to the nearby Adventure Playground. According to my current role in life, I sat down on a nearby park bench like a sensible parent and watched as she scampered from one piece of equipment to the other before making some temporary friends to play with.

Their methods of introducing themselves always make me smile. They will climb together; chase each other and try to swing higher than each other a good half an hour before any formal introductions take place. Even then all they want to know about each other is the name and the age. “Hi my name is Sapphire, I’m eight. How old are you?” Simple and always effective, but for adults asking the age of a potential shag at an over 35s singles night it may not result in anything other than a bacardi breezer being flung in your face.

After these idle musings, an immature yearning swept over me. I used to be able to swing upside down from monkey bars and land deftly on my feet ready for a long session on the whizzy. Why don’t they make playgrounds for adults? Who says that adults can’t play on the playgrounds with their kids? Emboldened, I put down my obligatory morning carton of Farmers Union Feel Good Iced Coffee next to my handbag and ventured into the previously-forbidden zone.

“Hey Mum, what are you doing here? Do you want to push me on the whizzy tyre?”
“No thanks love. You carry on; I’m just going to have a little go on the monkey bars over here.” My big hands gripped the first rung tightly and confidently as my feet lifted from the ground. This was all very well, but how the hell was I going to find the strength to swing my enormous bulk over to the next bar? Somehow I did it and could feel the tendons and muscles twanging off one-by-one down the side of my body like a migrating Mexican wave. My pride made me swing to the third bar, if only to have the same painful muscle pulls occur on the other side of my body.
I thought that perhaps it would be better to try something a bit less grueling, such as the cute little rockin’ rabbits on the coiled springs. Sapphire saw this, and clambered onto the blue bunny next to mine. It was rather satisfying to note that my butt could actually fit into the seat even though my knees were splayed outwards in a peculiar frog pose. We rocked back and forth, back and forth as Sapphire sang “See saw margarine’s jaw, Ronnie will get a new blaster….” Whilst she warbled happily, my mouth was sealed shut in determination, mostly because I was afraid my brains would fall out onto the bark chips. It was a sensation very similar to an enforced bout of head-banging at a Metallica concert with the same result of pounding temples and swollen eyeballs. “You keep going Sapphire, I’m just going to, um, have a quiet sit on the swing over there,” I gestured vaguely towards the trees and staggered off, clutching my head.

Swings surely would be a much nicer and safer activity to try, I thought hopefully. Harumph. Well, first there was the humiliation having to wedge my arse into the seat, which felt like trying to stuff a inflatable dinghy into a Pringles packet as I struggled into a u-shaped strip of rubber that even an anorexic munchkin would consider snug. My left butt cheek quickly grew whilst I started off swinging low and slow. I was actually enjoying the sensation and waved triumphantly to my daughter on the swing ropes. “Woo Hoo! Look at me Sapphire, look at me!” She gave me a terse nod in response, and went back to her climbing.

My arms and sides ached after their monkey bar experiences, but were still doing an expert job of hanging onto the chains of the swing as I went higher and higher. “Woo Hoo Sapphire! Come and have a swing with me! I’m going sooo high!” She didn’t seem to be able to hear me; no doubt it was due to the wind generated by my altitude. These smug thoughts immediately disappeared when a sudden wave of motion sickness swept in.

I skidded my heels into the ground, recognizing the very familiar, sweaty car-sickish feeling from childhood: sitting in the back of the Volvo on a trip to Adelaide with a filled-up ice-cream carton in my hands. The parking bay near the tollgate was always the most convenient place for my mother to stop and do her regular routine of rinsing’n’flinging out the contents. It was no surprise that wildflowers grew so well there amongst the cracks in the bitumen…..

When my gut stopped its queasy flip-flopping, it was obviously time to see what Sapphire was enjoying so much about the ropes. They were bright orange and erected on splayed poles to resemble a huge spider’s web. She had climbed so sure-footedly to the top of the web many times – a bit like her mother at the same age really.

My already-abused arm muscles shook with uncertainty as I grabbed at the web. My massive grown up feet somehow managed to find a grip on the slim rope and I found myself on the lowest row of the web, smiling at my own achievement. The other kids weren’t as happy about it as my bulk had stretched the ropes to the tautness of cable, causing the cone-shaped web to rise alarmingly high on their side and touch the ground on mine. Oh, so that’s why my feet could balance on the rope – it was on the ground. Pretending to be distracted by something else in the distance, I jumped off the rope and made my exit. I'm sure that at least half the kids managed to hang on as the ropes snapped back into formation at least.

The point farthest from the stupid spider web was the pipe tunnels. “Sapphire! Sapphire! Wanna come in here with me?” Never mind, she seemed to be in earnest conversation with another girl on the monkey bars. The pipe was only four feet at its tallest point, so my stroll inside was that of an osteoporosis sufferer determined to find every coin dropped on the ground. You would think that this vantage point would be prevent me from stepping – and slipping – on the slimy, stale black mud, but it didn’t. And trust me to be wearing light fawn shorts that morning too. Maybe the kids’ll would just assume that the two gigantic black shiny circles on my arse were skid marks from the swing seat.

“Oh Mum, you’ve got mud all over your BOTTOM,” Sapphire whispered in 150 decibels. “It looks like you’ve pooed yourself, yuck!”
“OK OK, how about giving me a hand here by the water fountain, and I’ll see if I can wash some of it off.” Thankfully most of it came out even though I now did feel as though I’d truly wet my pants, squelching to the spinning teacups.

“Have a try of these Mum, you’ll love them”, Sapphire urged.
Again, my wet bum wedged itself into the tulip-shaped yellow cup quite effectively. “Now Mum, I’ll give you a push and then you sort of wiggle your legs around and the tea cup will spin. Ready?”
“Oh er, I’m sure not sure spi-------- Aaaaaarh!”

