Comfort Viewing....

Biscuits.


Chocolate biscuits.


Bourbons. Hob Nobs. Jaffa Cakes. Maryland cookies. Shortbread. You know what I mean. I'm sure the list of biscuits and cookies is endless. 
I'm not that fussed about them to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to open that lovely tin of Cadbury covered Christmas biccies in the staff room. I've even been known to enjoy a warm Millie's giant cookie on occasions (well, a bite or two anyway). 
But...I've never been one to devour a whole or even half packet in one go like so many people I know. 
I'm not passing judgement, don't get me wrong. Give me a bottle of Pinot Grigio and I can polish that off no trouble. It's just that when it comes to baked confectionery I am very controlled. One or two chocolate digestives will do me fine, thanks, and back the packet goes in the tin. 
It's the same with boxes of chocolate. I am a bit of a chocolate snob and only really enjoy the 70% cocoa stuff ("Because," suggests R,"It's bitter, like you.") 
And yet recently I have had to discard a box of Godiva (from sis in law) and I fear the Hotel Chocolat Champagne Truffles & Oysters will soon follow it into the bin. I only ate about 4 from each box. And it's not because I didn't love them, it's simply that I'm not that fussed.


What I gorge on isn't chocolate, oh no. It's telly.
Not all telly, you understand. Just certain shows with which  I fall in love and given the opportunity, with whom I will spend as much time as possible, particularly when I am low, stressed, or depressed. I don't comfort eat; I comfort view. 


I imagine it started with my obsession with programmes when I was growing up that transported me and my imagination away from my small town and my struggles at school. Back then we didn't have a VCR and there were only three channels so favourite shows were like gleaming gems in the darkness. Blake's Seven (series 3) aside I would usually only really watch shows that featured a nice handsome young man on whom I would develop a crush. The re-runs of The Sweeney in the early 80s resulted in a now embarrassing crush on the young Dennis Waterman and some fantasy stories  involving Det Sgt Carter & a Mary Sue (Google it!) written in my Superdrug Reporter's Notebook (had the Internet existed my 13 year old self would probably have put it on FanFiction.net).


Moving on in time I first realised I had a comfort viewing problem  when despite owning the DVD boxed set of all ten seasons of Friends I would still insist on watching it on T4 or E4 or wherever it popped up. 


"You've got this on DVD!" my husband and/or children would complain. And I would reply, always the same way, "But it's not like watching it live!" 


Could I be any more addicted ? 


But they were always there, and they were a constant, those six characters; never changing; there was a solace to be had there. They never let me down. I knew Chandler and Kathy would split up but I always rooted for them. I knew Rachel would get off the plane. I knew them better than I knew myself at times. When my daughter was in hospital following a major operation I would watch the re-runs on E4 and it was something from the normal world while in the bubble of morphine and catheters and checking BP that I could cling to. Comfort viewing at its finest.*
I think that's why the final ever episodes of Friends and to a lesser extent, Frasier (the spin off from one of my 80s favourites, Cheers ) were so poignant. Finally things had changed. Tme to move on.
Except it wasn't was it? I could return to the beginning, to the fresh starts, everything was possible for those characters all over again. Rachel in her rain soaked wedding dress; Frasier rolling his eyes as he took reluctant delivery of his disabled dad and his horrible armchair. 


Since the London digital switchover, I have access to all the channels! So the comfort viewing has extended to The Big Bang Theory on E4 (all together now - We Built The Pyramids!) .
I care about those characters. Even Wolowitz. But mostly Sheldon.
He's not crazy. His mother had him tested. 

But my number one Comfort View over these difficult last three months or so has been a home grown series. I suspect the fact that like me, it has Essex roots , is a factor, but not wholly. The writing is genius if you just listen to the flow of the dialogue:it's Gavin and Stacey, which ended in 2009.


I honestly don't know where to start to describe how much I love this show. There is so much in it that really is my extended family. Mick's lamb. Christmas Day sharing out the presents after lunch. The Indian meal ("I ordered it - it's mine!") . I could go on (I won't). So much sweetness and affection between the characters it never fails to charm me. I know all the words. I know all the characters. And they are constant. And there's a comfort in that constancy and that's why I love it. It's why I return to it time and again. For that sense of sometimes discordant family; but it's always all right in the end. 


And that's why I love to comfort view.


Susie 'Tell Me Tomorrow I'll Wait By the Window for You' Sue 


x


*If you look hard on FanFiction.net there still exists my 23,000 word Friends story. It's patchy but not bad in places. I'll finish it one day.

Sometimes I'm Waving

April is the cruellest month, according to T S Eliot, and this one's certainly been a contender for that title. 


