Sometimes my children play a game where they repeat the same word over and over again unti we all think it sounds really strange. Say ‘box’, or ‘unusual’ too many times and both sound and look wierd. Wierd is also a wierd word.

When I was putting make up on the other day it suddenly seemed strange to be painting my face. I think it was because I was watching a home decorating programme at the time. Suddenly it seemed very odd to have to colour my face in every day.

Ironing my clothes this morning, I found myself straightening my hair half an hour later, and realised that despite the wording, I had also ironed my hair (or straightened my clothes.)

We wash cars, floors and selves, put oil in cars, add omega 3 or olive oil to our diets. We cut our hair and file our nails, cut our grass and trim hedges.

We repot plants and move to larger homes.

Plants, animals and humans all guzzle water.

We all know all these things but it seems wierd when you really think of all the parallels there are between humans/animals and plants and the process of life.

Why is it that frequent car adverts state ‘one lady owner’ as an inducement to purchase a car? Adverts stating ‘one male owner’ just don’t exist.

What is it that ‘one lady owner’ means a car is a good purchase? Do one lady owners really only poddle around town rather than burning up the motorway to go to the Edinburgh Festival , Glastonbury, Totnes, and a drive through the tunnel for a long French weekend.

Rubbish. One lady owner has often had all kinds of adventures in her car but those that put these ads in are usually traditional (boring old fart chauvanists) with traditional meal serving, husband knows best, wives who have never dared drive further than the post office or the local school.

This means that the car is good, but if you are a woman buying it you sooooo want to meet the wife and somehow help her escape and see a life beyond the confines of her macho prison.

Trouble is some women are happy that way – no major bills to pay, no huge decisions to take, and all the long journeys in life navigated by somebody else.

At least many more of us steer our own course, and if we do own a poddly little car it takes us on so many adventures that it usually dies and gets scrapped rather than ending up (shamefully) as a ‘one lady owner’ ad.

Hit songs playing in cafe’s and pubs in television soaps and dramas., actors eating or drinking brand name products on films or television, sports shirts, ads on websites and blogs, stars endorsing perfume or make up… the list goes on. How can anyone bring children up to be free from consumerism when it is almost in the air we are breathing?

How is it that a burger company were ever allowed to get away with bribing kids to stay loyal by offering gifts, and calling unhealthy, fatty meals, happy?

How is it that fizzy drinks machines, emblazoned with the Coca cola logo ended up in schools?

Why is it that children end up wearing football shirts emblazoned with their product names, and because everyone thinks ‘football,’ few think why are we letting our kids walk around as glorified billboards?

I had the most wonderful carrot cake yesterday. Moist, fresh, with the most delectable creamy yoghurty topping. As I munched I felt a sense of childlike cheerfulness colour in my mood.

It wasn’t cheap sweet, fatty or breadcrumb coated rubbish, but a really delicious treat and it got me thinking about foods that lift our mood; not because health books tell us they will, but because they really do.

Carrot Cake
Home made, well made, oozing naughty health and sweetness.

Chocolate
Dark and as pure cocoa as possible. A beautifully presented box of Belgian or Swiss chocolates are also wonderful.

Honey
Drizzled on things, stirred into warm milk, eaten off the spoon. There are so many types to try, herb, heather, flowers…

Ice Cream
Home made, or the best manufactured from pure ingredients without additives.

Chicken Soup
Why a portion of roast chicken doesn’t have the same mood lifting affect I don’t know.

Home Made Flapjacks
It’s like eating a hug. Bought ones may taste great (though few do) but they just don’t work.

An apple fresh from the tree
The smell as well as the taste is mood enhancing.

Organic strawberries and clotted Devon cream
Try to spot someone eating without a smile.

Hot buttered crumpets
With honey…mmmmmmmm!

Treacle Toffee
Ishloverlyanshtickybuddushyerteeffin.

Wandering around the stores the other day I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff, and choice of foods, beauty products, clothes, equipment, labour saving devices, jewellery and so on.

We really do have it all (even if we can’t buy it all this minute!) For instance there are umpteen products for every area of our homes and every appliance within every area of our homes, for our cars and each separate part on it, and our bodies and every bit thereof.

These are just the products I could use for one of my legs:-.