I’m no physicist but I’m sure that the tiny circumference of this individual whizzy would make it, um, more ‘whizzyish’ than the larger one designed for the use of many children at once. It felt clinging on to the end of an over-powered bamix which made it impossible to focus on anything around me as the landscape whirled by in psychedelic whirls and stripes of colour. My iced coffee was threatening to return again, albeit in slightly chunkier form with added peas and carrots. “Stop me Sapphire, PLEASE!”
She did, and I fancy there was a suctioned pop! sound as I extricated myself from the satanic spinner as quickly as I could, only fall face down into the bark chips.

Sapphire laughed, patting my wet bottom, “Oh Mum, you’re so funny.”
“That’s great,” I mumbled, still spitting chips. “Time for us to go home sweetie.”
“Awww Mum!”

***

“Mum? Muuuuuum, why are we just sitting here? Why aren’t you driving the car yet?”

I took a big, slow gulp of air. “Er, I’m just sitting here for a bit so that I don’t, er, get sick in the car.” Another big gulp. “Why don’t you see how many cockatoos you can count sitting on the lawn over there…….”

The losing of wisdom

As a struggling student, my wisdom teeth and resulting face aches had got so bad that I was forced to visit the Dental School in the hopes that they'd consider my complaint urgent and valid enough for a vaguely capable dental student to work on. It was either submit myself as a guinea pig for free dental treatment, or perform sexual favours in bus shelters, and I didn't fancy my chances at the latter option.

The dentist who examined me agreed that I was a case study worth giving to one of his students. Each tooth was literally growing sideways, with the twisted roots butting up against my other teeth, trying to push them further to the front. No wonder my eyes felt as though they were being forced out of their sockets. Despite being marked as urgent', it was another four months before my day was due. I was ready 120 days of chewing Panadeine pills like Pez had seriously worn thin, as had my pain threshold.

The actual process of removing my teeth fully conscious, and in the chair was an incredibly terrifying mixture of Sweeney Todd and The Shining but without any stunt doubles. The student performing the removal didn't have the social skills (or was it the confidence?) to introduce himself or look into my eyes and the nurse continually had to interrupt what he was doing, grab his arm and say, "Hang on a minute there mate. You might want to rethink that move," before he'd pause, sigh in annoyance and continue doing it the way he wanted to.

He did, however, let the nurse administer all TWELVE needles of anaesthetic because, in his words, he was ".....dying for a leak and would be back in a tick." My eyes started misting over with tears of pain and that was before he came back, clamped my teeth with some godforsaken set of dentists' pliers and kept yanking my head off the chair and letting it land again with a bump over and over and over again in his futile attempts to yank the offending tooth out of my mouth. Eventually, he gave up all pretence of caring about my humanity and climbed onto the chair, put his knees on my shoulders and yanked at my teeth with the full force of both hands.

My eyes were now firmly squeezed shut out of sheer horror: the last thing I wanted to see was the bloodied reflection of my stretched-out-mouth in his protective goggles. "Calm down, dear," the nurse tapped on my forehead more than once to get me to listen. My breathing was ragged and panting and tears were now rolling down the sides of my face and pooling in my ears. Any sobs or moaning that emanated from me were muffled by now having two pairs of hands and implements working away at my teeth, with the corners of my lips starting to tear and bleed into the general chaos. They were too busy to suction out any fluid with the little metal tube thingy and the warm fluid slid steadily down my throat, threatening to come back up again a short while later.

Hours, minutes or was it days after, I was free to go. My mouth felt as though it had hosted a particularly violent and drunken mosh pit at a death metal festival and the disinterested dental student's back was already half way out of the door before I could unsteadily rise to my feet and shake the tears out of my ears.

My clothes were soaked through with terror-sweat and I blindly stumbled my way along the grim grey corridor back to the innocuous safety of the waiting room where my then boyfriend Love Chunks was ready to take me home.

As I reached the swinging hospital doors, my sneaker must have caught on the aluminum plate at the bottom and I literally fell through, landing on all fours in front of about 20 other victims/patients waiting for their turn. It was the last straw for me: I opened my mouth to have a big, self-pitying wail, when the cotton pads staunching the bleeding dropped onto the floor like four angry polyps. There was a collective gasp of horror from the onlookers (one guy even dropped his Readers Digest) and as Love Chunks rushed over to help me up, the blood ran down my chin, Vampire style. You could have heard a pin drop as he walked me out of the building.

Three weeks later, I was finally able to open my mouth wide enough to eat a cheese sandwich. Love Chunks fondly reminisces about those 21 glorious days of peace and quiet......

Tackling the Testosterone Theory






Yesterday I appeared on ABC Adelaide Radio with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan, because they wanted me to respond to some comments made by the 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' author, John Gray, a couple of days earlier. There were vague hints from the producer that my book, 'Work/Life Balance for Dummies' might also get mentioned, but I got the distinct impression that they were more after a very non-serious female perspective about blokes, work and home.

Listening to the podcast was hilarious, informative and infuriating - quite a winner in terms of entertaining listening. Mr Gray contends that men need to rest on the sofa like lazy lumps after a hard day at work because their testosterone levels have dipped far too low. He says they need to recuperate and, even when their testosterone reaches optimum level, they should stay resting so that they have the energy to immediately deal with 'emergency situations'.

Emergency situations, eh? What constitutes an emergency? Not being able to reach the remote? Being the one-in-a-million unlucky bugger to be invaded by an angry mob with pitchforks and murder on their minds? Matt and Dave thought I was being a tad too harsh on their fellow men and reminded me that Gray's research has led him to conclude that if men get sex more often, their testosterone levels are higher and they will, as a result, be more active and helpful around the house.

