A Political Game

So after the recent political hiatus, things seem to be settling down but I have found it all absolutely fascinating.

I've stopped short of posting what I think here over the election period, but comments I have left on other blogs have probably given away my political allegiance! I thought though, just for a bit of fun (and in a massive name-dropping exercise!!), I would give my take on some of the leaders that I have met over this campaign and leave you to match the names to the descriptions - some of them were surprising, I have to say…..

Over the last six weeks or so at the various events I have been involved with, I have met Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alex Salmond, Ieuean Wyn Jones and Nick Griffin !
And here in no particular order are descriptions of each:

a) Very charming and he greeted me, as he did last time we met, with a warm handshake and an apology for forgetting my name. He seemed genuinely interested in what I would be doing over the election period and had a lovely twinkle in his eye when he spoke about his family. He apologised again for breaking our conversation when an aide came to tell him something. He then revealed with a deep laugh that it was the latest football score for his team.

b) More pleasant than I expected but he tried too hard to be personable which worked against him. He pretended too hard to be interested in what I was saying, nodding away like a Churchill dog. He tried to be tactile too, even though it didn't come naturally and so made me want to recoil. The people around him looked really quite scary and I didn't feel at all comfortable in his presence. He was like an awkward overgrown schoolboy.

c) Very entertaining! The sort of person I would love to go out to dinner with as he tells a story well, though he has a very sharp side as I saw him cut someone down in a discussion about tax. However I know he took a shine to me and he made me laugh a lot and in turn, laughed at a couple of things I said which is always a winning quality as far as I'm concerned! We talked about the X-Factor versus Strictly Come Dancing and how he thinks British TV drama is pathetic compared to what the Americans do. I loved him and he clearly loves the company of women.

d) This one reminded me of my dad a bit. Nothing to do with age or the way he looks but just something quiet and unassuming about him that seemed quite unusual for the leader of a political party. I warmed to him although he wasn't the best conversationalist I have ever met. We had a jazz band at the event and he was quite enthusiastic about them. He just seemed faintly old-fashioned and I liked him because of it. He didn't even seem to have a mobile phone - just kept talking into the ones his aides kept bringing over. Very cute!

e) I was genuinely shocked that he looked at my boobs as he shook hands with me. He was polite enough but not particularly warm although he did keep touching my arm during conversation in a very practised way. I noticed his ready smile always faded quickly and that he spent more time with his aides than in working the room.

f) Polite and pleasant enough but also somewhat aloof and clearly indifferent to anyone when there wasn't a camera around. I got the sense that he wasn't listening to me during our brief chat and was too busy looking round the room for better opportunities. The only thing that did impress me was that he came over to say goodbye and remembered my name (I'm so easily enamoured by that sort of thing, I can't tell you) !!

So that's it and now, I leave it to you to work out. Bet you don't get them all right ......

Second Thoughts

Maybe I was a bit harsh before.

As ever, I spoke to the therapist about how I was feeling and he told me that I am NOT a man hater. That I only had to look back at my history with men to know that. He suggested that actually, I adore men! That I enjoy their company and revel in the attention they lavish on me which is, rightly or wrongly, what validates my existence.

He said that perhaps with the exception of Ewan's mistake, none of the men in my life had actually treated me "badly". They just didn't treat me the way I wanted and were just flawed, as so many men (and yes, women too) tend to be when it comes to being honest in relationships.

He said any emotional damage I suffered came because I allowed it. I didn't take steps at the time to notice the danger signs and even if I was aware of them, I didn't do anything about it. So when the inevitable happened, it was easier to blame all men for being weak and dishonest and claim to hate them all rather than to look at the reasons that past relationships have ended the way they have.

Quite brutal ! But the therapist is very good at covering that iron fist with a velvet glove so that it doesn't hurt when he delivers the blow. It only begins to ache once I have left and start to mull over what he has said. I've been thinking about it a lot and even though it pains me, of course he's right.

Just knowing that makes me feel much better

Not Happy

I haven’t felt like posting in a while.

For one thing it has been really busy and I have been travelling around the country working on various election events. I have a couple more, one later today and then another on Friday which could be a celebration do or a sorry everyone, we didn’t make it but you were brilliant event . It really should be an exciting time and I should be riding the wave of success as, so far (touch wood), everything has gone very well. I watch all the younger staff who are working on their first election events and they have so much enthusiasm, but I’m just going through the motions with that false smile on my face.

In truth, I feel I’m being dragged back to that pit of depression that I have worked so hard to stay away from, what with the therapist and some soul-searching posts on this blog. It feels like I have said so much recently, digging right down inside of me, that I’ve been left feeling a bit empty. I didn’t think I had anything worthwhile left to say. So, I was going to write a dutiful post urging everyone to go out to vote, no matter who they support. Because this election, every vote will count to make sure the right party are in power.

