La Creperie - Home of the Hags!

[QueenLush]

Are you all nursing hangovers or just clearing up the post Christmas mess?

Herbs, how are you today? I have had a day of Meetings in which I nodded, in manner of nodding dog, and tried to sound coherent .

I already have a pair of silver brogues . The thing is, I can't wear heels. I teeter and totter and my feet start hurting. So my opportuities for Fancy Shoes are few and far between.

Beauty colleague also lecturing me on my inability to keep nail varnish on. But I swim, I bleated. So do I, she said firmly, and I never have any problems

DH is aggressively dusting the bookshelves. With the swiffer. DD2 is in tears over her maths homework (DH has been shouty) and should have been in bed two hours ago. I suggested she do it in the morning, getting up early and was informed She Has To Do It Before She Goes To Bed and She Shouldn't Go On The Laptop Until Her Homework Is Finished. It finished with it being Alright For Me as I Do Not Have Them After School Every Day. And I Do Not Know What It Is Like. And The Flat Is Filthy. So I am going to bed. He is going away this weekend. Hoo-fucking-ray.

MrsS if he is in dusting mode can I borrow him? He can nag ds about his homework too!

CV calves on those jeans? Just how thin?

Hi crepeys

Thank you for your kind words. I haven't had a whole lot of chance to R&R, but did have choir last night which is very therapeutic, I find. Feeling OK, but highly strung, and liable to totally lose it over minor infractions. Like PMT, only that's 10 days away.

Mrs S - your husband does a fine line in PA tactics, does he not. What he needs is a 'kick in the slats', as my old boss used to say.

Off to soft play in Romford today. Not actually as hideous as it sounds. Or maybe it is, I've just become immune.

I have been back to bed this morning and now feel like my head is stuffed with polystyrene packing pellets.

Feel I must point out it is FIL that gets waited on, not DH

I am trying to 'break the story' of my radio play. It's not working at the moment. I expect my bad guy needs to be badder and my midpoint stronger . I really need to find a way to make it work. I've put so much time into it already and if I can sort it and it gets commissioned I will earn some money and if I don't there will be tumbleweed in my bank account and tears before bedtime. So I'm sitting here with my packing pellet head wondering if another coffee will help me power through and wondering if this evening I will feel like I'm winning. Or not.

Huffy what is your neck cream? Anyone tried Mama Mio. Feeling better is definitely good.

I am 47 today and I am fucking well fucked-off.

Dh's idea of "making an effort" for my birthday was to take the kids to Tesco on Sunday afternoon. Last night at approx 11pm, I asked him if he had wrapped any of the presents they had supposedly purchased (vaguely hoping that he might have, y'know, done some other shopping somewhere other than Tesco, but having absolutely no wish for anything extravagant, just wanting someone to put a bit of thought into it). He says "Oh I asked dd to did, but I don't suppose she has". I glare at him, so he gets up (we were already in bed) and wraps some things up. Only reason I make a thing of it is because, y'know, I make a fucking big effort on everyone's b-days and I want the kids to be taught to make an effort for other people. Just slinging a bag of liquorice at me doesn't count as "making an effort". This morning I am presented with a bottle of Prosecco and some sweets from Tesco. OK, ds and dd can give me sweets. Is fine. Is nice. But dh hadn't got them to make any cards, hasn't thought about anything really. He is a lazy fucker.

I know that he has never been schooled in certain niceties, which is fair enough, but it's the laziness that really gets me. And dd is just as bloody bad, frankly. She is old enough to take the initiative - and she jolly well has been schooled in the niceties and expects them for herself alright.

If he thinks I am hanging around drinking Prosecco with him tonight, he has another thing coming. I shall go to circuits, cold or no cold, and batter the punchbags and then come home, drink all the fizz and get sick in his shoes. So there.

Thanks for reminding me about the neck cream, Dukes. In the spirit of helping myself feel better, I am going to slap another layer on now. It's Neals Yard, rather nice and not too pricey.

And now he wants me to help him out with the job he is doing and translate the script for a boring corporate vid by the end of today. Feh.

Oh Strops, happy birthday love! It can only get better but oh dear god, I have got that fizzy feeling in my nose that you get before welling up....

Not good enough. I would want to know from your DH how he plans to put this right? Also how can you salvage it yourself? I want to think of you abandoning ship. I think you need to stage the kind of protest that actually gives you a treat. Can you take yourself off the flix and watch The Descendents or something? Take a paper or a good book and buy yourself a great lunch?

I'm so sorry DD let you down too. That sucks, for the reasons you've described.

Just dropping back to say hope that wasn't too militant/unhelpful and am prising self off-line now.

Oh Stropps I am om your behalf (at least I got a copule of DVDs and have a bike on promise for when we move). I, too, firmly believe birthdays are 'your day' and should be marked. If I was close enough I'd take you for lunch - but agree with Dukes, pack up and go off and treat yourself.
Oh, and Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Stropps, and welcome to the 47 club Deffo go and treat yourself to lunch or something - we know you are worth it! And make him suffer before you do his translation. And buy you some gorgeous flowers.

Your DH sounds about as useless as mine. However, I have an agreement with mine that he gives me money for my birthday, so I can treat myself. It's better than a pink stripey jumper that your granny wouldn't wear which was his last "present" to me in about 1997!
Maybe you should give your DC some idea of what to get you? DD is quite good on finding prezzies, but I give DS an idea. At Christmas he got me a thing so I can hang my glasses round my neck at all times at home - not exactly glam, but exactly what I needed

Ahhhh, thank you crepsters :)) And Dukes, no you weren't too militant at all. Especially as I was quite leaning towards a firing-squad-type idea when I wrote my first post. :) Am feeling slightly chirpier now, as I am (childishly) making dh wait for his work (ha!) and he has to come up with a Decent B-day Treat Plan or he will have to buy himself an inflatable woman and live in the garage (and pay me rent). And my mother rang and asked me if I had got my b-day present. Turns out she gave it to dd to give to me, but of course dd forgot. So I now have a) a sizeable cheque (hehehe, thanks, mum) and b) a Sonic Scrubber Power Household Cleaning Tool (OK, thanks for the thought, mum). Well, at least it made me larrrf.

