Planet of the Crepes

[DukesOfTripHazard]

New bowl of crisps, tuck in Ruby!

I am thrilled at this Pixi lust. Another of their things wot I like is the cheek gel in natural. It doesn't stay on very long but while it does it's well pretty.

I felt a bit rubbish yesterday and spent much too long hunched over the computer looking at not very edifying things. Today is better. Have shredded, spot cleaned the stair carpet, written a letter to DD who will be at an outdoor pursuity place with school next week and am now going out to buy some fabric conditioner at Wilkos. When the mice are away the cat does rather boring things, it would seem .

Must get to the shops and buy a copy

All of you who are feeling unsuccessful or inferior (not that any of you are, of course), do you think it is because you were educationally very high-achievers and had extremely high expectations?

I thought it was just a self-indulgent whinge along the lines of her baby book. Admittedly I didn't go through it in detail as was possessed by envy at the fact she was being published in the first place. I mean, why don't my whingeings about race and colour and Poor Little Me get published, eh? Eh? Tell me that, huh???

Haven't read of her other stuff. I just found it pretentious!

BTM - in my case possibly....but I also lack confidence and had what little I had crushed many moons ago and that derailed me really.

So sorry about your knee BTM. I can just picture it getting twisted, ow, ow.

Also sorry to miss Strops glitter/scooter streak. Very Saturday night!

My sister sometimes says 'drowning in plenty, yet yearning for more' as both self-chastisement and damnation of consumerism. Ver true I think.

I have been combing the charity emporia down by chez Dukes. Have returned with a Tana French hardback, a Boden drepe (v appropriate) wool dress which will be rather fab when taken in and possibly shortened (am debating whether to get it made quite a bit shorter, tunic length, to wear over leggings as am worried about Bodenerama), frozen mussels (from the fishmonger, not the charity shop!) a tiny china squirrel for DD2 and a bead bracelet to add to DD1's collection of tat bracelets. A Good Haul, methinks.

CREPE not drepe!

BTM, that is a bummer about your knee. I hope the Chinese medicine does the trick and sorts it out. Hope the rest of your week went well.

I tried to read that Cusk piece but it was too turgid by half. I have been enraged by her writings before. Seemingly endless overwritten solipsistic whingeing.

Dd has been diagnosed with a weirdy virus and told she must not go back to school until she is properly better, whereupon she burst into tears (when the doctor had left the room to get something) and said "But I have to go to school or they will moan at me." The school are so obsessed with their bloody attendance stats that the teachers are drilled to start quoting % of time missed at any pupil who has more than 2 days off in a month. Any month. Never mind if that is the only two days the pupil has had off all year. "If you have 2 days off every month, this means that in 5 years, you will miss x% of your schooling and this means that you will be an utter failure and a bad person and we will all hate you because you have messed up our stats. Make sure you come to school every day unless your head has actually fallen off and there is blood, lots and lots of blood." Jeez, they should devote their time to rounding up the skiving little feckers who virtually NEVER make it into school rather than bullying the ones who occasionally get genuinely ill.

Would a doc's note help at all, Stropps, or would it be dismissed as Not The POint?

The charity shops round our way rarely have any clothes in them for anyone under 70, but are very good for glassware and china. All my plates are from charity shops or the dump (nowt wrong with a bit of skip-diving ). I also rescued a rather nice table from the dump, but then realised I had nowhere to put it, so dh uses it in the garage.

Yes, we may have to go to the GP on Monday if she is still manky and I may have to stomp in to school to give them a piece of my mind as well as the note.

Not that I have any bits of mind to spare, but still...

BTM - good question. I had a huge crisis last week - I was asked to write a paper on a subject that I know very little about (fortunately neither does anyone else) and had a bit of a meltdown - I've been overpromoted, I can't do this, etc etc. My French teacher also said to me, rather crossly, that there is nothing wrong with my French - I am "presque bilingue", all I lack is confidence. I was pushed very hard at school by my mother, who taught me to read at 3, taught me French from the same age, Pythagoras at 6 etc etc. I was going to be the first in the family to go to university, she was determined.

I took my maths O level mock at 13, with a view to taking it 2 years early, and got 9% in the exam, whereupon I was put down a class (which is where I should have been in the first place; maths is not my forte). I had had enough of studying by this time, and basically stopped working. Had Ed Psych see me etc, but I had just had enough of learning. I coasted through my O levels, mediocre grades, and cocked up my A levels spectacularly ("What am I going to do now? I've told everyone you're going to university!"). I then drifted for a bit, while I dithered about what to do, and somehow managed to get on a graduate scheme (the only non-graduate to do so) - which my mother was delighted about, as it meant I could "pay back some of the money which had been spent out on me over the years." Unfortunately for her, she was charging me so much in rent that it was cheaper to move up to London and share a house, which is what I did. Two years later, I moved overseas, at the age of just 22, and have spent about 5 years in UK since then.