However, my dear friend, Nancy has been on my mind recently.

She is the same age as me and has three children, but last year she discovered she was pregnant….with twins, They were due in February but Max and Maisie had other ideas and arrived early in January. They weren’t in the special care baby unit for very long. Although they were both tiny (and oh, so cute) they are both strong fighters, like their mother, and so she had them home at the beginning of February.

During the pregnancy, she often confided in me that she didn’t think she wanted the babies and couldn’t face the thought of putting her life aside again to look after them. She said she knew it was selfish and she hated herself for those thoughts but that she couldn’t help it. I have to admit I understood what she meant. This time of our lives is when we see the light. Our babies have grown into young adults and are about to set off on their own and we get to discover ourselves again. I have loved every minute of being a mother (well almost!) but having to start over again would be something I would find incredibly difficult too.

However, after the twins arrived and for that brief time when they needed special attention, Nancy was in a frenzy, praying that they would be OK and begging for forgiveness that she could even have considered that she didn’t want them. I was with her on the day they took Max out of the incubator and put him in her arms and she looked like a little girl again, lost in wonder and love as she cradled her beautiful new son properly for the first time. I’m welling up now thinking of that moment and how any feelings of doubt were long gone. She has since been a great mother to the twins and of course her three teens have been a real help and so, surprisingly, has her husband, Will.

They got married when they were in their early twenties but he has never fully appreciated just how lucky he was to be with a truly beautiful woman. In fact, because he had got himself a successful model, I think he thought he could get any woman he wanted. And so he did. He has been unfaithful to her so many times and they have split up and got back together more times than I can remember. The thing is, as much as I should hate him, I have to admit that I have always had a soft spot for him. He is great fun, incredibly good-looking and a real charmer and when he is not being a complete arse and looking at other women, he is an amazing husband and father. It is because of that, she always takes him back. And every time she takes him back, she gets pregnant! And he promises to change and he does for a bit and then he blows it. And now, when the twins are not even four months old he has done it again. A few days ago, he told her that he had met someone else. That this time it was different and that he was moving out. That he was sorry and that he would always be there for her and the children but that this woman understood him in a way that she never has and that Nancy would be better off without him.

We all spent the day with her on Bank Holiday Monday. She is trying to be very practical and matter of fact about how it has happened once too often and that she is used to it and that this time it really is over and she will never take him back but she won’t deny him access to the children and that she can cope because she has before …but the fact that she kept dissolving into floods of tears betrayed just how devastated she is.

Ewan was so lovely to Nancy and told her that he would be speaking to Will to find out what the hell is going on. He is a quite a wise thing really and he was very hands on with the twins, helping Sasha and Kyle to bathe them and put them to bed. But since we came home that night, even though he has done nothing wrong, I can’t bring myself to talk to him. I know he is confused.I haven’t slept for the last couple of nights and have been in a silent, seething rage that seems even worse this morning.

Sasha has always laughingly called me a man-hater but I realised last night that there is such truth in that. I am so angry with Will. But I’m also angry with men in general that they always seem to come out on top no matter what they do. And I’m angry that like so many women, I am weak and pathetic and have let them do me such emotional damage over the years. I know that yet again I have turned this round to be about me but it has triggered something deep inside of me.

I am seriously pissed off and I want to behave like a child and have a tantrum.

Such Glee

I miss singing so much. It has always provided an outlet for me that I can’t seem to find anywhere else but at the moment I can’t return to my singing group while Matt is there.

However …… a new Glee-style show choir has started near where I work that operates on a drop-in basis.

I went last night. We sang “Someone To Love”. We did all the parts, everyone was having a ball, I sang at the top of my voice and I have to say, we made a great sound!

Today, I am beyond happy !!

That Long Hot Summer

My lovely blogger friend, Ian published a post a while back that reminded me of the long, hot summer I had between leaving high school and starting university.

Just two days after I finished school I took a selection of clothes round to my friend's house for her to borrow on her family trip to Austrialia. She lived on the same road as Mr Delaney. I said goodbye and left her at exactly the same moment that my gorgeous economics teacher was leaving his house. He greeted me very warmly and asked what I was off to do. When I said nothing he asked me if I wanted to go to the pub with him. Of course I said yes! And that was the start of a relationship that lasted the whole of that summer.

Of course, as my teacher (I was 18, he was 28) he probably should have steered clear. But technically, I was no longer his student. We both knew it was something to keep quiet though. He never asked me to but I instinctively knew it was likely to cause trouble and so it was my big secret!

