Not all French men are created equal

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So, the one who ruined it all for me was Hot Frenchie of February 2014 fame.  Things would never be the same again.  The bar was set impossibly high in Paris that weekend.  With charm, dinner, a night time tour of the city of lights and well, you know…..

Fast forward to this year, and it seems that French is where I’m mostly at.  There was French Charles Manson,  who disappeared off the radar after suggesting sex would be a great idea for a second date, after just 45 minutes of chat over a café con leche.  With his tangle of unruly hair, and impressive beard, I must admit though, I had had a little caveman fantasy going on there.  But this was swiftly killed.  Dead in its libidinous tracks, when he popped up again a couple of weeks ago to tell me he’d shaved it off.

*NOTE: Men, NEVER, but NE.VERshave off your beards.  Think Samson, of Delilah fame.  Your power is gone.  Forever.

Sexy Chaarrllles Manson, is no more. Sans beard and hair...... *sob

French Chaarrllles Manson, in the bathroom at work. Sans beard and hair…… *sob

And then he sent me a picture of himself nekkid in the bathroom at work.  You know, like you do.

My guffaw on the metro was more for the situation he was in, rather than he himself, but I also think I might have discovered the missing link that day.  We all know that harsh, overhead lighting is never a girl’s best friend, thanks to the tantrums we have thrown in numerous changing rooms from Zara to Marksies.  Dude, what were you thinking?  The light bouncing off your downy shoulders, also helped to compound my ‘son of Manson’ perception, by creating your heavy, sullen gaze, peering from under a shadowy brow.  If a blood-soaked  axe had been dangling from your hand, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Or the carcass of a freshly killed deer.

I’d have laughed myself silly, if he’d been caught at it.  *Insert your funniest ‘excuse for being undressed in the bathroom at work.’ in the comments box at the foot of this post.

The second one who compounded my obsession with all men French, was the delicious boy from Toulouse, who I have just text, to advise him to start running workshops for men everywhere, called, “How to Seduce a Woman”.  I thought he should know how wonderful he was, after I had the most dreadful first kiss, possibly EVER IN MY LIFE (well, apart from the one that was accompanied by Eddie Grant’s “I don’t wanna Dance”, in the school disco, circa 1983).

You’ve either got it, or you haven’t.  I’m beginnning to think it’s innate.  Toulouse boy was rem. ark. able.  Chap last night, also from Toulouse coincidentally, however (let’s call him JC and not the saviour of the world), jabbed me with his exploratory probe, while pecking at my lips like a hungry sparrow, that just got the crumb.  He was French too, why couldn’t he French Kiss.  They bloody invented it!!  *sigh

With some gentle coercion, I cajoled him to put his foot on the brake, and soften  up a bit on the jabby and the pecky.  And yes, I could spend time ‘training’.  But honestly, who’s got the motivation for that?  He is good company, we have had some really interesting chats, and been to see some music and had something to eat, etc, etc. so date three, which I believe is on the cards, will be crunch time……

Is it really too much to ask that a man is French, one metre eighty tall (or thereabouts), with a beard possibly a few strategically placed tattoos, cultured, well-mannered, charming, owns a French bulldog called Pierre, and can KISS PROPERLY??

I think JC  might just blossom into a cool friendship.

Reasons why I don’t have kids #40

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Crippling disappointment in the partner choices your kids make.

Or just good old-fashioned bafflement, as in, “what were you thinking? Why? Just, when, what, who?”

When I think back on what my poor old mum has experienced, as I’ve breezily arrived wherever, heralding the arrival also, of one or other of the men I was currently dating, I thank the good Lord, I don’t have to experience it. Ever.

Take The Prince Fan.

The kitchen of my house, sometime in 1985

My kitchen. Sometime in 1985

Cerca 1985, I was 14 and the PVC-jean-clad, guyliner-wearing, mullet-sporting, fan of lip gloss standing next to me in the kitchen, was a year older. He was as blind as a bat, and not very bright, but I thought he was the coolest thing since …..well, since Prince. And pixie boots.  (Which he was also wearing.)

My dad was snoring away on the sofa in the lounge, affording my mum enough time to shoo us away, like pesky cat visitors crapping in her flowerbeds, before he awoke and caught sight of the lace-trimmed floppy cuffs I wasn’t wearing.

Thinking back to my dad’s pronouncement, on seeing Prince on the telly, that ‘it looks like a woman’. (Yeah, just like a woman with his super groomed micro beard and moustache).  And his further reaction to seeing the pop video for Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’, and asking, “what is that?”, referring delicately to Annie Lennox, with her gender stereotype-challenging shaved head and masculine suit, I think my mum was wise to wave us out of the house.

