I love it when you post a new comment and this site responds with unfailing cheerfulenss with the comment ' Your new post published successfully ' . If only real life were half as optimistic. Fancy posting a letter and hearing the postbox cheer ' Your letter posted successfully' or flushing the toilet to hear your lavatory happily inform you that 'Your deposit flushed satisfactorily'.

Driving down a quiet side road. Man pulls out in his car from where he's parked about 100 yds up ahead. Sees me coming but aint gonna stop so keeps driving right up to my car until he's an inch off my front bumper. Gesticulates rudely , take this to mean he'd like me to reverse back up the road from whence I've come .... he certainly isn't going to. Anything for a quiet life so I obligingly reverse back up the road . Meanwhile he's still an inch from my front bumper . Car behind me now so I have to slow down. Arsehole in front of me drives into my car then calls me an arrogant b**ch. No wonder people give up driving because they find it too intimidating. Clearly an angry sort of a***hole type so can only hope he dies prematurely of a heart attack. One lives in hope.

There's a menacing little blue rectangle on my screen , bottom left corner that says, unpromisingly, AOL not responding. If only life could be like that. I'd love to reply to unsolicited or unwanted correspondence or phonecalls with an abrupt little pharse like ... Pissed off, not responding. When some people are told they only have 6 months to live , they immediately set their affairs in order. Not me , I'd start telling it like it is. How fabulous to be able to be rude to evryone you'd ever hated and not care , it's not as if you'd want them turning up at your funeral so what've you got to lose ?

Its very easy for a blog to fall into the category of moaning ground for everything that pisses you off. Much harder to find something positiv, uplifting and inspirational to write about . That may be because more things happen to piss you off than inspire you. I think the ratio is about 10:1 in which case for the last 20 moans I should have written at least 2 nice things. Maybe I should wait until something nice happens before blogging again but then that may not be for some time. See ? This is turning into another moan.

I've applied to become Sir Alan Sugar's next Apprentice . Mad isn't it ? I reckon it's about time he had a series devoted to SAHMs who want to get back into the workplace. The fact that I haven't even had an acknowledgement to my application probably doesn't bode well but I couldn't sit back and watch another bunch of hopeless cases screw things up. The one good thing about ageing is that it brings wisdom or maybe just the belief that you know how to do everything better than everyone else.

Just finished reading Mark Haddon's glorious book ' A Spot of Bother'. Sheer poetry and now I'm heartbroken that I've read it all and don't know what to read next that will come even vaguely close to being half as good.

The spa industry is positively obscene. I've just come back from a day at the Sanctuary. This was a gift from my husband who should know me better. In desperation he took advice from a bunch of twenty something year olds at work ( all smaller than a size 8).I'm pushing 50 and haven't seen a size 8 since my teens. Never been a spa bunny , never will be. Doubtless there are a breed of women out there who thrive on that sort of experience.
Here's the opening paragraph in their brochure, written without a hint of irony ...
' Every woman deserves to feel like a goddess from time to time.' Sadly this is unlikely to happen at their spa. I really don't want to sound ungrateful but if you've never been to the Sanctuary , think London in the 80's, white paint turned off white over the years, plastic cups of lukewarm water, last weeks Hello magazine on the slightly shabby coffee tables. The champagne brunch was a dollop of tasteless scrambled egg served with a slice of vacuum packed smoked salmon and a lettuce leaf turning brown at the edges. Pudding if you can call it that was on the same plate , a dollop of youghurt served with a tinny little teaspoon washed down with a glass of cava ( not champagne) in a plastic glass .
My facial was administered by a dull therapist and smelt of slighly rancid oil as did the stiff bathrobes and everything else in the place. Too much black mould on the tiled swimming pool for my liking.
My idea of a spa is somewhere on a remote island with an infinity pool spilling into the Indian Ocean and an array of freshly sliced fruits attractively piled on a rustic platter. Not some shabby backstreet affair where the only sound you hear over the tedious whalesongs on an endless loop piped into every treatment room is the wail of an occassional siren out on the street.
What un ungrateful cow I am. I really don't deserve a sweet husband who treated me to what he thought would be ' realaxation and pure escapism' .... the brochure's words , not mine.

Another day , another load in the washing machine another trip to Tesco's. I've just realised there's another good reason to Keep on Blogging ( apologies to Eddie Kendrix) is that when I'm dead and gone my family can see what my life was really like. There's this software you can get that counts how many times you use certain popular words in something you've written ... so for interesting people the words party, champagne, New York, loaded, Jimmy Choo, Harvey Nichols, Louis Vuitton, Paris, Mauritius, promotion would pop up several times . For mine the top ten list would probably read ....

Tescos
Sainsburys
Washing machine
Dishwasher
Homework
Ironing
PE Kit
Get off that computer ( do phrases count ??)
NOW !
Sorry

What would your top ten most used words include ??

I know the saying goes a picture speaks a thousand words but I'd like to change that to ..... a thousand words is better than a picture any day and anyway I haven't got time to work out how to upload pix and do the ironing and help the kids with their homework and prevent my world from descending into anarchy. So until further notice words are all you're gonna get here. It's been yet another 'one of those days'. I sometimes think that life is just like one big Apprentice ( as in the TV series) and that God is really Alan Sugar in another guise and that when we get to those pearly gates he's just going to tell us that we're fired.

Can't find the post I mad the other day - wonder whether it's orbiting cyberspace now ? Oh there it is below - phew , all that writing and nothing to show for it !

Want to know how a 12 year old would spend £20 in the space of 2 hours ?
Here's how ...

2 bags of Starburst
1 bag of Fox's Glacier Mints
1 tube of Jalapeno flavoured Pringles
1 bag of smile face sweets
1 tube of hair gel to add the 17 others he already has
1 tube of Millions sweeties
1 XL milkshake from Shakeaway
and he lent his mate £3
3 bags of popcorn
Well at least the last act was unselfish.

I'm relying on this blog for inspiration further down the line when I run out of stories although I don't think that will ever happen.

I'm trying to remember the kind of things I talked about on the phone to my friends the minute I got home from school having just spent all day in their company. What more was there to say ? Did I relive every tiny detail or had I just remembered something new and interesting that I'd forgotten to share with them all day ? Or maybe I just wanted to go over the good bits and laugh about the bad. I suppose it must have been good for the soul because I seem to remember spending hours saying nothing much at all but it all seemde so important at the time.
I was transported back in time the other day when I inadvertantly picked up the phone to make a call and found my 12 year old already on the line chatting to a school friend. The converstaion went something like this.

My Son: Hey - wasn't it funny in Maths today .... (long 7 second pause)
Friend: What ?.... ( equally long pause)
My Son: You know ..... ( painfully long silence this time)
Friend: Oh yeah ..... ( you get the picture)

I don't think I ever did find out what happened in Maths but they seemed to know and enjoyed sharing the moment. I'm hoping that future overhearings will reveal that his converstaional technique has improved ... that seamless give and take, talk and listen ... he's still learning the art of converstaion. I hope he learns it well.