BIG OOOOOPPPS!!!

Steve insisted last night that I had never mentioned my blog to him. I, on the other hand, insisted I had and had even shown it to him but he is adamant he'd neither known of it nor looked at it. One of us is going crazy. I think it is me! I think it is another menopause menace. I know that, lately, I have been a bit forgetful at times - like going into the shop for milk and coming out with everything but and not realising till I get home. But to forget a whole blog? Almost five month's worth of it? That is actually quite worrying. Or maybe it is just Me.

Now - where did I put my brain this morning?

WHY WOMEN WONDER...

According to a popular freebie newspaper, two thirds of young women have had unprotected sex with a new partner. Surely it logically follows then that two thirds of young men have also had unprotected sex with a new partner but does the popular freebie say that? Of course not. The same freebie, on the same day, said that women spend an average of seven hours per working day surfing the web and men only spend two or three. Seven hours a day! I rarely manage more half an hour and that is at eight in the morning when I know I have a bit of time spare before I actually start work.

It is the 21st century. Surely it is time for the battle of the sexes to draw to a close - yet the media keep on fuelling the fire! Maybe it is the fact I am going through the menopause and my hormones are all over the place but I am finding things like this increasingly offensive. As if my confidence hasn't had enough of a knock with everything else going on in my body over which I have no control whatsoever! Perhaps I am taking things too personally? Maybe, by responding angrily to something like this I am only helping to fuel that fire? I don't know. I only know that I think it is high time that everyone just accepted everyone else for what they are and not for what the media says they should be? Would a man be able to cope with the barrage of negativity that us girls face day after day after day? Somehow I doubt it. Men have some wonderful qualities. I find the company of men reassuring and interesting. Women also have some wonderful qualities and I find them great company too. I would hate to live in a world without either of them.

I just wish the media at large would have the same comfortable outlook rather than constantly pitting one against the other!

NOT RADIO GA-GA...

Well hello everyone. Sorry it has been a few days but there you go. Any fellas reading this may want to skip the next part but I just wanted to update you girlies out there on what's going on with my menopause! Don't worry - no long winded, graphic explanations, just a line to let you know that I am actually NOT over the worst yet! I was tootling along very nicely for a while but then ... things ... began to happen in the lower regions. Okay - to cut to the chase - I started a period that I have now been putting up with for three weeks ( I did warn you, boys!). I feel absolutely fine, have no belly ache and no other symptoms. I have spoken to the nurse at the doctor's pracice and I have also signed up with a website called Menopause Matters I I think it is http://www.menopausematters.co.uk/

The good news is that such odd behaviour in our bodies is very normal at our age and I have had a stack of messages back from other members who all assure me that it doesn't last forever and really does lead to better times. I was so relieved I instantly stopped worrying about it. I am still going to have a chat with the nurse on Thursday morning just in case there are any other shocks lined up for me during this weird phase in my life. I will update you.

Anyway - that is enough of that! Welcome back Gents. My Radio Mayday interview yesterday was fab. I couldn't believe how easy the programme presenter - a lovely fella called Trevor - made it for me. I was in the studio for an hour and the interview was done in three phases - The Book, Writing and the Environment. He led me incredibly well and I was not nervous at all. How could I be? I was talking about the most important thing in my professional life and it was great. He has said he will send me a copy on CD so I will send it to Sarah the Publisher who has said she'll put it onto the Yuck website for other people to listen to. I haven't heard it myself yet but Hubby said I was brilliant! But then he would, I suppose. The truth is that I just forgot I was being interviewed. Trev asked and I answered. It really was that simple. What's more he has given me some contact names of other local radio stations to try and get onto to. I will let you know how it goes.

There have been some other developments with Yuck. Sarah the Publisher has got something up her sleeve but won't say what so I have no idea. What she did tell me was that the book can now be ordered from any of the High Street book stores which is great and that it has been adopted for the Christmas season by a large Shopping Mall in Birmingham. As for me - well I am still bombarding the papers and other media with Press Packs, Promo fliers and Info sheets and I refuse to give up until it has been recognised by a lot more than the local papers and hospital radio (not that I am knocking hospital radio - yesterday only made me hunger for more and I will always be in Trevor's debt for introducing me to the power of the airways!) - but the book needs to do well country (if not world) wide and I will not give up on it under any circumstances!

Have a busy weekend coming up by the way. Grand-daughter is coming to spend it with us and I know she'll run Hubby and I ragged. We are planning to take her to see one of Santa's helpers in Croydon. I only hope she doesn't have hysterics when she sees him like one of our nieces did when she was that age. It isn't just the girls in our family either. Grandson became terrified the day he bumped into Ronald McDonald in Penge. It must have truly traumatised him because he still talks about it ten years later!

I will try to confirm that web address for any menopausal ladies out there tomorow. In the meantime, have a good evening!

(27.11.07 - THAT IS THE CORRECT ADDRESS FOR MENOPAUSE MATTERS!)

NO WAY JOSE

Have just heard on Smooth fm that Jose Mourinho is hotly tipped to be offered the England manager's job following Steve McClaren's departure after last night's humiliating defeat at Wembley! Please no! I didn't like him as the manager of Chelsea and I don't think he would have the England squad's best interests at heart. He is too full of himself and too critical of others if his team loses!

Had an in depth discussion with Hubby over coffee at Costa's this morning. Football is his second language and through him I have developed a healthy respect for, and understanding of, the game, I must admit I did not enjoy it half as much before I met him and now I am as keen on it as he is (when Alex Ferguson sent us best wishes from Manchester United on our wedding day, that just about clinched it for me) and we quite often have football-orientated debates.

Whether or not Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill fancies the job remains to be seen.

No disrespect but at least he's a Brit!