Nodding whilst listening, I shot back with something like, "Well that's all very nice for you blokes, but let me tell you this: Men are more likely to get sex IF and WHEN they help out at home. Strangely enough, most women are not turned on by a semi-conscious slug snoring on the sofa when she's busy with the kids' homework, cooking dinner, feeding the dog, hanging out washing, sorting through the mail and bills, answering the phone and cleaning up only to fall into bed several hours later and get a hopeful 'tap on the shoulder' by her man."

He's infinitely more sexy if he wears an apron; a teatowel slung over his shoulder; a concerned expression over the kids' homework; and an ability to simultaneously notice the crumbs and wipe down the counter than if he has an imprint of the tv-guide on his face.

Gray also likes to go on about the differences in white matter and grey matter in men and women's brains. Men can apparently use their more analytical 'left side' at work all day and then switch off when they get home, whereas women keep the left side on permanently whilst also using their right sides. I can believe this particular theory as I can his idea that women are therefore more emotional, get more stressed and need to vent to their partners when they get home. Agreed: Love Chunks can pretty well list all of my work colleagues' names, job titles, skills and irritating office habits - even for those people he hasn't met at end-of-year BBQs. I, on the other hand, vaguely know that he works in the most hilarious looking building in Adelaide (unless you're a staunch fan on 1976 architecture that is) with a bunch of other guys who have trouble finding a decent car parking spot in Kent Town and they make the best calendars ever.

As such, Gray suggests to the male listeners that finding ten minutes each day to sit and really listen to their womenfolk downloading their days' concerns after work isn't much of a sacrifice. As Sapphire's school teacher has told me in the past, kids have a concentration span of roughly ten minutes, so surely a grown professional can manage it. After all, it's about the time it takes to slurp down a full carton of Farmers' Union Iced Coffee or successfully open a beer bottle with an eye socket.

The last thing I wanted, however, was to appear as a strident man-hater. I'm not a bloke-bigot; some of my best friends are blokes. Love Chunks is a bloke and we've withstood nearly fifteen years of relatively happy togetherness. I therefore thought it was appropriate to mention that it is in fact Love Chunks who cooks all of the (incredibly delicious and creative) meals in our house. Matt and Dave looked impressed.

Unfortunately, I had to add the fateful word 'but'.
"But when a man cooks, he gets a great deal more positive attention for doing so. We all say 'Oh wow, did you make this; it's fantastic, you're great, this is delicious...' etcetera but there are other, less glamorous tasks that are never noticed. My job is to do the washing---"
Dave interjected with, "Yeah but the washing's easy and doesn't take that much effort----"
"No no no Dave. It's a constant, dreary process of washing, hanging up, bringing in, sorting, folding, ironing, putting away only to have to do another load. We all go nuts when a delicious plate of pasta is put in front of us, but how many blokes have opened up their jock drawer and gone, 'Wow! I've got clean jocks- this is great, thanks!' "

In my nervousness, exhilaration and utter terror, things got a bit murky from then on. I do remember saying that if Gray wants us women to accept that men need to do sweet FA so that they can replenish their love pumps, then we gals should be able to come home, take a long, peaceful nap and allow our ovaries to realign themselves with the sun. Caveman needs and analogies can only go so far. If he wants us to accept that fellas need to hunt all day and then rest and shag all night, then he must also accept that men will have their life expectancies reduced to the same experienced by their stone age buddies - 27 years. They may not die whilst battling a mammoth like their forebears, but they'll have some pretty angry females to deal with bearing nose hair clippers, salad tongs and sharply manicured nails....

Back at home, Love Chunks and I resumed the discussion. I opined that if men can come home and do nothing, so can us women, but it will be at the risk of the human race dying out because no-one will be there to look after and protect the children or the home. Love Chunks wasn't in agreement. He thought that if guys could do what they liked, there would, in fact, be many more children in the world as an outcome of men's increased access to - and participation in - horizontal hobbies.

Not a chance. In reality, there would be a load of bonked-out blokes and one very unusual and very busy woman for each postcode. The rest of us would be napping or shopping for chocolate.

The wrong side of Magill Road

Is there anything more ego-draining than hearing someone pause and say, "Oh you live on the OTHER side of (insert name here) road. We don't deliver / visit / shop / drive past / linger / buy / breathe / accept the existence of / service / acknowledge that area."

While Pru and Tru might be the invention of a couple of Melbourne-based comediennes, their plum-up-the-bum accents are quintessentially those found here in Eastern Adelaide.

I always used to wonder just how this peculiar brand of irritating enunciation actually developed. Growing up in Murray Bridge, where a good nights' entertainment meant the local bogans used to stand down-wind of the big bonfire of confiscated marijuana plants found by police for a free high; the poncy put-on voices of the town's few social climbers was a mystery. Just where, amongst the milking sheds, pig farmers and meat workers, did the tossers' timbre come from?

Of course some of them were Seymour sisters or PAC old boys from way back, but surely a decade or three in a town more known for its Demolition Derby than its debutantes would have worn away any arsehole's effeminate enunciation? Why the need to keep clinging to such a cliquish cadence that sounds so ridiculous?

Even though I was raised in the seventies, studied in the eighties, worked in the nineties and bought a house in the noughties, I expected that such silly snobberies were long past. Or, if they were still around, they were now mocked and seen as the weak efforts of a few old Highbrow Harries to maintain their inbred private school stupid old scholars' program. Some examples of this tendency is the continuing trend of placing a sticker of the school's coat-of-arms on the back of one's BMW sedan or glossy back Mercedes 4WD, or the inability to venture any further north than O'Connell Street.