Prince Fan didn’t last long, as his cool sadly didn’t outweigh my embarrassment of him blindly stumbling around the record department of WHSmiths, after he broke his glasses.  And that’s where I left him, and last saw him, with a 7-inch Adam Ant vinyl, squished up against his nose to see the price.

Then there was the ambition-less ex-husband.
Nice enough, pleasant and funny, with not an ounce of get-up-and-go (but the air and pretence of quite the opposite), that my mum could detect at a hundred paces. My dad loved him.

For almost nine years, this relationship choice was accepted and embraced by my family, despite the feeling that it would all end in tears.  Because that’s what you do, support your kids choices and let them make their own mistakes. Even if it kills you.

Although we were no longer dating, Alcoholic Adam, tried to engage my mum in a conversation about cricket while bumming a fag, outside a jazz gig I was running.  She returned inside the restaurant to state, “he’s an idiot.”  She wasn’t wrong.

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“Sssshhhoooo, Anne’ssshshhhh mum, how yoooo doin’?”

And that is just the tip of the very, very large iceberg, the ones they did meet. Can you imagine the ones that never even made it across the threshold?

Case in point: the AWOL, (who technically, I’m still dating. Sincé 2001), the drug-running meat head, and Belfast Boy who (seriously) offered to burn down a professional bully’s business and dropped c*@t, every other word. Even when say, describing the delicate beauty of a butterfly’s wings.

I can’t imagine for one second, being able to mask my abject disappointment as well as my mum has all these years. Because we only want the best for our kids, and that stretches to partners too.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #40.

Dating world update

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Block, block, delete

Block, block, delete

After a week’s brief flirtation with different dating apps with different profiles out of curiosity, I found myself in possession of a handful of phone numbers, a date under my belt, two in the offing; and still none the wiser about why men are scared to just hang out and why they keep sending photos of their nether regions.  And I also then had a lovely, little surprise bonus, a good ol’ fashion bar pick-up at the weekend.  Aaahh, remember those days?  Boy and girl are in bar, boy approaches girl, boy chats to girl without the aid of a smartphone, boy and girl discuss the possibility of sharing a little time.  Face to face, in real time, real life. What’s not to love about a cheeky twenty-six year old from the South of France, positively oozing confidence, smooth-talking his way into your affections over a gintonic? Or four.   BUT (and this is an important but), all the while employing impeccable manners, being charming, polite, sweet and funny.  With you and all your girlfriends.  For fear of repeating myself, it’s the key that makes all the difference.  At no point did he say, “Fancy a f*ck?”  How refreshing. I took him home.

I appear to be a magnet for all things Gallic at the moment.  Well, not all things.  MEN.  And I kind of like it.

Fast forward to Tuesday, and Mr Interesting, from site one who I met for lunch last Friday, turned into Mr ‘I’m a complete and utter freaky weirdo, you should run away as fast as is humanly possible in the other direction’, nut job.

Having planned to pop out for a bite to eat and a drink, I explained that I had the possibility of some extra work to cover for a colleaue, so could we swap to Friday again.  This didn’t sit well, and I was the reciprocant of a tirade of insults ranging from ice queen to f*cking hypocrite (???) and an ensuing barage of a character assassination.  Knowing me so well, as he did after just two short hours.  Block, block, delete.  Jesus dude, relax, we had lunch, which btw, I bloody paid for.  No-one, but no-one likes a cheap loon-bag.  They’re the absolute worst kind.

The extra work didn’t transpire, so I accepted the invitation of the ‘don’t seduce me’ chap to go to Camp Nou for my first FCB experience.  It was a lot of fun and I expect we’ll do something else soon.  It was so very refreshing and enjoyable to just hang out with absolutely no expectations at all, hanging over my head.  Also, Monsieur South of France is still chit chatting, which is, in equal measures, both surprising and delightful, and he may be popping back to Barcelona in the summer. 

What an unexpected treat.

Happily enconsed alone in my new place, in an area of the city that’s never dull, a night out with the girls on the menu tonight, a couple of hotties in the bank, my health and happiness and a restraining order in place; what’s not to be cheerful about?

24 hours on Lovoo – I don’t know what I want

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Relax!! Let's go for a beer and have some fun, for Christ's sake.

Relax!! Let’s go for a beer and have some fun, for Christ’s sake.

