Sunday 30 May 2010

Beauty Queen


This morning I dreamt that whilst on holiday I had come 19th in a Hotel Beauty Competition.


Nineteenth.


That's all I have to say.


Monday 24 May 2010

You've come a long way baby........



Yesterday Bushman returned from Jamaica. His bounty consisted of nine bottles of Wray and Nephew White Rum (63%) , three bottles of Appleton Dark Rum Estate VX, six mangoes, two ‘bammies’ and twelve fried fish.

Yes.

Twelve pieces of fish on a 10 hour flight.

"Yuh waan fish?" he says to me, when I mention that I'm peckish.

"Errr...." I say, "Perhaps not. I'm not sure whether it's the 10 hour flight they've been on or the fact that they are staring at me. I think I'll have a bacon sandwich instead."

Bushman tells me that there is nothing wrong with them; that the methods of cooking and preserving means they are perfectly safe to eat. Still.....I'm not convinced. He gives them a good sniff and eats two. His nose is his 'best before date'. I am both disgusted and in awe of him at the same time.

And so my two week stint as a pesudo single/stay at home mum comes to an end. Thank god. It’s either complete selflessness bordering on saintliness, or insanity, which drives women to be ‘Stay at home Mum’s’. For those of you who do it, I salute you. You are better women than me.

When I started this blog I was on the brink of returning to work. I found it really tough going back and often wished that I had the luxury of staying at home. This fortnight has taught me a lot. Namely, that I'm too damn selfish to devote myself entirely to another human being. Frankly, I am exhausted and bored by the monotony. It’s at this point that I’m supposed to say that’s it’s also been wonderful, thus reconfirming my love I have for my son. Well I think it goes without saying that I love my son and naturally there have been moments of pleasure but for the most part, being pregnant and raising an 18month old is just generally knackering (and it's not even like I haven't had any help).

There have been upsides to getting up at 6 every morning..... like getting hold of these.

Early strawberries from Ripple Farm Organics. I was at the Farmer's Market before it even opened on Saturday Morning, which meant I got one of the last four boxes. Delicious and clearly like goldust.

I also went all 'Make Do and Mend' and got out my sewing machine. I turned two vintage items of clothing into maternity skirts (looked at the clock and it wasn't even 9am). I turned a double duvet into a single one, fixed a tea towel, made a skirt for my unborn daughter, created three cushions and a picture of a turtle for my son. I also dyed some of his old clothes purple, thereby making them suitable for his sister. I cleared out loads of old trimmings and textiles from my sewing box.....am I boring you yet? Just to reiterate....I've been fucking productive for a knackered out old witch. I've looked like shit of course, but you can't have it all.

As Bushman complains that his clothes smell of fish and rum and we discuss the several loads of washing which need doing, yet another march against gun and knife crime parades past our flat. This week everyone on the march looks white, possibly Turkish? A few weeks back everybody on the march was black. I can't help thinking that if they all got together this marching business might be more successful. Ironically, one of the placards being held aloft says something to the effect of "The Met Police aren't protecting our young people". This is ironic because as they march proceeds down the street they are flanked by police putting out and picking up traffic cones and blocking off traffic so that the marchers are safe.

Bushman is unmoved by this.

"De whole a town run red." he tells me.

Translation: In Kingston, Jamaica the streets are running with blood.

He's not exaggerating. The U.S are trying to have Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, a questionable 'Robin Hood' character/gang leader extradited and a state of emergency has been called. Police are being killed, fires are being set, politicians are resigning and women and children are being evacuated from the capital. As usual, in Jamaica, drugs, guns and politics are mixed into a lethal cocktail.

I'm thankful that Bushman is a country man and for the most part, kept away from the troubles. But I'm still bloody grateful he's home safe because Jamaica can be a beautiful but deadly island (unless you are holed up in a Sandals resort).

I look at the piles of stinking washing and the fish heads in the fridge and feel very lucky and strangely content. I don't imagine that this feeling will last long, so I decide to savour it all the more.