It's been the tightest month money-wise we've ever known. I began the month in an exceedingly despondent mood (being off work actually didn't help; too much time on my hands)  but as we've hurtled towards May I have started to feel in control. Which is strange because having no money to fall back on would , a year ago, have made me feel very frightened indeed.


As it happens I've been extremely resourceful. Oh, and point of order, my local Tesco - I know when you bump up a price 20p in one week only to reduce it 21p the next and claim it as part of your Big Price Drop promotion ! I'm watching you. 
I've discovered that Value pitta breads at 20p for 6 are very tasty toasted. That gammon steaks are 2 for £1 and lightly grilled are rather nice. That the jars of value pasta sauce (39p) taste the same when mixed in penne pasta as the more expensive alternatives (yes, I could make my own but tins of chopped tomatoes are 36p anyway and after a long day at work I'm not in the mood). That 49p round lettuce and 20p coleslaw still tastes good as long as it's fresh. That potatoes at £1.69 for 5kg still make good roasties in 39p lard.
I'm using all that stuff I've had in my store cupboard til it's empty. The cous-cous and the seasonings and the linguine, and trying to use them inventively. It's a challenge.
These are the days when I am waving at you from the pull of the tide as I attempt to swim to the shore.


Then there are the days when I am actually drowning and no matter how hard I try to convey it, no-one realises. That's when I feel most alone. 


It is Depression Awareness Week. 


I first wondered if I had a problem when I was 17. I did not leave the house at that age over Christmas and New Year for three whole weeks. My mum was embarrassed by me, I know she was. I recall her telling me, Mrs Wotsit down the road asked how you were because she hasn't seen you and I said, well, she does go out sometimes ...  (I didn't). I couldn't cope with my changing world. I hated my school. The security of childhood had gone. 
But I had been brought up to face problems and not to circumvent them. So I soldiered on over the years, until I reinvented myself when I finally started a job after University and met my husband. 


It was having babies that brought the whole damn lot crashing back down on me. I  clawed it back after Teen was born eventually, even though there were long isolated lonely periods where I was at home alone and knew no-one in the neighbourhood except Maria from next door-but-one who was very very kind and I to whom I very am grateful to this day.


It was in 2001 that I finally realised this couldn't go on . 


I had returned to work after the birth of Boy when he was just 20 weeks old. I was already down to size 8 by the time he was 11 weeks old. I went to a new building (old -female!-boss didnt want me back -too hormonal)a new post, new computer system, new people, new everything. On my first day there was no-one there to say hello. The boss was on leave. No-one knew what to do with me. My lovely friend Kathy (and I still count her as one to this day even though I hardly see her any more) took me under her wing and tried to explain the system to me. We were were promptly berated by a nasty middle manager for 'talking too much' when there was a senior manager in our midst. I was denied training and only received it eventually because my former manager (feeling guilty no doubt) allowed me back to the West End office I had loved being in so much, for a week, to get some.


It was two weeks before Christmas 1999. I was rock bottom. I had left the office in Shaftesbury Avenue where I had been training and passed the (now gone) All Bar One on Cambridge Circus. Through the window I saw my former colleagues gathered around a low table, drinking, laughing, a team, like I had once been part of. I stood outside the window and looked in. I willed them to notice me; to smile and wave and gesture, "Come and join us!" but they didn't.


I remember trying to put up the tree that year. Teen was just five. I am ashamed to say I literally couldn't cope with dressing that tree in 1999 and I hope she doesn't remember what a state I was in. I was a snotty, tearful mess. You shouldn't put a five year old through that. 


It took nearly two years to go to my GP. He was very good. Gave me pills and sent me on my way.


A decade on I no longer take them, haven't in ages. I do not say this a good thing; it's just a decision I made. I have removed-for the time being anyway-the cause of much of my current unhappiness. I am not saying I shouldn't take those happy pills but I have identified the source of the recent depression, and taken control of my life. 


And that's good.


So for the time being - I'm not drowning - I'm waving. 


Susie (Both Sides Now) Sue


x

'Beliebers' & Why I Have Decided to Forgive Them.

I can't drive.


Actually, scrub that, I can drive, in that I know how (sort of), just not legally on my own, and certainly not safely, accompanied or otherwise.
Like Dr Sheldon Cooper, I don't drive.


As luck would have it I have free transport to work each and every day. I walk. 


It's just over a mile. When the kids were younger I used to have to walk back and forth for hours (I once covered 8 miles in one day). I honestly don't have a problem with that , although there are times I feel like it's a huge waste of time when I could be home and getting on with the ironing.
To pass the time, usually in the mornings, I listen to my lovely shiny electric pink iPod Nano.