But it wasn't as seedy as maybe it sounds. He was such lovely company and I think he saw me as his very own "Pygmalion" project. He took me to art galleries and exhibitions and the theatre and he even introduced me to opera. We did "La Traviata" long before it was a famous scene in "Pretty Woman". And we went for long romantic walks and picnics. He was a great cook and he made me some fantastic meals on the nights I stayed over. He also introduced me to fantastic sex and taught me just how to make a man happy…. and said that I was a very good student !! Sometimes we just spent days in bed.

I loved the time I spent with him but he was clever enough to make me look forward to university and all the opportunities I would have there to continue to broaden my mind. So, when it was time for him to go back to school I was ready to say goodbye without any tears or angst (well, not much!)

I never saw him again. I heard a few years later that he had been out with my friend's sister for a short time, so he clearly had a thing for young girls but then, a few years after that, I heard he had married one of the games teachers at the school. I was totally shocked because she didn't seem to be his type at all. She was from New Zealand, was at least the same age as him (if not older), had a crazy, mad perm and looked and sounded like a man! The last I heard, about five or six years ago was that he'd had a heart attack and a friend told me that she saw him in town once, looking very old. He can only be in his fifties so that didn't sound good.

I wonder if he ever thinks of me. I'd like to see him again - just to say thank you. He was gorgeous and made a woman of me and gave my confidence a huge boost.

Whatever anyone else may think, I really do treasure those memories.

One Hundred Today !!

So, I was all fired up to write the follow-up to my last post, when I noticed that this entry is my 100th! ONE HUNDREDTH !! I have written a hundred posts. I mean I know that’s not such a big deal, given that I started the blog back in 2008 but still….a hundred !!

That’s a hundred little peeks into my sad old life! But actually, writing those one hundred entries has made me not so sad….. I think! It has certainly helped me along a path of discovery.

So I think I’m going to pat myself on the back! It’s not something I do often but I will today. It’s Easter after all. I shall sit back this afternoon munching chocolate and smiling at how very clever I am !!!

I’ll go back to the “woe is me” writing, next time ……. !!

Back To School

Both my children are busy revising for their exams. My daughter has her A-levels this year and my son takes his GCSEs. I feel sorry for them as their Easter hols won’t be much fun with the amount of work they have to do.

It has made me think back to my school days. I studied English, French and Economics for my A-levels and the only reason I took Economics was because it was taught by Mr Delaney!

He was also one of the games teachers and was often wandering around in his shorts. And he had a little dark-green MG sports car. He was so good-looking - all the girls thought so. He was a dark-haired version of David Soul in his “Starsky and Hutch” days. When I was in the fifth form, he winked at me once as I was heading back to the girls’ changing rooms after PE and I thought I was going to stop breathing !! (In those days nobody of the opposite sex noticed me, unless it was to take the piss out of the train-track brace on my teeth and my lank, slightly greasy hair!) But because he bothered to wink, and because he was so gorgeous, I decided to take Economics!

It was when I entered the Sixth Form that I think I started to become more aware of myself. I went through a bit of a dramatic change. The brace came off to reveal gorgeous, straight white teeth and suddenly it was easy to smile, which I did readily. I had a soft perm (come on it was the eighties - we all had one, even the boys!) and so that limp hair was suddenly voluminous with no hint of grease. Eyeliner and lipstick became my best friends and with no school uniform to hold me back, I used “Dallas” (the soap, remember?) as my fashion inspiration, particularly Ms Victoria Principal who played Pam. My legs had suddenly lengthened and the puppy fat on my thighs and hips had fallen away and so I was either in skin tight trousers and heels (which helped me to walk with a bit of a sway) or dresses with tight belts and huge shoulder pads. Come on, I looked fabulous !

I became aware of male attention for the first time in my life and finally got myself a proper boyfriend. He was one of the best looking guys in the school so I was seriously impressed with myself. I made him wait but at seventeen, I finally had sex. Probably the last girl in the school to get round to it but at last I was a proper “woman”. Thing is, I didn’t like it that much. Well what was to like? It was usually hurried and a bit fumbly and just not particularly pleasant. He certainly didn’t take me to the heights that Bobby clearly took Pam to (in “Dallas”, remember??)

I gave it just over a year but then I decided that I really needed to concentrate on my A-levels and stopped running every time he called and so, he dumped me!! It was OK. I was stressed with all the revision and my mum going on at me all the time, I didn’t need bad sex as well - though obviously at the time I didn’t know it was bad sex.

Looking back, it was probably for the best that the sex was dull. It meant that I concentrated on my revision without any desperate longing for what had been and it also meant that there was oh, so much better to come !