Tuesday 18 May 2010

Burgled?

I am still without vibrations. (See last post). In my defence, there’s been a lot going on. I’ve been flirting with lesbians in a bar in Brighton, eating Vivienne Westwood’s immense ‘once-in-a-lifetime-moussaka’ (“I’m never making fucking moussaka again, Troutie, it took forever” she groaned). I’ve also been on a mini holiday to the south coast to stay with my dear friend Platinum Blonde, her daughter, Mini Platinum Blonde and her husband, One Non-Blonde.

We took in the delights of Exmouth beach, the moors with its ponies and wild weather and Exeter Town Centre. It was all going swimmingly until I pissed on my dungaree strap and we crashed the car in the multi storey car park.

When I got home at around 8 pm last night, I thought I had been burgled. Turns out that was just the way I left it. Unsurprisingly, I have spent the day cleaning up. One of the many tasks I completed was putting away some books on my bookshelf. The books had been in a cardboard box accumulating dust for about the last year.

You’ve probably all heard the proverb “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Well my version is “Show me your bookcase and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Here are the three shelves of my bookcase. (I have hundreds of books in boxes accumulating dust, but only one bookshelf) Make of them what you will.

















Top Shelf - Highlights include 'Dancehall' by Beth Lesser, 'Vintage Fashion' by Emma Baxter-Wright some ancient dressmaking bibles and an Agatha Christie biography.




Middle Shelf - Highlights include some vintage anthropological heavyweights, a rare copy of 'Dread - The Rastafarians of Jamaica', Rita Marley's autobiography.

.











Last shelf - Highlights include Peep Show Scripts, 'Eve was Framed' by Helena Kennedy, Real England' by Paul Kingsworth, obligatory punctuation guides and even more obligatory....an Ikea catalogue.....




P.S I should also alert you to the fact that my past post was poorly researched. On further investigation of the Lelo website I discovered that some Swedish sex life accesories have a price far higher than a hundred English pounds. See here.

Monday 10 May 2010

Pulsating Questions


Yesterday morning I woke up cold. It could have been the fact that it was actually cold or it could have been the lack of a man in my bed. I started to think about the two weeks ahead of me. My mind wandered over the tasks I had set myself, the extra time I would be spending with my son and the fact that there would be a couple of nights when my son would be with his grandparents and I would be alone. This turned from being a pleasant thought to the sudden realisation that I no longer owned a vibrator.

In my life I have owned a few sex toys and but I find they don’t travel well from one relationship to the next. Whether you use them as a couple or purely alone, second hand sex toys are just all wrong. At the end of my relationship with Mr. Wasted Years I junked a whole heap of shit I had accumulated over our ten years together and my cupboards have been bare ever since.

Although I’m an open minded woman who has dabbled in this and that, I have discovered that my tastes are fairly standard. I have no extreme fetishes. There is nothing in which I’m compelled to indulge; but it is my firm belief that every woman should own a vibrator, so why haven’t I got one?

Yesterday, during my son’s afternoon nap, I set about finding one on the net. I know of two sex shops in London that I would actually visit. ‘Sh!’ in Hoxton, a women only establishment, and ‘Coco De Mer’ near Covent Garden.

Forget Ann Summers, that’s for your twenties. It’s like a box of Quality Streets, ubiquitous and uninspiring. It’s full of glittery rubber penises and Playboy bunny ears. Indeed it was where and when my last vibrator was bought.

Sh! is for your thirties. Still a prominently pink emporium, it’s cheeky but feminist-edged with its ‘Men by invitation only’ policy. It’s like a bar of ‘Green and Blacks’, much more serious about its chocolate content but approachable and with a wide variety of products on offer.

Coco De Mer however, is for your forties. It’s like a box of Godiva Chocolates; luxurious and out of the price range of most people. This erotic boutique offers riding crops with crystal studded handles, £470 ostrich feather ‘ticklers’ and some seriously expensive lingerie and bondage gear. Their sex toys are even ethical for fucks sake.