Apparently not. After having dinner with some friends last night, Janice, who is looking the age of 67 in the face but might as well be an advertisement for Oil of Olay for forty year olds - told me that she was at a funeral earlier that day. Held in the St Peters' Boys chapel of course. For some old geezer who was in his eighties. So, for someone who attended a school nearly sixty years ago, it was still important to his foppish family and self-conscious society snoots to plonk his dead corpse in a box there, rather than anywhere else he might have held important in the 21,900 days of his life since. It is simply swanky-wanky snobbery in action - clutching onto the old cliques....

Mum tells me too, that a near neighbour of hers in Victor Harbor just has to add 'from Scotch' in every sentence relating to her now-adult children: "Oh, we've just been sooo run off our feet this weekend. Daniel and his friends - from Scotch - popped in...."

To her eternal credit, Mum just smiled and nodded, and kept on power walking to the end of the bluff and back. What she wanted to say was, "Oh yes, Scotch. As in scotch fillet, whisky or tape? For your three children who attended the school over 25 years ago, none of them matriculated, went on to further study or have done anything other than enter your husband's family-owned business. All of their cars and homes have been purchased by you and they are now aged 37, 39 and 41 respectively!"

Maybe one day it will be socially acceptable for the high school classes in the leafy suburbs to throw in, "Oh yes, we've had a whirlwind of a summer break, it was just lovely. The molls from Murray Bridge High School dropped in to compare Centrelink cheques, tattoos and hydroponic equipment."

Until then, I'll have to continue to grit my teeth when a business located in Norwood - a mere 1000 metres away, does not 'deliver' to my area, on the wrong side of Magill Road. I'll keep on driving our dented, 12 year old station wagon with the remnants of last year's Kangaroo Island dust still on it, and enjoy sitting outside in our 'garden' of baked clay, builders' rubble and dog turds.

Pass me an iced coffee, garcon, and don't forget to fling in a custard tart and a bag of burger rings!

The Blame Game

The other night we had the Catherine-the-Gorgeous and her son, Angus-the-Red-Blooded, over for dinner.

Angus may be a mere six-and-a-half and my Sapphire a relatively worldly eight-and-a-half but they really enjoy each other's company. Their toes touch as they laugh through a Shrek DVD; their heads meld when playing Nintendogs and their chortles echo throughout the neighbourhood when they try to out-bounce each other on the trampoline.

This makes it easy for us adults to stay outside, drink more rose and talk with very little interruption. Several hours later however, a clearly distressed Angus stormed outside. When a kid strides towards their parent with a purposeful gleam in their eye, it is to be assumed that some serious dobbing is likely to occur. If it is your child who is the Dobber, you feel a mixture of shame that they can't roll with the punches and some relief that they are seeking vindication instead of violence. If your child is the Dobbee, it is mostly a mixture of shame and dread - what on earth had Sapphire done to Angus, one of her best friends?

"SHE did this to me!" he yelled, pointing at her through the glass doors. Inside, Sapph was supremely unconcerned, absent-mindedly patting Dogadoo and still watching the movie.
"Sorry Angus, what did she do to you?" Love Chunks asked gently.
"THIS!" He pointed to his nether regions.

What on earth......

"Sweetie," Catherine said, "We still don't understand." (Plus we're already horrified at whatever hellish, twisted and macabre information is about to emanate from your lips): "What exactly happened?"

He again pointed to his crotch with a two handed motion that a Gangsta rapper would envy.
"SHE----" he paused to collect himself. "She......made me laugh so hard that I wet my pants!"

Our relieved and genuinely amused laughter only made him madder.
"Well, what are you going to DO about it? Look at me, I'm all wet!"

We three adults took a closer look at his dry shorts. Never did I think I'd be spending a Saturday night taking a close-range perve at a six year old's package.

"Um," I suggested nervously, "I don't notice ~ahem~ anything down there, but I can lend you a pair of Sapph's boardies if you like."
"I don't wanna wear GIRL'S shorts," he said, as he huffed his back back inside.

Seconds later, they were squished together on the sofa, laughing. It seemed that wetting your pants because you were having so much fun laughing with your friend wasn't a particularly bad way to spend an evening.

Gone Chocko

I was invited to go on radio 5AA the other day to talk about my first love, chocolate. (Click here if you'd like to listen to such things as me exclaiming in delight at a caller's suggestion for instant cappuccino and why I've avoided reviewing Haigh's so far).

Unlike doing promos for the book, chatting about seafood extender or chocolate requires much less professionalism and perspiring preparation. All I have to do is blather on as I would around a dinner table whilst lubricated with a big glass of rose, and hope that no rude words pop out. Whilst it was a real buzz to speak to some listeners who felt strongly enough about the subject to ring in and express their views, it got me wondering.

How come, if you overdose on a particular food or drink, you are put off it for life, but not so with chocolate?

When I was six, I had a huge bowl of tinned peaches which were my favourite dessert at the time. Unfortunately, this particular serve decided to make a reappearance via their original entrance only minutes later and the torturous taste sensation of bile and peach juice has left me reeling ever since. The same can be said, at age eleven, for deep fried onion rings (they were 'deposited' via the open-bottomed toilet directly onto the tourist tracks of the Kuranda railway), and seventeen (St Agnes Brandy at an eighteenth birthday party. Most of the celebrations were spent on the big white porcelain phone screaming for God).