This isn't always a good idea, as I tend to suffer from bad ears and I suspect it lessens my hearing ability these days ... but what the heck. Trust me, if you want to walk fast, a quick burst of Chelsea Dagger will have you quick stepping down the road. 


Anyway this morning I put the trusty Nano (she really needs a name after all our time together) on and there he was, on Songs/Shuffle: Donny. 


Donny Osmond.


I was barely at infant school when I first saw him on Top of the Pops . Absurdly young I admit. Before the advent of videos there existed promo films and there he was in this one, reclining in a field of daffodils, singing Puppy Love . And he was singing it to ME. 

Before long my infatuation extended from Donny and his cover versions of songs from the Fifties, to his beautiful long haired sister Marie (Oh how I wished I was named Marie and not Susan!) and eventually to a real appreciation of the talent of the Osmond brothers, which I feel is overlooked to this day.


The Osmonds were a band of brothers , under the iron rule of their father, who had a real collective singing talent, possibly nurtured by their religious roots. The youngest brother soon emerged as the star.


Remind you of another group from around the same time ? 

I joined the Osmonds fan club. I knew their hobbies ( Donny loved electronics; Wayne flew Cessnas). I knew their favourite colours and appreciated the inserted colours in their flared trousers in the Love Me For A Reason appearance on Top of the Pops. 

It was deeply uncool to like The Osmonds, and even between the ages of 4 and 8 I understood this. The advent of The Bay City Rollers (YUCK!) only served to undermine their brilliance. 

The Osmonds wrote and produced their own tracks, I don't think many people realise that. I challenge you to listen to  Let Me In without shedding a tear. 

I stopped listening long before I left Primary School but I never forgot. I never forgot the vinyl LPs I got for Christmas, or the smell of that very first cassette recorder and the tape of the Love Me For A Reason album and the associated huge excitement on my birthday (Christmas Eve). 

 Which is why I guess, I still have an Osmonds playlist on my iPod. 

But there is also this... 

Imagine a wholesome all-American boy. A wide, perfect, white toothed smile. Great skin. Floppy hair across his forehead. A pure unbroken voice singing sweet but rhythmic love songs to pre-pubescent girls.... 


That was Donny back in the day. 


That's Justin Bieber now. 


Imagine if Twitter had been invented back then. Osmond fans would have been trending every little detail of Donny's life and no doubt having on-line spats with the Roller's Tartan Army. 


I've been as guilty as the next person of judging young Justin's ability and so on but ... given my Donny crush, and Osmond-mania, and all that went with it, who am I to judge ? Plus ca change, as the French say, plus c'est la meme chose....


But I bet he doesn't look as good as Donny still does when he is 54.


Susie (One Bad Apple Don't Spoil A Whole Bunch Girl) Sue
x


PS if anyone knows where I can find the Osmonds track Gabrielle I'll be very grateful...

Mommie Dearest

It was the first day back at school on Monday for Boy, Teen and also me, as I work as a Teaching Assistant at our local primary school.I'm kept pretty busy; not a moment of my day is unaccounted for. I've been pulling a 30 hour week recently for extra money rather than the 24 hour one I have been used to (no more afternoons home alone!) and it's proved pretty tiring.But on the upside  no two days are really the same when you work with kids and you are never short of a challenge.


That aside, this blog is about my daughter and our recently somewhat strained relationship.


As I've indicated, Peter's been regularly robbed lately to pay Paul, and we've had to cut back. I've been buying shop or value brands rather than named ones, for example - although to be honest haven't notice any real differences. We've had lots of pasta dishes (love that cheap penne !) and I've been using up what's in the store cupboard. We still eat pretty well, and given that I have to cook two sessions (kids starving by 5:30 - R not home til 7pm) I think I do OK. 


But oh the guilt that I cant provide all the things Teen wants at the moment. Or the things Boy probably wants or even needs but is too quiet to tell me about.


Teen is working exceptionally hard for her imminent AS Level exams and I applaud her for it. But it feels to me at the moment that every time she deigns to speak to me it's simply to ask for money, or to complain.
Don't get me wrong. She's wonderful, beautiful, talented creature. But it's as if when it comes to me, her mum, she has a blind spot. I cease to be a human being. I'm actually Joan Crawford. I may as well be screaming, "TINA! Get me the axe!" every time I speak to her.

