mothers on the verge

Did Dinosaur art part 2 today. I still don't like dinosaurs but I do like teaching 7-year-olds. They're just so appreciative. I was treated with an embarrassing reverence all because my drawing skills don't totally suck (but let me get this straight, I'm no Picasso). I tell you, it's almost enough to go to a girl's head; if I was a teeny bit more insecure I'd be enrolling myself into teacher training college double quick. Apart from acting as an unpaid art slave at school I've been sleeping (the dreaded pregnancy narcolepsy strikes again) and working my way through the Twilight series for the second time. I love it even more on second reading, which is why you've barely heard from me in the past week - I've had my head buried in VampireLoveLand. Now, it has crossed my mind that I shouldn't really be reading books about vampires. After all, the Twilight series is kind of meant for teenagers (or at least, I assume this to be the case since...

Managed to squeeze in two parties, a long lunch and a visit to a friend this weekend, plus all the usual chore stuff, and am now prone on the sofa, so tired I'm having trouble lifting glass of wine to lips. How did I get so old ?

My GYN, besides sounding like she has a nasal attack 24/7, is also a fairly conservative doc. And so all post-35-year-old patients are sent off for a routine Mammogram. So today was my day. All I am going to say is that apparently I have lots of muscle in mine -- which is good for a variety of, ahem, uplifting reasons. But it also lends itself to what I can only assume is what it will feel like if my breasts ever get caught in the subway doors. By a sadistic train operator. Because of their, uh, density, I had to be "filmed" 7 times. Four apparently is normal. As I stood, naked from the waist up, allowing a stranger to handle my breasts like raw chicken slabs, and then squeezing them between two glass panes, I just kept trying to focus on my Rabbit and her sweet face as the plates attempted to Paillard me. The tech grew concerned and mused that my pain threshold must be low. Whatever. Did I mention you're not allowed to breathe while the machine shoots away? While the pl...

I did something a little strange on Saturday morning. Something a little unlike me. Something a teeny bit insane. Saturday morning. I got up. I put my trainers and joggers on. I went to the City and gathered with hundreds of other runners. Then I got dressed up in a gorilla suit and did a 7k circuit of the City of London for the Great Gorilla Run . I walked, I ambled, I limped, and then I finally ran in a suitably face-saving show-off manner for the last quarter of a mile. (But before you scoff, please bear in mind that over the past decade I have done nothing more taxing than run to the bus stop. I obviously had to keep my health at front of mind). I learned a few things: 1. Furry gorilla suits are unbearably hot and itchy, and not designed for anything more than a slow amble (especially on an unusually hot day in late September) 2. I am shamefully unfit 3. In fact, everyone else is in better shape than I am (especially all my colleagues who pelted, excuse the pun, to the finish li...

Is anyone else also starting to feel that fashion is becoming impossible for a still vaguely youthful thirty-something to pull off without looking utterly ridiculous? The faux peasant look I could cope with. 70s retro - fabulous. 50s prom queen - difficult with a flat chest and no waist to speak of but not insurmountable. The tunic top and skinny jeans thing - lovely low maintenance and even my stumpy little legs can (just about) cope with it. But what's with this nu-rave and 80's fabulous nonsense? It's like I'm stuck in a teenage time warp and it wasn't any great shakes the first time around. Neon coloured Katherine Hamnett -style logo tee's? With clashing leggings? The Aceeed smiley face as a logo of choice? Puffball and ra - ra skirts? Give me a break. And scarier still, I keep spotting the hair style of desire for my 12-year-old self - the rat's tail (which thankfully my parents, who I thought were so mean and square at the time, refused to allow on ...