STATS:

Liked me – 192, including Justin Bieber, Heath Ledger and Kurt Russell

Visitors – 112 (I know, I don’t understand this either)

Added as favourite – 6

No. of threatening messages – 0

No. of strops for no immediate return of greeting – 0

No. of people with tattoos on their FACES – 0

No. of p*nis photos – 0

No. of interesting people, who didn’t do any of the above – 0

1 million x uninspirational conversations

Lovoo, Lovoo, Lovoo, I’m not quite sure I understand the point of you.  You’re all about the bells and whistles, with flashing lights and booping things and you’re very colourful and all, in stark contrast to the few conversations I had during my twenty four hours gracing your pages.

The last 24-hours on another dating app, under another guise, of not knowing what I want and ‘let’s just go for a beer and see what happens‘, didn’t actually reveal as much as I had hoped. But maybe the nondescript contacts were directly correlated to my nondescript profile.  What did I expect?

It appears that, from the different reactions between the sites and my different approaches, the more desperate for a relationship you appear to be, the more you also appear to be ‘fair game’. In as much as, you’ll do anything or accept any behaviour, just to get a sniff of a potential relationship. Maybe send a photo of your breasts to a complete stranger, or not bat an eyelid when his greasy todger arrives in all it’s flaccid glory (what IS it with the flaccid shots? If you’re trying to impress me, that’s not the way to go about it), in your private messages.

Most baffling of all was the distinct lack of interest from the overtly sexual profile. But having gone for lunch with the only interesting person from site one, who also unfortunately popped up and rumbled me on site two (damn it, foiled again), I discovered something more interesting than I could have imagined.

I came clean about what I was doing, over a salad to Mr Interesting, who was happy to chat about his experience, and give me a man’s perspective. His theory about the lack of interest to ‘I want sex‘, was that recently, these dating apps were being inhabited by professionals. Meaning that prostitutes were now using them as an additional marketing tool. So for the chaps, seeing such a direct message as mine, probably made them suspicious of who I was having been stung in the past. When chatting to what they thought to simply be a pretty woman happy to chat a bit dirty, they were surprised when she then revealed herself to expect payment if he wanted the chat to progress any further.

Disappointing for the men, and worse than that, for any people really looking for potential relationships. Not only do we have normal competition from our peers and the younger, taller, blonder, we now have to contend with maybe slipping through the net completely – as gentlemen now need to sift through more and more women to get to the genuine ones.

It’s all too confusing, and frustrating. For someone who is simply looking to meet interesting people and seeing what transpires, it seems impossible. You are either perceived to want to only get married or want to only get laid; no middle ground.

And I don’t want the pressure of people thinking that I’m either of those.

Another chap who I chatted to during this week, seemed to be of the exact same mind as me. He explained, “I just want to meet new people. If something else develops, then so be it, but I don’t have an agenda.” We’ll definitely meet for a drink, with the following proviso agreed between us: “Just don’t you try and seduce me.”

If only it was always this easy.

24 hours on OKCupid – I want s*x

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Don't you?

Don’t you?

STATS:

Liked me – 19

Visitors – 49

Added as favourite – 0 (Hell’s teeth!)

No. of threatening messages – 0

No. of strops for no immediate return of greeting – 1

No. of people with tattoos on their FACES – 0

No. of p*nis photos – 0

No. of interesting people, who didn’t do any of the above – 0

1 x thorough telling off.

So, as I am the virtual world equivalent of, ‘escorted off the premises’, by OKCupid admin for lewd conduct, I remain none the wiser as to what it is that men really want from these apps.  Having received a torrent of interest, mostly sexually direct messages and a penis photo, in response to my “I want a relationship” profile picture, I was expecting to have to hire an assistant to sift through the mountains of responses to my “I want sex” profile picture on OKCupid.  Men want no-strings-attached sex, right?  Wrong.

At least, it would appear that’s not the case at all; if it’s the woman taking the reins.  With the caption scrawled across my grinning chops, I at least managed to raise a titter from a chap in France, who wrote in his native tongue, to say he thought my bare-faced cheek was brilliant.  I swooned just reading it, (even though honestly, I only understood about 1%), until he kindly translated for me.  It was a really sweet message.

But surprisingly, my photo appeared to be really offensive to most, (not least the App, who after approximately twelve hours, not only deleted my profile photo but also a sketch of a nude, illustrating my artistic bent, and most weirdly, a picture of my perfectly pampered tootsies), before removing me completely.   I had a rather lengthy conversation with a chap whose opening gambit was, “I bet you’ve been inundated with that photo, which is a bit of a risky thing to put out there, ‘as a woman.’”