I veer between patient and really rather cross with her. Which sometimes prompts the response "Mother, are you bipolar?"
Things came to a head (of hair) at the weekend. I was doing the usual weekend shop (micro managing the cash as I shopped - adding 68p to 89p to £1.19 in your head while dodging people you don't particularly want to stop for 20 minutes to chat to isn't as easy as you might think) and I was under orders to get her some hair dye. She likes to be blonder than she actually is. Now I knew that her roots had grown out, so I purchased root touch up.
Mistake.
Boyfriend was due within hours having been absent at Centerparcs in Belgium for a week and this was all wrong !!! 

After a heated exchange involving the whys and wherefores of her not being able to do the exchange for a Clairol SB1 instead of me due to still being in her PJs, I reluctantly headed back to the supermarket. Doors may have been slammed.
I look at the colourant; I haven't brought any money with me and the colourant is way more expensive.
I get home again, really hacked off now, and the boys are making noises about lunch. I'm a tad stressed and have a theatrical flip-out before heading back to the supermarket for a third time.


"DO I HAVE MUG WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD?" I storm on my return.
The boys are laughing at me. I'm not very big, 5'1" and size 8-10 so I look a bit silly when I'm trying to be menacing. 
"WELL SHE CAN DO IT HERSELF!!!" I say, passing her the box. 
"Fine!" she says, and disappears to the bathroom.


Things are frosty.


Ten minutes later...


"Muuuuuuum...I don't know what to doooooo...." 


So I end up colouring her hair for her, even though she is 5 inches taller than me and I can hardly reach unless she sits down. We find an uneasy truce. 


She disappears to her boyfriend's home and I don't see her again until Sunday night, by which time she has missed my large and lavish  roast beef dinner. She takes my disappointment for anger and we're back to square one.


I suppose what I am saying is that I am intensely proud of this unique feisty individual, who sings like an angel and understands science and maths and music scores that all look like Greek coupled with Sanskrit to me, is confident and beautiful and is living her life to the fullest in a way I was too scared to do at her age. 


But ... I just wish she'd stop and think- maybe mum's upset because she's frustrated ? because she can't lavish money on me when she'd love nothing more? 
Maybe the fault is with me - maybe I put too much emphasis on money? 


Anyway. She's upstairs now Skyping the boyfriend having come home and voluntarily done a mock maths paper.


I can't complain about her, truth be told. But blimey, it isn't easy. 


Mommie Dearest
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082766/


S
x

Introductions....

So. I have a blog now. I am blogging. I'm a blogger.


It's very possible no-one will ever read this. I can't say that's completely fine by me, given my insecurities and low self esteem; but equally given my tendency to wear my heart on my sleeve and spill too many beans about my life to anyone who will listen, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
I think I am half seeing this Blog as a place where I can do all the talking I do that irritates people, by putting it into words (or rather pixels).


I've seen lots of Blogs lately. People with books to publish or promote; people with careers to advance; those with opinions to voice; mummy bloggers with little ones just starting on parenthood and making sense of their journey; parents with children who have conditions that they battle every day of their lives and who I admire more than words can say.


I'm not special. I have none of the above. I'm just a girl (even at my age I think of myself as a girl-I loathe being referred to as 'this/ that lady' in shops) trying to make sense of life.


I am married to R who is my rock in life and who I love intensely but is also the person who infuriates me the most. No doubt there will be more of that if I continue this. I have a beautiful talented teenage daughter who also drives me bananas. And a pre teen son who is my baby and the light of my life. Except he's taller than me now and isn't keen on my calling him 'baby' anymore. More on them & the fact I hate yellow food (except sweetcorn) at a later date.


I have a complicated family on my side (not ready to go there yet) and In Laws who are quite frankly both lovely and barmy and maddening all at the same time.


I cry a lot. I am a sucker for rom-coms but I also appreciate good cinema (or I like to think I do). I love stories of all kinds  - in a former life I graduated from London University with a 2:1 in English. I couldn't live without music ,although you'll find little on my iPod that was recorded after 2000. And I love telly. I'm not a snob about what I watch, can't stand pretension. I don't care if you think I'm uncool, I am, I'm so un-hip it's a wonder my bum doesn't drop off.


Oh, and I'm a grammar nightmare. I have been known to correct erroneous apostrophes on public posters  with my eyebrow pencil. (Omission or possession people - NEVER plurals!).




I love wine. I love food, particularly Indian & Chinese/Malaysian. I love to travel,yet paradoxically I am a terrible traveller (who else gets a nosebleed merely on the way to Gatwick?) . I cant drive. I'm superstitious. I'm fiercely loyal. 


Basically I can talk you (and drink you) under the table.


So. 


This is me, then, trying to make sense of stuff, where there's too much month left at the end of the money, too many teens, parents, pressures, the odd sprinkling of depression... just muddling through. 


S
x