"THIS HAS GOT TO STOP"

Did anyone see the news the other night where the brother of yet another young victim of violence was talking to reproters? It made my heart bleed and my soul weep. Through his tears this young black man was imploring "Why do these things happen? We see other families on the telly about it and now look, we are the family on the telly." He then went on to say "Something has to be done to stop this. It isn't the police. It isn't racial. It is black people doing it to ourselves and each other!"

God bless that young man!

I must say that every time I see another news story about another youngster - regardless of their colour, race or creed - who has been shot or stabbed, another young life being snuffed out, another mindless, crazy, soul-destroying waste of a fellow human, my heart just goes out to their families, their communities, even their attackers who obviously think that, just like in the movies, anyone who is fatally wounded actually just gets up and goes off set as soon as the cameras stop rolling. But it doesn't happen like that. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzeneger and Mel Gibson may walk through a hale of bullets in their films and survive then go home to their farms or their mansions and their families but in Real Life, the victims remain exactly that - victims, and their demise unwittingly creates other victims in the shape of a mourning family, a grieving mother, a tearful brother saying "This has got to stop!"

How very right he is. How very open and honest he is. How very human he is. How very much he suffers now that his Bobby has gone. How very much his words slice into my subconcious and hopefully into the subconcious of every single human being before more kids die, more kids kill and more families are left in shatters. My heart aches at the madness of it all.

I know this is heavy stuff for 8.30 in the morning but that young man has haunted my thoughts and even my dreams - I awoke, heart thumping and in a cold sweat of terror at midnight after dreaming I'd been shot. It was still so vivid that I was actually reciting my address to the emergency services as I awoke and all I could hear was this weeping young man saying over and over again like an unhappy echo "This has got to stop!"

He is right. It has.

ATTACK OF THE MANIC SHOPPERS

I was somewhat surprised to note when I weighed myself this morning that since I stopped worrying about my weight I have lost half a stone! How did that happen? Where did it go? I think I will have to stop worrying about my weight forever; at least that way I might get back to my ideal weight (ideal according to the media you understand). I have heard of the phrase 'Think yourself thin'. Thin I will never be but thinner-than-I-have-been-of-late sounds quite interesting. Work that one out if you can!

Hubby and I did not get all the Christmas shopping done last Saturday, despite the fact we were in Croydon for around eight hours. Hubby - who was diagnosed diabetic eighteen months ago - was not feeling a hundred per cent which put a bit of a dampener on it, but it wasn't his fault. Plus the place was absolutely heaving. With five weeks to go, people were still shopping like there was no tomorrow. You couldn't move in some places, finding yourself hemmed in by a human wall of panic buyers behaving like weird dolls whose Prime Directive was to BUY BUY BUY. I have never seen anything like it this far in advance of Christmas Eve.

At five to eleven, the Debenhams Santa arrived, somewhat sureally, in a black and silver Rolls Royce surrounded by security guards. He had to compete for attention along with the Allders Christmas dancers (lots of little girls in red and fake-ermine) and the Town Crier to boot. It was complete mayhem. Hubby and I were sipping coffees in Munch in Allders Mall and all we could hear from the crowds pressing against the windows were their mindless Ooohs and Ahhs. At least there weren't any real reindeer this year, which must make the street cleaners happy!

Of course the fact we didn't get it all done heralds a repeat performance this Saturday. I'd like to think that everyone will have got the Christmas Shopping Fever out of their systems by then but I can't see it, somehow. In fact I am not at all sure I can face such retail craziness again so quickly.

I might just have to write to Santa and leave it all in his very capable gloved hands. No, not the Debenhams one, the real one.......

It's CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHRISTMAS has really arrived in Croydon! The lights are being switched on tomorrow but the decorations are already up in most of the town centre. In Centrale - which is our newest shopping mall - there is a huge Christmas Tree in the centre concourse with child-size manequins (I am not sure if I have spelt that correctly) perched all over it, waving and singing. Outside the food court on the second floor, there is a very busy Santa's workshop full of mechanical elves getting presents ready to go on the sleigh.

Across the way in the Whitgift Centre - our oldest established shopping mall - Hubby and I walked through yesterday and found a ginormous Santa's grotto in its centre concourse where there had certainly been no Santa's grotto a couple of days earlier. Add to all this the countless giant teddy bears wandering around beside various characters of fairy story fame, the live DJ playing all the old Christmas favourites at the main entrance of Boots the chemist, the steady backgroud kerching of cash registers on overtime and the glowing faces of the shoppers then you'll get the general idea. All this and the Big Day itself is still five weeks away.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. I love Christmas, never outgrew it and never will. Fortunately all my family and Hubby are exactly the same. But I just wonder if it all kicking off so early maybe distracts us a wee bit from the actual holiday. It also makes me kind of sad that the story of that incredible little baby boy, born in the poorest of circumstances around 2000 years ago, somehow gets lost in translation. And no, I am not about to start preaching - that is neither my place nor my job. I just hope that during the thrill, glitter and excitement of it all, whoever we are and whatever our beliefs, we don't forget how it came about in the first place!

Tomorrow, Hubby and I are going to get completely caught up in the festivities because we are going Christmas shopping Big Time, the plan being to get as much of it out of the way as possible. We have a huge extended family - Sisters, Brothers, Parents, Aunts etc - and have to set ourselves a strict budget, so much per adult, so much per child, except where Grandson and Granddaughter are concerned. We do still have a budget for them but it is a bit bigger than the budget for countless Neices and Nephews, for example. Next year we'll have Third Grandchild to consider as well so we may have to alter the perimeters a bit more - but let's get this Christmas out of the way first, eh?

Tonight - Hubby and I are going to see Status Quo Rocking All Over The World at the Fairfield Halls, so very much looking forward to that.

Have a great weekend.