So, I don't think I saw myself as a high achiever, but my mother was determined that I was going to be, at all costs! A few years ago, I got accelerated promotion - so I must be doing something right, somewhere, I just don't always quite believe in myself. And the current job is, I admit, right out of my comfort zone - the focus of it being something I studied at school, and failed the A level in, twice. I still can't quite believe that I am not 18 any more, and have it firmly lodged in my head that I don't "get" this subject, although 30 years have passed since then, and I have since had quite a bit of training in this subject!

Gosh, that was long - does it answer the question?!

Yes!
It sounds like you had high expectations foisted on you. Plus your DM's inimitable parenting style.....
Now you have to believe in yourself - your boss obviously does

Now, how do we avoid pushing our DC whilst still being encouraging... Actually, maybe that was something my DM did quite well !

Flip MrsS you were hothoused!
I was second in my (working class) family to go to uni. My problem was total lack of confidence and belief. Weird thing is I make a success of pretty much whatever I do, but I am not happy as I feel I have undersold myself.

I want ds to be like dp, dp is largely a happy man...

According to my uncle, my mother had me propped up on cushions at the age of 4 months and was busily trying to teach me to read with some flashcards she had imported specially from the US.

Do we share a mother, Strops?

Twins, MrsS, twins..

I feel we could lead the world/have whatever we want, so what is stopping us..back to MI and we are girls underselling/valuing ourselves?

Heavens above, plenty of navel-gazing going on this evening, laydeez.

I'd join in, but my navel is lost from view, buried beneath a tyre of cream teas, pasta, croissants, wine and takeaways after a wonderful week of complete indulgence! Yes, Devon was heaven; the house was lovely (must thank Mumsnet Towers), and we got up to all sorts of family fun without the lure of PCs and TV, even managing board games at one point.

We did stop in Bath on the way down for a mooch around the shops and the Roman Baths. Thanks Strops (I think) for the parking warning - we took the Park & Ride, and were very glad we did, as the city was heaving with rugby fans. Nice place, though! I could live there......

Generally the Feb half-term was a surprisingly good time to take a break - a lot of what we got up to (walks, trips to the zoo, shopping, fun parks etc) wouldn't have been improved much by hot weather, and there was hardly anyone around! We went to a park which boasted "Devon's Biggest Rollercoaster" (think a few scaffolding poles held together with string), but we had it more-or-less to ourselves. Who needs Chessington, eh?

Just to touch on this subject of expectation/education versus attainment - I have probably mentioned before that my job as a part-time administrator probably doesn't do justice to my Oxford degree, but I don't care. I love my life, and the work-life balance I have. I also have siblings and a DH who didn't do so well academically but have left me for dust career-wise, but I don't envy them. Maybe when the DCs are more independent a gap might open up, but I'm not worrying about that for now. I'm really rather content.

Gosh we learn our lessons well, don't we?
MrsS you clearly are one very clever lady, and if you have been put in that role they clearly think you can do it :)
CV see if I was happy and content with my life it would be fine, but the problem is I am not, there is always a bit of me thinking 'is this it?'. I have made a lot of decisions for very pragmatic reasons (money), instead of playing the long game.

Anyway went to see STOMP yesterday - wow, I mean wow, says she who has zero rhythm (I did not join in the clapping for fear of embarrassment :) )

I shall peruse the reasons behind my lack of perceived success - over-pushy mother, lack of confidence, laziness, coasting, fear of failure, etc - later, but before I dash off to see parents, had to tell you ladies I won the choir quiz night last night!

Well, my team did. But I got some questions right that no-one else did, thus ensuring our narrow lead. There were two grumpy, (even more) middle-aged men on the team who had just about ignored my presence, until I answered a particular question, after which they were fawning all over me. Very odd.

The question was: what happened in 2002, that also happened 11 years before, and wouldn't happen again for another 110 years? The answer? A palindromic year: 1991, 2002 and 2112. I RULE.

Yay Herbs! I love quizzes, because I am a know-it-all and proud of it. Funnily enough, we were in a bar/restaurant last Sunday on the first day of the holiday, and a quiz was suddenly announced. It was played round-by-round, and guess which family of out-of-towners scooped the first round?! The DCs thought it was marvellous, especially as we won a bottle of wine and plenty of admiring glares smiles from the locals around the bar.

Our tie-break was - which was the first year someone was convicted of a crime as a result of DNA evidence? Answers on a postcard. I can't remember the exact date, but it was mid-1980s, and we were very close. The other team guessed 1930s - fools.

That was the pinnacle of our achievement, though - the locals upped their game after that.

Anyway - contentment. Can be interpreted as a lack of ambition.....but there's a lot to be said for it.

CV and Herbs, the pinnacle of DH's and my quiz success was being chanted at in the pub back home - "Losers!" - Isn't the Scouse sense of humour great? Still, at least we got free chips and gravy at the half-time

I did very well in one round in a quiz in a village pub once though - the subject was food