My father had a holiday job during his uni days at the Coca-Cola factory, and was told that he could drink as much of the sweet stuff as he liked. He did just that for about the first week and was cured of the sinister stuff for at least another twenty years. The same went for my brothers and I during our uni vacation employment as apricot cutters and pickers (the slightly alcoholic scent of a sloppy, on-the-turn apricot smooshed through my knife-sliced, stinging fingers has been enough to put me off anything apricot flavoured for the rest of my days). Anne-Marie once spent an entire weekend coating sponge squares for her basketball team's lamington fundraiser and admits that she dry heaves if she even sees one on a bakery shelf.

Therefore, when friends suggest I should get a job working at the Menz Fruchoc factory in Glynde or Swiss Glory in Stepney or - dare I hope - Haighs in Parkside, they tend to wink knowingly and say, "Oh you'll go nuts on the stuff for a while, but soon you'll get sick of it and never want to eat it again."

I don't think so. My EPA mate Ann worked at Cadbury's in Ringwood for a few years in between babies and childcare and reckons that she spent most evenings enacting out the infamous scene from the 'I Love Lucy Show' where at least three chocs were shoved into her cakehole and merely one made it into the box. Ann's a genuine character and is to be believed when she says that even if she went home to bed feeling a bit queasy she sucked down the same amount the next night and the night after that and the night after that..... Another friend worked at Haigh's for a few months at least a decade ago and reckons she still has (eerily erotic) dreams about the dark stuff and the lingering kilograms as physical proof.

We all know that chocolate contains flavonoids that contribute a natural high similar to the one that hard-core runners experience and that it stimulates our adrenal systems, but it must also have its own version of nicotine hidden amongst the cacao butter. Why else could I manage to buy a box of 12 dark Lindt balls for three days in a row and end up giving the fourth purchased box to my friend on the fourth day because I'd eaten the other three? Why else am I salivating in envy whilst typing this, knowing that I'd gladly do it all over again if money, time and body fat index weren't quite so forbidding?

Who knows. One of life's great mysteries yet to be solved. Here's one of my older Chocablog articles that attempts to explain to its British readers just why the Tim Tam is so revered over here:

Tantalising Tim Tams

Yeah, yeah I know the old joke about Aussies: What’s the difference between an Australia and a tub of yoghurt? After three days the yoghurt develops culture. Hah hardy hah.

In the case of Tim Tam biscuits however, us Aussies seemed to have embraced them in a far more exuberant way than you Great British folk have. In your neck of the woods, they’re known as Penguin bars: individually wrapped and likely to be mostly found in kids’ play lunches or at the back of the pantry cupboard. After all, what adult could be bothered unwrapping the blasted things?

No, here in the free, fertile and fun land of Oz the work is all done for you. No unpleasant names connected to protected Antarctic wildlife, just a nonsensical one with no guilt involved. You can bite into one without worrying about the threat of extinction to Mumbles from ‘Happy Feet’. No wrapping to hinder your needs either, so once you hear that almost-erotic crackle of the plastic liner tray being yanked out, you know they’re ready for you. Tim Tams…..

Somehow good old Arnotts biscuits (now owned by a US company but for all intents and purposes are as Australian as vegemite – also now in US hands), have got the formula just right. High quality, greaseless milk chocolate covering two perfectly crunchy biscuits with a lighter chocolate mousse-style cream filling in the middle. One bite and you’ll be as hooked as the rest of us. Clive James sucks out the middle and drinks his cuppa tea through them. Germaine Greer inserts them between her ears and Elle McPherson has her body to thank for them (and the freakish gift of good genes and the body of a preying mantis). Interestingly, all three of them now live in London – perhaps it is so they can seek some refuge from the siren song of the Tim Tam. After all, if Clive got any larger his eyes would permanently be hidden under flesh folds, Germaine wouldn’t be able to spout off her regular rounds of demented verbal diarrhoea and Elle might be tempted to try her hand at acting again and release another work-out video.

Your own kind, the Poms who are ‘out here’ love them. Non-famous Aussies ‘over there’ (or ‘up there’ if you insist on being hemisphere-centric) get them posted over by their parents because the poncy little Penguins just don’t measure up. When I lived in the UK for a couple of years, it always reminded me of teenage sex when that Aussie Post soft-pak arrived by the door. It was attractive, complete with brightly-designed Aussie stamps on it – the anticipation was there, the ogling, the stroking, the grappling, the unwrapping, the final revealing moments…… only to discover that they’d been sat on and melted in transit and the brown pillows of ecstasy had been welded together to resemble a solid brick turd. Oh well….

Over here, folks, they’re everywhere and always at their best (kind of like Hugh Jackman but easier, cheaper and much more available). At least one of the three local supermarkets within walking distance of my workplace has them on special at any given time – usually for less than two bucks a packet which I think is about a sixpence for you folks, based on historical currency comparisons.

Not every Australian has been arsed enough to see their nation’s capital city, but I can honestly declare that every single one of us can recognise the sound of a Tim Tam packet being opened from ten kilometres away. One moment you’ll be standing alone on the Nullarbor Plain with just the five hundred blow flies on your back for company, only to be surrounded by a crowd of Tim Tam Tag-alongs all eagerly eyeing off your stash and offering to put the kettle on as soon as you even think of opening up one end.

Push those greedy guzzlers aside and inhale of the Tim Tams all by yourself. As L’Oreal is always fond of telling us, do it: Because You’re Worth It.

Raunchy Rowdy Rhonda

The other day I went to see the insipid but pleasant chick-flick '27 Dresses' with my mother Pauline and her mate Rhonda.

Rhonda invited me in to her pimped out crib in the Bay Village and it was rather like Doctor Who's tardis: much bigger and groovier on the inside. What impressed me most was the car in the garage; a new Subaru Impreza.

For some inexplicable reason, I seem to possess Rain Man-like powers of knowledge retention when it comes to makes and models of cars. Lindt knows why - my brain is emptier than a nun's hook-up book when it comes to the details of what happens under the bonnet but I clearly pay unconscious attention to body shapes, colours, styles and litre capacities.