Razor, Delapitory cream, body lotion, moisturizer, cellulite cream, fake tan, real tan, henna tattoos, deep heat treatment, nail varnish, nail file, foot cooling lotion…. and a bucket load of corn plasters, athletes foot treatments etc.

I wonder how different my leg would feel if I tried a week using all of the above, and followed it with product free week, or vice versa.

Apart from momentary gratification and a hairy leg, I doubt there would be much difference!

.

One of the hardest things about being a single mother is the combination of being girlfriend to very single (no kids) partner and mother to 3 kids. I feel I have  a split personality when I make packed lunches and worry about children wearing their coats, and then act flirtatious and horny on a night out with Gary, all in the same day.

When I’m in mother mode, love and lust seem a million miles away but when I’m in passionate embrace mode, my mother genes don’t go, but they seem to hide, giving me the chance to be woman me as opposed to mother me.

Given a straight choice, obviously the mother me would be ‘it.’

Married people somehow combine the parenthood and sexual being thing which is very clever.

When you are single you come with kids, but they are your kids. You don’t necessarily want your man (not their father) to engage too much with them.

So you live life as a mother and a lover, almost separately.

No wonder you’re shattered.

When I am nervous I can talk for England. Someone asks me a question and I just babble an answer and carry on. In fact often I am so nervous I do not answer the question because I have not heard it and so I am babbling on some wierd tangent of my own. For some reason (probably because I know I’m being stupid) my babble is interespersed with loud laughter. Nobody knows what I mean but they all laugh back, encouraging me to babble further.

Those that phone at the most inconvenient times will always have this. They start to tell you something, veer off at the first fork in the conversation to tell you something, connected with the first something, veer again at an extremely fascinating thought connected to the second something, veer again as they remember something about the original something which is also connected to something that is not connected to any of the original somethings but which leads to further fascinating somethings.

Why do these people always phone when you are unwinding, cooking (and now burning) a lovely meal, eating (and now gulping down) a wonderful dinner, bathing, or sleeping. Why are they always sensitive types so you can’t just be honest and get rid of them but have to pretend you are absolutely riveted by them and their conversation …blah blah.

I have a tendency to worry which,worries me, especially as Chloe has inherited the same tendency and worries about everything.

She does her homework and worries about marks she may get or getting it in on time. If we go shopping she worries beforehand the we might not find anything that suits her. When we’ve found the perfect garment she worries that her friends may not like it or that I might shrink it in the wash. Meanwhile I also worry that I might shrink it or accidentally dye it in the wash.

I worry that she is a worrier and there is nothing I can do to help her. She worries that she worries me and tries not to worry, or at least to tell me about it.

The extra worry in having someone you love worrying is exhausting!

Why is it that I can wake up perfectly happy and feeling trim, energetic and happy on some days and on others feel like hippopotamus. It doesn’t matter if I have eaten lots, or not or whether I am slimming  or not. Some days are fine, other days are fat days which I waddle through feeling as heavy and ugly as a old tyre.

People who know me must be bewildered because on happy bouncy thin days I am so friendly and cheerful while on fat days I sludge around keeping my head down and saying as little as possible because I feel so lumpy. The thing is, they don’t know I’m having a fat day so they must feel I’m a moody cow which makes me feel even worse.

I am a bit of a yo-yo dieter and while not fat, am not skinny either and tend to go between ok and slightly overweight, but nothing like the great obese mass that I feel in my head.

The thing is, that other women also have fat days so what causes them and is there a cure? Apart from chocolate that is.

The state of being without a handbag. This is not a word, but it should be because it is a definite state of being. Recently I left my bag at work and in order to get it would have had to had the caretaker come and re-open the building.

I decided that because I had my keys (car, house) I could manage without the bag for one night as I had not planned to go to the shops, would not need money (unless there was an emergency) and had some make up at home so I could look reasonably presentable the next morning.

However the empy disorientated feeling made me realise that the need for a handbag is not just the stuff it contains but the security of having a kit that makes sure we are prepared for almost anything. That’s why women’s handbags contain so much . Feeling as though we might be in any situation without the right equipment is scary, and that’s what a handbag is all about. Providing adequate tools for any situation life throws up.