Why?  It’s OK for gentlemen to publish naked almost down to the pubes shots, and ask ‘fancy a sh*g?’  We had a fairly heated conversation about it, after I explained that I was in fact doing a mini social experiment, (because he seemed like a genuinely nice guy), and he completely and utterly ripped into me.  Even after I explained my motivation for the ‘project’, that being my personal experience over the years of constant disappointment at the lack of charm, good manners and common sense.  He was pretty outraged that I was wasting people’s time as he, for example, was genuinely looking for a partner.  Maybe it was him that grassed me up to the App Gestapo.

What’s interesting about this, is that he was the first man, in approximately eight years of sporadically popping back on these sites, who had ever said that.  Usually, the rules are laid down from the off. “Not looking for a relationship“.  Or friendship, or the potential for either?  Relax, for Christ’s sake, let’s go for a drink and have some fun.  For the love of sweet baby Jesus!

Anyway, I felt bad for Mr Nice, because I understood his frustration and wished him well.  He told me to f*ck myself.  Fair enough.

Being upfront for twenty four hours was dull, dull, dull!  And maaaayyybbbe, just maybe, it’s dull for guys too, when they’re completely charmless, because for the most part women are not biting.  Obviously there are women out there who do, I understand that, but they appear to be few and far between.  Probably they’re not the ones up a pyramid in Mexico or on a boat with their mates or showing off their artistic skills.  Fully clothed.

Which begs the question, “Just exactly what was it that was so bad about my petite feet?!”

Awaiting your rapid response, OKCupid.

Puzzled of Barcelona. x

24 hours on Badoo – I want a relationship

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Marry me!

Marry me!

STATS:

Liked me – 171

Visitors – 367

Added as favourite – 19

No. of threatening messages – 1

No. of strops for no immediate return of greeting – 14

No. of people with tattoos on their FACES – 4

No. of p*nis photos – 1

No. of interesting people, who didn’t do any of the four immediately above – 1

I can’t believe people pay actual, real, hard-earned cash for some of the facilities on this app.  For the princely sum of a hundred credits you can promote yourself on the home page, but honestly, I’d rather use my 3.63€ to buy a glass of wine.  People hurl themselves at you anyway at first sight of some fresh meat, it being what it is after all, a cattle market.  You can pay to increase your visibility, thus your chances of getting laid.  Because that’s what it’s for, Badoo: SEX.  That’s not just my assumption, a nice chap confirmed it for me, so alarmed was he by my photo saying, “I want a relationship“, and moreso that it was my (heaven forbid) profile photo.  Damn!  You need to keeep that sh*t hidden, guuurl.  What you trying to do?  Scare the Beejeezus outta everyone?

After that response, I was honestly taken aback by the amount of attention I received.  But this also led me to believe the words on my profile photo had not been understood, or to be honest,  even seen.  Such is the fast-paced, throw-away convenience of simply swiping, left or right.  This is dating in the twenty first century.  A split second assessment, and you’re unceremoniously dumped in the bin.

The preferred method of communication here, was a machine gun, rapid-fire round of questions, swiftly followed by an arsey message, for not responding in their aceptable allotted time.  It appears, that being less than a millisecond.  I have a life, I’m working, or cooking, or preparing to gouge my own eyes out with spoons.  This approach garnering no response from me, an over-pumped body builder, then saw fit to send me the obligatory c*ck shot.  Wham! There he was in my inbox, like an oily, over-stuffed sausage, *with a chipolata garnish nestled betwixt his thunderous thighs.  He stated, “you could have 23cm“, which honestly, when you’re not using the empirical conversion, doesn’t sound overly impressive.

And, so it is I leave my day in Badoo world looking for a relationship, and decide where next to visit, packaged up as a lusty bird on the hunt for sex.  Based on the last twenty four hours, I’m thinking anywhere is fair game with that label.

*A word to the ‘wise’: Bodybuilders beware; your peepee is always going to pale into insignificance, no matter the size, if you’re a man mountain.  If you need to send a naked shot, because your conversation’s so dull, send one of your pecs, not your pecker.

You’re welcome.

Annie P x

Dating definitely don’ts

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You might have guessed, it might be apparent, that I am dabbling once again, with the dating scene….. then again, maybe not.  It will also probably come as no surprise to you when I say, I felt the need to republish my “How to be a nice sh*thead, Part II“, this week.  I’m always surprised, that I’m still surprised.