My six year old godson Will has been pleasantly surprised at his GM's capacity to match his car spotting ability: "Hey MillyMoo, do you see that black Magna with the spoiler over there?"
"Sorry buddy, it's actually a new Nissan Maxima Ti. They look as big as the Magnas because some of them have three-and-a-half-litre engines."
Thinking intently, sucking hard on his chupa-chup and responding quietly with "Oh," is Will's version of a bemused head-scratch.

Back at the Bay Village I clapped my snotty green eyes on Roarin' Rhonda's Rod and whistled appreciatively.
"Rhonda, who knew that at eighty five years old you'd been such a Rev head?"
She giggled and waggled a finger at me, replying, "Oh MillyMoo, your Mum said that you're a cheeky one." After a pausing for a moment, she explained that, "My late husband liked to race a bit, so I've always bought a car that respects his memory."
"Fair enough. You do know, Rhonda, that car thieves who aren't bogans and therefore are not interested in stealing a commodore, instead prefer to flog and thrash Imprezas, aren't you?"
"Oh yes, Milly, yes, but we don't get too many hoons staking out the Bay Retirement Village very often. The rowdiest we get is when the community hall's booked out for bingo night."

We chatted a bit more about cars - why I wanted a Subaru Impreza, Toyota Prius, Nissan Dualis or a Volksy Golf for my next car (maybe not in the reality of living on one income and the hopes of being a paid hack someday but in MillyMoo's Happy Land at least), and our family's perennial fondness for 1970s volvos. Every single member of my family have driven and owned one at least once and my Grandpa even featured in a movie about the evils of Volvo drivers (he was accosted outside of the Norwood Coles and gracefully declined to comment).
"Oh yes, they are good cars. Gwen at number 24 still has her 1975 box and it's just as reliable as ever. We can hear her returning home from as far away as the bluff."

No docile old lady, this Rhonda.

We must have made an interesting trio as we pushed through the art deco doors of the Victa Cinema in Ocean Street. White-haired Rhonda was wearing her newest blouse for the occasion. Sixty seven year old Pauline was wearing a bright new t-shirt with the ever-present slick of matching coral lipstick. Holding Rhonda's elbow to keep her steady was I, a 39 year old dag who decided to forgo the usual pongy old crocs for my best Havainias thongs.

Two very patient men were surrounded by a couple of hundred women - the cinema was packed with Ys, Xs, baby boomers, pre-war and WW1 generations of chattering females. How on earth was Rhonda - let alone Pauline, who thought she was living large if she said 'bum' instead of 'buttock'- going to cope with a movie that warned us ahead of 'coarse language, sex scenes and partial nudity' ? They did realise that it wasn't going to be quite so innocent as 'Paint Your Wagon' or 'Pillow Talk', didn't they?

I needn't have wasted such precious brain space worrying about either of them. In one scene the two characters were having drunken sex in a 1970s-era volvo. Rhonda leaned over and loudly whispered, "Now I know why you and your Mum like them so much."

A living CLASSIC.

Gotta Getta Gaultier

To get our minds off the unfairly early demise of the wonderful actor Heath Ledger, I thought I'd think about what's 'in' this coming year for fashion and what I'll be wearing. Well, what I would be wearing if such things as a budget and common sense weren't factors affecting my decision making skills.

I found a few choice pictures from John Paul Gaultier's latest couture collection that was recently unveiled in Paris.

I'm not exactly sure what he's trying to encourage us working gals to do here, but I think it's got something to do with 'Distract them away from my late arrival at the meeting and my inability to work the Powerpoint presentation effectively.'

Her hair makes her look like the love child of the Muppets' Beaker and Diana Ross and the earrings were definitely the handles that were nicked from my Nanna's sewing bag. The eye make up owes a debt to Boy George and Avril Lavigne. All in all, a subtle and professional look that will not only increase your chances of promotion (out of sight out of mind) at work, but also carry you through to evening (drag revues). Kudos to you, Gaultier!














Lord knows the dress/mosquito net on the left would go down a treat in the average office, but only if the summer air conditioning is not set on the 'freeze your nuts off' level, which, in my experience, is the standard format for most workplaces. Not sure if I could ride my bike up Magill Road in this floaty number though.

As for 'Fanta Femme' on the right, Gaultier should be applauded for his attention to detail in that she's even got the screw top cap on her head. It's also a nice touch to have a matching shopping trolley filled with what look like plastic bananas and a paving stone: pretty much all that runway models eat these days.

If, like me, you're constantly searching for ideas on how to properly groom your eyebrows and apply colour effectively then look no more. Gaultier's made it clear here that the last thing we need in our beauty regime is to appear like a Disney cartoon on speed. The blue winged eyebrows on the left could have belonged to a more edgy John Howard if he'd been brave enough to particiate in the Mardi Gras or, failing that, the father of the Thunderbirds.

Self-confessed fan that I am of the Big G, this travesty must be reported to the RSPCA - surely the murderers of Mr Snuffleuffagus need to be brought to justice and pay their dues to society?

The sad thing is, unlike Mr Snuffy himself, we can actually see this creation. On the plus side, it would be ideal for Bad hair, face and body days.












Hmmm. Should I go for the cracked almond-shaped hairstyle, or the boobie bowl? Decisions, decisions.....

The hair might be easier when dealing with x-ray machines at airports but the bowl would be handy if given a handful of nuts without a bag or if one loses a hub cap on the way to the shops....












Many's the time I've wondered just when an internationally-renowned designer is going to acknowledge the adult scooter riders amongst us and create something specifically suited for the purpose. Nothing says 'Scooter Loser' quite like an over-bleached version of Obi Wan Kenobi's robes and a skinny black eighties tie.