Well you know what you can do with the sonic scrubber if DH doesn't come up with the goods

Oh Stropps, I am totally with you on the "insufficient fuss" thing. I do not require major purchases on b'days etc, but I do require attention and a bit of thought. I also put my foot down a few years ago and insisted on ribbon or some form of attractive wrapping on whatever gifts come my way which is childish but it makes me happy to see pretty things that someone has made a bit of effort with. Dh has (now) got very good at this and I get special wrapping for stocking presents at Xmas including bows . To be honest, I think he did a cost/benefit analysis of the wrapping paper issue and realised that one visit to Paperchase = happy wife and much greater chance of festive sexual relations.

for Stropps

Re equal partnerships - my mother (working woman, full time career, but also did all the cooking etc) used to say it's about who gets to sit down first - ie if man is slumped watching tv and woman is scrubbing the floor, that's unfair, but if woman is scrubbing floor while man is putting up shelves or doing something else to help the household, that's ok. And in general I agree with that, however, these days with everyone working in different ways it's much harder to gauge who is contributing to the family's wellbeing. Plus, I would like to put up the shelves sometimes rather than tidy the fucking playroom.

Sorry, those were meant to be for Stroppy.

We have put the house back on the market as our buyers STILL haven't started searches or got their mortgage in place. They took cheque to solictors for searches and we thought it was all go, but they didn't tell us that whilst they handed the cheque over, the solicitor advised them to wait on searches until mortgage was in place and they agreed to this. Now whilst I get this is sensible
A. they didn't tell us they actually hadn't moved anything forward
B. why arent they doing something to get mortgage sorted (or is this more to this that we are not being told...)

I am fed up and suspect we may lose the house we want to buy, and have to stump up fees.....

Oh BD that is rubbish

Latest - having seen it was back up for sale they spent all afternoon trying to get mortgage sorted (and WHY didn't they do this last week?) should be through tomorrow or Thursday at which point searches will start. House stays on the market until that point.... I am bored of the whole thing.
Strops hope someone has made you a lovely birthday tea and poured you a glass of wine.

Well, that's better news BD

Yes Strops, hope your DD has found your cheque and both your DC and DH are catering to your every whim!

hi hags. sorry to read that lots are having a bit of an uphill struggle.... are the silver brogues current MI? from whence did they come? you have sparked a previously unconscious yearning for silver brogues in me... would like some just like those clarks ones but silver... how v shortsighted of them to only do gold

we managed a family dinner with no one shouting / swearing / crying / leaving the table / refusing to eat / hittting anyone / bickering, so am feeling most calm.
hope your hopeless buyers get their act together blackduck. we moved 18 months ago and the memory still makes me shudder. the real problem i found was the useless communication between the solicitors / estate agents / buyers and sellers and the impossibility of working out who was the real problem. think your hardline tactics are definitely the way to go.
am i ridiculous to contemplate some pink jeans from Gap's new range?? should i settle for some pink brogues instead?

Happy birthday Strops. I will be joining the 47 club in a few days. DH is going off to watch his mate play in his band for the weekend, so the girls and I are going to do something nice. My mother said she didn't know what to get me, so will pay some money into my bank account if I send her a paying in slip. DH says he doesn't know what to get me, so it looks as if I am on course for a present free birthday. I roared about insufficient fuss at Christmas (think I mentioned this on an earlier crepeys thread, so won't bore you with the details again). I agree it is laziness. I am definitely going to have a lie in, and am toying with the idea of going up the Eiffel Tower and maybe going on a boat on the Seine, and/or Disneyland. And I think dinner out is a must, possibly Nice Italian round the corner.

I have invited 15 people for dinner on Monday, and have given them a deadline of Friday for replying, so may be doing a bit of cooking over the weekend. I am getting a bit pissed off with the ones who "don't know yet" if they can come - what else are they going to do on a Monday night FFS?

Oh goodness, Blackduck, those buyers of yours are being a bit tiresome. Hope they are sweating buckets at the mo'. Shame you don't live closer btw, because lunch would have been very nice.

I'm afraid my 47th has to be known as the Old Bag's Meltdown Birthday. Dd ambled back in the afternoon with no particular drive to make up for this morning's omissions. I asked her about Granny's present and she shrugged and said something along the lines of "Not my fault" and "I dunno where she put it". It has turned up amongst the debris in her room, but I'm afraid I lost the plot again big time. I stomped off to get my own birthday tea, found the Chinese takeaways are all closed for New Year and realised I would have to actually cook something. Bah. Meanwhile, dd had been shamed into making a carrot cake, which was very nice, in fact. And dh was on best grovelling form. I have told them to get planning my 50th Now, because the useless buggers need 3 years to sort themselves out. And I shall now demand a proper party with someone jumping out of a cake and fireworks etc. (as if, but anyway...)

15 people for dinner? on a monday??
i swoon in the face of your sociability and energy!

Oh I forgot to comment on the shoes, MI - my mother maintains that "only Jews wear gold shoes". I looked pointedly at her feet when she said this - she was wearing sandals of a metallic hue. She quickly said "These are bronze,"