I was surprised at how much things had changed in the years since I last went sex toy shopping. Excuse me if I’m being naïve here but, hands free clitoral stimulators? A 'Blackberry' that you stick up your butt? Tongue Vibrators?

The hottest thing in vibrator land at the moment seems to anything made by Lelo. Although the ‘rabbit’ in all it’s forms is still probably the most popular item, the sleek and stylish, ergonomically designed toys by Lelo are undoubtedly the classiest thrill on the block. Starting at around £30 and in some shops reaching £100, I wondered if any orgasm could really be worth that kind of money? If it was, then I definitely wanted to try it. However; if I did spend that sterling amount, would I forever be calculating the cost of my orgasms? I worked out that if I came three times a week for 52 weeks of the year, I could get the cost down to about 65p per climax. Maybe that wasn’t so bad…

However tempting the thought of a £100 orgasm may be, I’m not sure that I am brave enough to part with that kind of cash, especially when I have been out of the sex toy arena for so long. What if, as Cupcake suggests, this is just the ‘Captain Stabbin’ phase of my pregnancy and that all too soon my lust disappears? Will I have a sleek designer machine simply collecting dust at the back of my cupboard? I could hardly resell it on e-bay.

As I peel myself away from my computer screen, with its promise of hi-tech, sexual sophistication and aspirational pleasure seeking, I remember that my son needs a new pair of shoes before his hulk like toes burst forth from his Clarks. I guess my bursting forth will have to wait…..


Needless to say I was paid fuck all to advertise these stores. If anyone would like to send me a £100 vibrator as thanks I would, of course, gracefully accept. No butt plugs though. I'm not a 'plug for a plug' kind of girl.

Saturday 8 May 2010

I got to wondering.......


It’s a dismal May morning. Awoken by some alcohol-sodden Kurdish guys beating the crap out of each other on the high street at 5am, we welcomed this timely alarm as Bushman was making his post-volcanic-eruption escape to Jamaica at around 6. In light of this, the fact that the election was a sham and there’s no bread in the house for breakfast there is only one thing to look forward to this morning: Sex and the City 2. (out May 27th)

It’s my only girly vice, (I don’t buy Heat or even Marie Claire and I don’t watch Desperate Housewives or Glee or any soaps) so ‘low it (as they say in jail). In homage therefore; here’s what’s been happening and what I’ve ‘got to wondering’ this week.




Chanel No. 5 spent this Wednesday striking over education cuts and marching to Trafalgar Square. All of this was done in a Louis Vuitton scarf discreetly tucked under a padded gillet. She left the Chanel handbag at home though because she felt that really was going too far. I got to wondering whether it was fair that one should cancel out the other? Still, you could just see the Sun headlines: ‘Teachers pleading poverty decked out in designer gear’

Meanwhile uptown…..


……Victoria Sponge was contemplating a Christening and wondering just how many phone calls a vicar has to return? While she waited for the vicar to call, she found herself experimenting with Cbeebies only to be thoroughly disgusted by the innuendo of ‘In the Night Garden’. She found 'Pinky Ponk Juice' particularly offensive.

Meanwhile downtown….


……Vivienne Westwood was hanging out in the Arts Café before her life drawing class in the hope of meeting her Napoleon. She also hung out at the Polling Station to see if love might turn up there……..Nothing.

I got to wondering….where do you meet the love of your life? Where do single women in their thirties go to meet men?

Meanwhile across town…….

…… Troutie was in the sonographer’s room with Bushman and son in tow. “We’d like to know the sex of the baby” she said. “I think it’s a girl and he thinks it’s a boy so which of us is right?”. The sonographer, imbued with the power of Simon Cowell on the X-Factor, allowed a moment’s grave and anticipatory silence before looking at Bushman and saying “You are.” as she turned to face Troutie.


So there you are…..it’s a girl.