And let's not forget the dress on the right. Just perfect for when you can't make it to the dentist. Why bother paying through the nose when you can look up your own nose by yourself?

Hmm. Crocs and trakkies don't look so bad now.

I need a much longer pistol ... ??

When you're an avid net surfer like I am (Perez, Cute Overload, Go Fug Yourself, The Age, The Guardian, the New York Times, Chocablog), it is a given that the in-box is filled with spam.

In the heady days of brand new computer and internet ownership in 1996, my spam mostly consisted of 'hot lesbian love' or 'buy shares and earn $10,000 per week.' So they'd at least tried to take a guess at my lifestyle choices and my material needs.

The Viagra and Cialis ones came a few years later, regularly urging me to buy cheaper or even 'chepa' or 'cheep' prices, depending on the spelling skills of the spammer. I sometimes used to wonder just what kind of person would risk the safety and performance of presumably one of their most valued and sensitive organs to an ungrammatical email asking them to buy drugs from unknown overseas warehouses. It appeared that their concerns for my physical relationship with Love Chunks in our future twilight years meant that I was supposed to start stock-piling the magic pills now.

In the last year or so, the spammers have been less concerned with my gender and have instead been informing me on a daily basis that "Your Penis is BELOW average size, add 2-3 inches with this 0nrrvx2yjlyk."

It was one of those days in the summer holidays where, being the sole care-giver and entertainment director for Sapphire during work hours meant that there were no opportunities to do any real work; just a quick glance at emails and a visit to some of my favourite bloggers. The now-familiar email arrived:

CHECK HOW OUR 6000+ CUSTOMERS LONGER THEIR PISTOL
=== IncreasePenisSize 3 Inches Longer ===
Increaase SexDrive and Pleasure
Achieve Rock HardErections
= Permanently CuresImpotence =
= Increase sperm volume and quality =

Sapphire was outside on her scooter and I was feeling a bit curious, so I clicked on the link. It took me to - http://iakospro.com/ or 'Express Herbals,' where I was informed that "A man who knows that the schlong dangling in his pants is big enough to satisfy any woman walks around with an “I don’t have a care in the world” kind of aura." Golly gee whillikers, that was enough to get me clicking on the 'more information' tab!

This section listed the key ingredients of the Penis Pill (for want of a better title), and yes, I was bored and persnickety enough to do a little googling to find out what they were and why they'd be useful for making longer your pistol. These key ingredients (in tablets to be taken twice a day after a meal) were :

Vitamin E 20mg - my rapid research tells me that this is just a general name for two classes of molecules with their main being an anti-oxidant in humans. Hmm, so a longer schlong helps the fight against cancer?

IU soya protein concentrate 250 mg - not a lot of detail other than it is generally used as a milk or fishmeal replacement and is generally very high in salt. Yum!

Mucuna pruriens 75 mg - This has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years and is still used to increase libido in men and women due to its dopamine inducing properties. Dopamine apparently has an influence on sexual function. Not length necessarily, just function. I.e, it's not the size of the wand but the magic you'll be able to do with it....

Asteracantha longifolia 75 mg - I'm not sure if this is a comfort or not, but all I could find was that some Indian researchers has been feeding this to rats and believed that it might help protect them from liver damage. That's nice.

Withania somnifera 50 mg - This apparently means "horse's smell" in Ancient Sanskrit because the odour of the root which resembles that of sweaty horse. The species name somnifera means "sleep-bearing" which means that it was used as a sedative, but is also been used for sexual vitality. Couldn't find any real studies to confirm the sexual vitality bit though and smelling like a sweaty horse could be a bit of a turn off in some bedrooms.

Tribulus terrestris 50 mg - Those lucky little laboratory mice - a study showed that this stuff enhanced their "mounting activity" (true quote) and "erection". How on earth do you monitor a mouse's erection? Furthermore, who would want to??

Albizzia lebbeck 50 mg - Nothing found on the net revealed just why this ingredient was considered important for bigger willies, except that they are small trees with a short lifespan and are considered weeds. The irony of this description may be examined later.

Argyrerin speciosa seed 100 mg - Lordy, googling this seed only produced more spam and porn than I could poke a stick at ~shudder~ Not sure I wanted to read the discussion threads from 'AssManHeaven' and 'MegaDik', so I'll assume that there's no scientific info readily available out there; just braggarts.

Valeriana wallichii 25 mg - An Indian herbal site told me that VW is for useful for "hysteria, insomnia, habitual constipation, neurosis, cholera and in scorpion sting and also used for perfumery. Locally the dry roots are used to remove foul odour of mouth caused by tooth trouble." Wow, if you need to deal with all of those things, surely the size of your schlong pales in comparison.......

Clearly these special ingredients have changed the lives of their users and partners. According to AngelStar: "Men are going to stand up and clap their hands at these penis enlargement capsules. It has produced remarkable results that have never been seen before with NO negative side effects. These penis enlargement capsules offer women what they really want, more to play with! Those extra inches really do make the difference!"

Yep, dear petal AngelStar says it for all of us. If only she'd provided a photograph of her sweet little self surrounded by clapping men. Or men with the clap; same difference.

Chris from the UK was even more ecstatic: "Just wanted to drop you a quick line to say thanx!Firstly, it was only two days later when I received your package back here in the UK, I was impressed to start off with! After taking the tablets for just two weeks I am already seeing MEASURABLE changes, I'm recording a weekly table, when I have more data I'll let you have a copy! Your product is amazing!"

Bless him, he's set up a weekly table (on excel?) to record his growth, hopefully using a nice scrapbook format, readily available from all decent craft shops. What a healthy way to spend his free time (presumably in between torturing squirrels and making his own toothpaste from scratch).

