Crepeys/Hagsnet - the moonlight beckons!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Because moonlight gives you a nice glow and doesn't show up your wrinkles or grey hair.

Yep, we all roared. I was quite flattered they thought Mature Matron like me might be able to snigger, frankly.

Am cringing for your poor mate.

Oh she laughs about it too. She was always doing that kind of thing.

Another time three of us were in a comedy club. Friend 3 went off to the loo, and S followed. She patiently waited outside what she thought was the only loo in the place, and as the door opened performed a balletic lunge, while raising her middle finger to the person coming out. However, once again it was a total stranger. She'd rather miscalculated the toilet provision - friend 3 was somewhere else entirely.

Oh Herbs your friend sounds like me! When I was v v junior, I was invited to a vvvvv senior meeting, lots of very important men, I was the only woman. Conversation got onto the Jews (meeting was on Israel/Palestine) and someone commented that there were very few Jews in our organisation. Another chap said, oh no, there's XXXX. I piped up and said, oh he's not Jewish. Oh? Says VVVVV Important Man. How do you know? Now I could have said, he was a practising Catholic, his father was Jewish but his mother was not, that I knew the family. But I didn't say any of those things. Oh no. I came up with Because He's Not Circumcised. You could have heard a pin drop as all eyes swivelled round to look at me. Sadly there was no trapdoor to open up and make me disappear from the room. After a lengthy tumbleweed moment, one of the men coughed, and brought us back on track again.

I am sure that forever after I was thought of as That Girl WHo Has Seen XXXX's Cock.

You know, Mrs S, I am not as amazed by that post as perhaps I should be

I bet the bloke in question got lots of ahem enquiring peers at his todger in the urinals for quite a while.

Thank you for sharing, MrsS

MrsS

Priceless !

And was it around then that you decided on a career in international diplomacy, MrsS?

at "international diplomacy". We're safe in your hands, MrsS.

Blackduck - no no, do not surrender to the middle-aged gunt just yet. I think there is a stage in life when one can relax about such things and reach for the elasticated-waist slacks, but I don't think that applies to any of us.

Herbs - yes, I find myself ridiculously wound up by the most inconsequential things, and family issues regularly send me into the stratosphere (even though I know it is largely due to the great big chip I carry round on my shoulder being the child of a first marriage...etc. etc.). Christmas was always a bit of a complex "issue", as I have effectively two families, 120 miles apart, and DH's family live in Ireland, but it stopped being a problem the moment we decided to do what we as a family wanted to do, and stopped trying to please/accomodate everyone else. We came to this conclusion after spending the entire Christmas/New Year period either on a plane or in a car, and still people moaned that we hadn't visited aunty so-and-so.

Anyway - gah! Christmas! I'm already getting card catalogues through the post. Unbelieveable.

I did the 'pleasing myself' thing a few years ago, but felt guilty. Parents old, so feel I should make the most of our time, brother odd, mother can't deal with him without me there, he has nowhere else to do, Sis kowtows to alpha male BiL, who won't actually go to my parents' house, parents won't travel to their house as it's too far... I'm the only normal one! So end up feeling pulled in multiple directions. AND IT'S ONLY AUGUST. AND IT'S ONLY ONE DAY IN ARSING DECEMBER.

Sorry for thread-killing rant.

On a lighter note, I have a wardrobe problem. I'm going to Duckie on Friday night. Duckie is a gay club night, but for older, non-club, types. All very tongue-in-cheek stuff. But what on earth to wear? I don't want to look like a fag hag, even though I am, or a drag queen, or a lesbian. It's optional fancy dress, but as it looks like I can't even get an ordinary outfit together in the time, I doubt I'll get a fancy dress costume organised.

Herbs - do you have some kind of sparkly top - a bit of glitter is (a) flattering (b) gay-friendly and (c) good for lifting the spirits in general. You can then wear it with hotpants nice jeans or a plain mini-skirt.