Marry me!

Marry me!

My reasons for this were a fizzly first encounter with a Hot French dude, who I’d initially made contact with two months ago.  We’d had a short chat and exchanged a few messages, which quickly faded to nothing.  He slightly resembled Charles Manson. What’s not to love about that?

Not long after I wrote my “How to be a nice sh*thead, Part II” post, instead of closing my account, as I had planned, I started sending men messages as they would.  For example, in response to a message for sex, I responded, “Can you guarantee I’ll have an orgasm?”  and, “Depends.  How big’s your penis?”  Funnily enough, not many responded.  Strange….  I honestly thought that was a fair exchange. Roll on two months, and  I received a text from French Manson out of the blue.  Hurrah!!  Coffee with *Charles (pronounce – ‘Shaarles’.), *knees buckle.  I kicked up my heels in delight and chose something to wear that looked like I had not at all spent a whole evening thinking about it.  We spent a little time, chit chatting, drinking coffee, blah, blah,blah…… maybe 45 minutes in total.  NOTE: this number is significant.  Things were happening downstairs, that I had not experienced for a little while on a date, he was hoooooottttt! In that scary, mass-murdery kind of way.  I fairly skipped home, head full of what it might be like to tumble with his broad-shouldered, smouldering manliness. After just an hour in a café I was fantasising, so you can imagine, I nearly imploded when later that night, he was keenly enquiring when the soonest time was we could meet again.

This was more like it!  But………  within twenty four short hours, that charming, shy, quiet Frenchman had well and truly rained on my fantasy parade. Planning the second date, I text him, “What are our plans for later?”, to which I received a puzzled emoji face.  Swiftly followed by “sexo?” For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, that’s ‘sex’.  So, here’s the thing.  Had he continued to be charming and funny and hot and said ‘dinner?’ there is a very distinct possibility, that after filling my boots, I may have filled my boots.  I have a three date rule, but rules can be broken, right?  But by being so blatant neither of us got our itches scratched.  When I said no, he cancelled. I sent the following response: “When something is casual, sex or something different at the very least I expect a little charm.  I find you attractive, so with another date or two and the same amount of charm and not the direct question, I’m sure it would have happened.  What a shame!”  Maybe he didn’t give a flying monkey’s arse, but I hope he slapped his forehead and said, in the words of the great sooth sayer Homer Simpson, “Doh!”

This disappointing exchange has prompted me to conduct a mini experiment with dating apps.  I’m spending 24 hours each on three different apps, with three different profile photos.  All the same photo with  the following:  I want a relationship, I don’t know what I want and I want sex.

I’m curious to see if the words register, even just al little bit, and change the kind of responses I receive.  Or if men really are just engaging the ‘if you throw enough shit, eventually some of it will stick’ method of getting laid.

And so the Anne Pank finishing school for men strikes again.  Sshhhhaaaarrlles Manson will take that information away with him, be charming and get loads of sex.  I fully expect to receive a thank you message, in the not too distant future.  What do you think the chances are???

*Names changed to protect the blunt

Oh Madonna how do I love thee

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let me count the ways……..

I watched the Jonathon Ross interview with Madonna last week, by the power of my brain magic (because I live in Spain and it would be impossible to see it any other way).  I watched it with

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Madonna still rocking it

the same excitement as the thirteen year old me, seeing her Like a Virgin video, touched for the very first time as I was, by her writhing her way all over Venice: on bridges, under bridges, across bridges, on rose strewn beds, in gondolas, with wandering lions (a problem in Venice at the time, I believe).  And most notably, her challenging gaze, directly into the camera.  “And what?”, “I’m sexual, you have a problem with that?”

My dad did, branding her a ‘slut’ immediately; as I ran out the door to buy the entire stock of lace fingerless gloves from the family owned department store, on the High Street of the small seaside town I called home.  And pixie boots, and all the beads and baubles and crucifixes I could find. And tube skirts and numerous skinny and studded belts to sling around my hips at crazy angles.  But not the BoyToy one, no, no, no,  that would have sent my poor father over the edge, God love him.  I did not want to be responsible for his death by daddy head explosion.  BoyToy was the 80s, pre-social media equivalent of a hashtag, #PreSocialMedia #BoyToy.