P.S I’ve also been pondering the merits of Danish men (thanks to ‘Affluenza’ by Oliver James), how to wash a penis, how to fix a fucked-up piece of tapestry, what the policies of the Monster Raving Looney Party actually are, why I always have the hots for Laurence Fox when I’m pregnant and why girls are genetically attracted to pink (so I’m told)……but I’m saving all this for another time you lucky things.

Sunday 2 May 2010

Portrait of a Curious Trout



My dear friend Cupcake has zero patience and zero tolerance when it comes to surprises. Like a child she will badger you and drain you until you give in and tell her whatever it is she wants to know. She HATES not knowing something. So tell me how a woman like this can go the whole course and not find out what sex her baby is?

She is mortified that I am going to find out, especially since I have been saying that I would prefer the surprise this time.

When I was pregnant before I was fairly freaked out and wanted to know what I was having so that my brain could prepare itself. I decided that being pregnant in itself was enough of a surprise and I wasn’t sure if I could cope with anymore surprises.

In my mind I wanted a girl and had convinced myself that I was having a girl. When I was told I was having a boy, I did not hide my disappointment from the sonographer. Understandably I got the whole “You should be grateful that your baby is healthy” speech to which I replied,

“Well, I know I should be grateful, but that’s not how I feel right now.”

My life has often taken perverse turns and I’m sure this is going to be one of them, because now I really want another boy and I’m sure the universe is about to give me a girl.

Originally I wanted a girl so I could raise the next Boudicca who would charge into the world with as few complexes about her body, mind and role in society as possible. But then when I had a boy I thought, “This is great. I can raise a man who will respect women and not expect them to do the housework. I can fight this battle from the opposite angle."

So who knows? Next Thursday is the day when I hopefully get to find out.

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen……..

Now, for those of you still reading I’m about to break my rule and do one of those ‘meme’ things. The lovely lady known as 'Muddy No Sugar' occasionally invites me to join in these things, even though she knows I'm not really into them.

She's caught me at a weak, less bitchy moment and she is such a lovely lady that I am finding it hard to resist her this morning. So here goes, the whole thing, as required.


Apparently I must:

1) Thank, the person who has given you the award. Thank-you, Muddy

2) Copy the logo and place it on your blog. See here

3) Link the person who has nominated you for the award. Muddy


4)Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

1. I spent a year in the Caribbean building a house with my own hands.

2. I have three step-children in Jamaica.

3. My first ever job was as a Butcher's Assistant when I was 14.

4. My first ever job turned me into a Vegetarian for about 3 years.

5. I have a navel phobia.

6. I have had sex with a shameful number of men (3.5 - to be precise. Yes you read that right. Three point five. Not thirty-five. It should be thirty five. I am much more a thirty-five kind of girl than a three point five kind of girl.)

7. I once had sex on a rock on a nudist beach.

5) Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.

OK. This is a hard one. I'm sure anyone I nominate will have already had this. Secondly, because I am always hesitant about 'memes' I feel a bit bad passing them on to others. I'm going to do it because I said I would but if those I nominate do not want to take part then I will gracefully accept their choice.
Here goes:
1) Geekymummy, - because she's a scientist and that blows me away everytime. I could NEVER be a scientist
2) Belgravia Wife - Because she started blogging recently and I read a post of hers where she described the dregs of her food cupboard which made me feel hungry. When my cupboards are bare I have red kidney beans and vodka left. That's it.
3) Mwa - She's either had it already, or doesn't want it. Let's see.
4) Little Green Fingers - I don't have a garden of my own so I read this blog. I have this Felicity Kendal, 'Good Life' fantasy. Just yesterday I went out in dungarees and a check shirt. No lie.
5) Noble Savage - I only discovered this blogger recently. I will never forget the story about the neighbour and the placenta bucket.
6) More than just a mother - Another blogger who I've been reading lately.
7) Tapestry Face - who will never take part in this in a million years even though she is in isolation with some kind of tropical disease with nothing to do......

6) Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate Jesus Christ this whole fucking post has taken about two hours! Are we done yet? No wonder I never join in with these things.....

7) Let the nominated victims bloggers know they have been tagged Pending....