I seem to have neither a nice top, nor decent jeans, having spent the past two years looking like a tramp. And I have awful legs, so no mini skirt. I'm going past bicester outlet village tomorrow, so may see if there's anything suitable therein.

Bloody hell, Herbs, I have trouble finding something to wear for a night down the pub - a night at a "gay club night, but for older, non-club, types" is way beyond my pay-grade! Sounds like a heap more fun than a night down the pub, though - can I come?!

But, to finish the Christmas discussion - that's the problem, it's the guilt!! Why should you feel guilty? As long as you feel that you have to please everyone else you will not enjoy yourself. You have your family unit now, you, DP and DS, do what's right for you. Can you host Christmas?

Anyhoo, bedtime.....

Gah - Christmas. My mother has already asked me if she is going to be invited to us - "otherwise I'll just go to a hotel. On my own..." She has 3 brothers and a sister and none of them will have her because they say that she is lazy and never helps (true) and will ruin it with her nastiness (also true - last time she stayed with her sister she was playing my two cousins, who have never got on, against each other and plying them with drink and they had a full-on fight). She doesn't seem to get that DH's parents might like to come to see us too. We have asked them this year, as it is their "turn" and they are having a think about it and the logistics. She asks me every time we speak "what is happening about Christmas as I will need to book a hotel if I can't come to you, or I could just sit at home on my own, I suppose." We cannot have her and the ILs as she was phenomenally rude to them after our wedding and they have never seen or spoken to each other since, and I know if she did come with them, she would be an utter bitch to my lovely MIL.

Blimey Mrs S. Your mum's passive/aggressive tactics are truly spectacular. That's the annoying thing about xmas arrangements - everyone knows what they want, but to look accommodating, rather than difficult, they try to get their own way by underhand, p/a manoeuvrings. Does my blood head in.

CV - I could host, but can't really put people up. Well, not more than two. Everyone else would have to stay in a hotel, which seems a bit mad when both Sis's and my parents' house have spare bedrooms. We also only have one bathroom, containing the only loo, which makes for anxious mornings.

Wardobe crisis continues. I've thought of a couple of nice tops, but have no decent bottoms. They're either baggy jeans, or summer skirts, or work trousers. Maybe now's the time to buy those new jeans I've been promising myself. Day stymied by fact I'm spending most of it at my parents, and the rest of it in the car.

Oh dear. We were woken up in the small hours by what I thought was a party opposite - didn't go and ask them to pipe down as we assumed it was a one-off post-GSCE bash.

It turns out that the youngest son had been killed. Oh, those poor parents.

Next door neighbour (who knows about this stuff as her brother was killed in the New Cross fire 20 years ago - oh, and the lad was in the same class as her neice who died of cancer) says there will be noise there every night till the funeral, as people come and go. We can live with a few disturbed nights. They are living with it for, oh god, ever.

God almighty MI. That rather puts xmas and wardrobe dilemmas into perspective. Those poor parents. How did he die?

This adds more fuel to my plans to never let DS out of my sight until I die.

It is a bit of a shock, innit. I didn't know him, so am not trying to vampire on their bereavement, but it's horrible. NDN v upset on their behalf.

Also it has happened at precisely the time when everyone's worried that London will go up in flames again...

He was shot. Ho yes.

Young black man, shot.

Oh gosh, MI, that is so awful. Your poor neighbours.

On a completely different note I have just bought a Hobbs wrapover silk summer dress and a Kew heavy viscose top in our local charity shop for £24 altogether, which will help enormously with work clothes. Dress is black with white spots on. Can add leggings and small denim jacket (from same charity shop) on colder days.

MI, how very sad. Is there a suspicion that the riots are going to kick off again? [worried] We were down in Devon during the previous disturbances, and felt very detached from it all, but I naively imagined it had run its course.

MrsS - if my mother pulled that kind of passive-aggressive stunt on me at Christmas I'd be passing her a hotel guide and wishing her a Happy New Year. You clearly have more tolerance than I do.