But Mark from the USA is even more thrilled: "I recommended your product to all of my work mates. This is the first time I have bought something online and I'm very, very happy with it. THANKS and keep up the good work."

He recommended it to all of his workmates. I don't know about blokes in the US of A, but I'm guessing that if someone did that to the blokes that they work with here Down Under (double entendre entirely intended), they'd be strapped to a traffic pole, sloppily shaved and spray painted before being homophobically beaten to a pulp for daring to comment (much less observe) the length of the other lads' lances.

Finally, the site has this touching picture. Something for us all to treasure and get misty-eyed over: she glancing down his pants with a look of awe and anticipation.


And to think: this is only ONE willy-width email out of about 300 I've been sent this year alone.....

Unmissable movie night

Wah-hey - check out what movies are on the box at Chateau Milly Moo's house tonight mateys! I kid you not - these are the exact words in our TV guide. And who said that non-ratings television was so bad it could dissolve your brain cells via the stench emanating through the screen's pixels?

At 10:10pm, we have Porco Rosso (Japan), which is described in the TV guide as:
"The adventures of a pilot who resembles a pig, who battles air pirates raiding the shipping around the coast of Italy in the 1930s."

Geez, haven't they done the Hero Ham in the Italian skies thing to death by now?

And then, at 11:55pm, there's The Virgin of Lust (Mexico).
"Romance develops between a cruel call girl and an introverted cafe waiter with a foot fetish."

Hmmm, 'Virgin' and 'Lust' in the same title. Could only be on SBS. Soft porn by any other name but if it is has sub-titles it's art house.

Thank the Lord of Lindt for 'Scrubs', 'Entourage' and 'Six Feet Under' on DVD.....

2008's going to be great....?















Like everyone else on this earth, or at least in the blogosphere, I'd dearly love to say that my three New Year's Resolutions are:
1) Be a more patient and creative mother to my daughter
2) Be a kinder, more loving and understanding partner
3) Lose weight.

Blah blah blah, wouldn't we all, yawn, snore, zzzzzz. And if you reviewed those plans by December (or even next weekend) they'd be as forgotten as an overweight Idol winner.

Instead I think it's better to save myself the agony and guilt of so obviously failing and develop some alternative - and more importantly achievable - resolutions. Actually I'm not even sure if they're achievable because I've made them many times before and yet, here I am again:

* Stop picking at my nails. My actual nails are left in relative peace but the cuticles around them look like red fringing on a 1920s murder victim. It is a vicious circle: I see a bit of flaky skin, peel it back to neaten the edge of the nail and sometimes go too far, drawing blood. This later heals and grows more raggedy skin which I peel back to neaten up only to find that I've pulled it too far and it bleeds and ......

* Re-volunteer at Sapphire's School. 2007 was largely spent taking my own advice which was to not over-do the helping out at school as an unpaid slave to assuage my guilt at working full time. I only ran three market stalls, didn't do the fresh cherry deliveries at Christmas and even ~ this is so scandalous I can't believe I'm writing this ~~ attended the end-of-year concert and didn't help set it up or put the chairs away afterwards. It felt as good and as naughty as inhaling a box of Lindt balls on my own, but the slack sands have finally dropped to the bottom of the hourglass. This year I will do at least one thing at the school every week, even if it's just picking up the papers that have blown against the fence on the back oval where Dogadoo and I do our runs.

* Avoid looking directly into my tissue after blowing into it. Whilst it is possible to lower (or even eradicate) social standards when on my own, I must avoid having a gander in my hankie out in public. This will be extremely difficult seeing as it's been a lifelong fascination to mull over my own mucus and has unfortunately become an ingrained habit, much like reducing my cuticles to curtains.

* Go to karate classes more regularly. Sadly, after 18 months of irregular attendance, I am still a yellow belt and show about as much promise of graduating to orange as a Hilton sister has of spelling the word. Yes, it's my own damn fault and again yes, as if the sensei was going to fall over in amazement at my crotch punches, exclaiming, 'Hey Fifth Dan - we have a natural here, and she's only been to six classes this entire year!' Attending at least once a week rather than bi-monthly will no doubt help things.

* Write something for money. Well at least for more than the six pounds sterling per article I get for my fastidiously researched reviews at Chocablog. Something akin to a dole cheque or mortgage interest payment would be nice. It's either that or doing (comical) favours in bus shelters during school hours or being the 'unattended baggage' detonator at international airports. Anything other than working for a boss, being a boss or having to be at an office five days a week within a 2km radius of a boss would be acceptable if money is involved.

* Embrace fashion. This will be the most challenging resolution to keep seeing as I never embraced the muffin-top low-rise look and can't pull off the twelfth month of pregnancy smock look either. I'm clinging onto the peasant skirt (flattering for thunder-thighed gals), 3/4 length long-shorts or short-pants and black. Everything black. It's time for me to discover colour, cut and style - if only in my hair.

* Plan something 'different' - and yet affordable - for my fortieth birthday. Taking Love Chunks and Sapphire to Paris and Italy might not be a go-er; nor a fortnight in Hawaii and Christmas in New York, alas. Sky-diving and bungy-jumping have already been 'done' but I have next-to-no urge for hot-air ballooning, para-gliding or sailing my own yacht. A new car instead of a themed, catered dress-up party? Not likely; the '96 Magna still has legs on her, despite being dustier than a camel's arse. Will keep pondering inventive (and thrifty) party ideas for the next eleven months...

Notice I left out 'eat less chocolate' and 'stop humiliating Love Chunks via this blog' as, let's face it, they're never going to be considered, let alone successful.