The next year, I went to see Desperately Seeking Susan alone and in secret and promptly committed to memory and took away with me her disco dance moves, to use on the *EF boys in Blazes, the local under sixteen disco.  And her sexy way of crawling over a bed – essential for any fourteen year old on a Sunday morning at home in the privacy of your own bedroom – with your parents and two younger siblings downstairs, and no audience.  And holding a cigarette and speaking, and just about everything else.  I LOVED her.  She was ballsy, she was feisty, she was so self aware, she was challenging, she owned it.  Everything. She was in charge from the start, of every aspect of her career. Critically, the film was terrible, but it remains one of my favourites. I saw her in the Girlie Show tour and I own a copy of her controversial book, ‘Sex’.

Love her or hate her, the woman is a pioneer.  Love her music, or hate her music, (and I have, in equal measures over the years. Though I have great expectations of a return to form with her thirteenth studio album); you can’t deny she’s paved the way for a certain feminine freedom of expression and for sure a sexual liberation. Periodically we need this. We’d hit the snooze button long enough, here was someone to grab us by the shoulders and shake us awake.

On the Jonathon Ross Show she was, in equal measures charming, funny, feisty, engaging. Same Madonna, different decade. In my opinion, she’s softened, maybe with motherhood (gushing unashamedly about her children), maybe with age.

She has her knockers, she has her critics, some of who suggested that she might have actually thrown herself down the stairs at The Brits. The woman is a glorious self-publicist, but seriously, who would put themselves at such risk, except a stunt person?

Apparently her daughter Lourdes said, “Mum, really?” in response to the photo of her flashing her bum cheeks at the Grammy’s. She explained that she has a cheeky voice in her head that sometimes tells her to do those things. My friends want to be thankful I don’t have a body like Madonna’s, the voice in my head is saying that stuff to me, all the time. The woman’s on the wrong side of 55, looking like that, why not show it off? What is this age limit on rebellion?

It’s difficult to put my finger exactly on how her influence has rubbed off on my ordinary life all these years. I’m not famous, I don’t make music. But I am a woman. It goes way beyond celebrity, because that’s not the only place you can feel the ripples of the pebble she threw into the pond, all those years ago. You can apply the basics of what she’s expressed to just simply being a strong woman. In any walk of life.

I know what I want, I know what I don’t want, and that applies to both my professional and personal life. And I do not suffer fools gladly.
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If that’s what I (and countless other women) have taken away from a lifelong admiration of one woman taking complete charge of her life, then long may she continue to challenge our perception of what a woman should be, (and flash those tight buns).

*EF – European Friends schools exchange programme. Summer EF time was my favourite time in sleepy North Wales.

An Ode to Mothers

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Don't drop the baby!

Don’t drop the baby!

It puzzles me endless, just what it’s about

the mothering thing’s as clear as pants full of sprouts

Patience and loving and selflessly giving

When d’you get time for that other thing, living?

You juggle and cook and balance the books

The broth’s never spoilt, ‘cos you’re ALL of the cooks

Throw into the mix, a daddy maybe

and you’ve got stamina to make another baby!?

Vomit and poo and doctors and wee

balanced by smiles and love and giggles and Glee (happiness, not the popular televisión show)

Today is your day for a very good reason

But it really should be on every day, of E V E R Y season.

(Basically you’re all amAZING. I can’t even keep a plant alive.)

*I’ll just be over here, having coffee with Roger McGough, waiting for my Nobel Prize for poetry.

Reasons Why I don’t have kids #39

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Complete lack of logic, humans are so complex. When I say humans, I mean me. 

Picture this, if you will, a happy family scene, possibly Sunday after lunch – perfectly prepared by me – hot cavalier hubby, has retired to the sofa to read The Sunday Times supplements, and twiddle with his moustache. The kids, a boy and a girl (obvs.) are on the rug, playing together building something advanced, way beyond their years. Little genius architects in the making, that they are. One comes to drag on my apron strings while they both shout for me to join them, building the stuff. “Oh sweetie, mummy’s so tired after cooking the four course extravaganza, inspired by Nigella (or Nutella, as the spellcheck suggested) and Jamie. Maybe later.” Cue two little confused faces.

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Don't drink and split

Rewind one week earlier, same time, same scenario, but in the company of friends and their kids. Urged on by a baying crowd and fuelled by half a bottle of red wine, that very same mummy has just scrambled up from demonstrating proudly how to do the splits, with a “taDA!! ” finish, and is now attempting a handstand against a *too tempting, lovely white wall, on a full stomach.

No sense, you see. They just wouldn’t understand.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #39

*This is factual. When I see a perfectly unspoilt wall, I have to fight an overwhelming urge to mount it.