Things my mother taught me

     To be honest, it’d be easier to title this ‘Things my mother tried to teach me’. My mother is the kind of practical, resourceful person, product of a 1950s childhood in Norfolk, who can tackle pretty much anything. God knows, the poor woman has tried to pass on things to me, but I am utterly cackhanded and irresponsible compared to her.

     She was taught to sew and knit by her mother, and when I was about eight, she decided to pass on her knowledge by teaching me cross stitch. We were both amazed and delighted by how quickly I managed to master it and I undertook my first ‘project’, sitting on the sofa in the living room. It was a success! Right up until the moment I stood up, and realised that I’d managed to sew my project to my stripy Chelsea girl wool leggings.

     Skimming stones. I know I used to be able to do this. I distinctly remember standing on the edge of the lake at UEA with Mum and feeling the joy of seeing my stone bouncing across the surface of the water. Determined to impart my knowledge to The Boy a few months ago, I confidently demonstrated my skill during a walk at Blickling. The first stone sank like…a…stone. The second stone did the same. Third stone, I followed through a bit too much, my front foot skidded forward in the mud, my back foot remained rigidly where it was, I nearly did the splits, fell on my knees, and the fecking stone stubbornly refused to skim. Mum selected a stone, span it across, and it bounced five times before it vanished.

     I would love to know the things my mum does. The names of plants, trees, birds… The kind of information it’s actually useful to know, and good to share with others. She must have told me the same things over and over again for the last 34 years, and yet, nope. None of it ever sticks. It’s as though I expect her to always be there to tell me these things, so my brain tells itself ‘No need to worry, you can rely on Mum to tell you, go into standby mode.’

     I am magnificently lazy. An absolute slut when it comes to housework. It’s not that I’m lavishly messy or grubby, I just can’t be arsed to clean the windows. But my mum doesn’t just do the stuff that has to be done (washing up, laundry, emptying bins etc). She actively seeks out housework to do. Honestly. My house is never cleaner than when she stays with us. Firstly, because I go into a mad cleaning meltdown ahead of her arrival, but mostly because I’ll come back from the school run to find her descaling the iron I never use, or polishing brass. How do you train yourself to be that kind of person? The type of person who doesn’t always have at least one dusty glass of water on the bedside table? It’s a skill she hasn’t managed to transfer to me.

     Or liking sport. She is 62 in six weeks time, and she is healthier and fitter than I have ever been in my adult life. Growing up, if Mum wasn’t at work,  she would be taking an aerobics class, or playing tennis, or having a squash lesson. Now it’s slightly more sedate activities, like golf and going for U3A walks, but still. She tried, again and again, to turn me into an athlete, but it was always doomed to fail. Like the tennis class where I was the oldest by four years, and got soundly thrashed by bloody six year olds every week. The time she tried to get me to go to the gym (pulled a ligament, couldn’t walk properly for weeks). The gymnastics class where I hit my head on the wooden floor, puked with shock, could never face going back. The only thing I was ever any good at was swimming, but that withered up and died when I was a teenager and became very aware of what I looked like in my costume.

     But for all that, she has taught me a lot. And we are more similar than we are different. I am a demon at creating brilliant meals out of sod all, thanks to her. I never go long without laughing, thanks to her. I love to sing, loudly, thanks to her. I dance around the kitchen, thanks to her. I love to go for walks, thanks to her. I’m not, and never have been, a helpless girly girl, thanks to her. I can be hugely bolshy and bloodyminded, thanks to her. I watch people, and notice not just what they say & do, but also why, thanks to her. If I’m faced with a challenge that people think I won’t conquer, I go all out to do it, just to prove them wrong, and prove to myself that I can do it, thanks to her (this is known as her ‘Christmas Tree’ and my ‘High Tor’ mood). I know the lyrics of every Beatle song recorded, thanks to her. I know the history of my parents, their parents, their lives, thanks to her. I know the value of a handmade kangaroo, given to a three year old girl.

     So to a wonderful mother, with wrinkly skin*, thank you Memmy. Thank you for teaching me what is important.

     Besos,

     Benjamina

     *There are two people in the world who will get this joke. I am one. You are not the other. Unless you are my mother.

Smothering Sunday

     I have been reliably informed not to expect much on Mothers Day. We have a big summer holiday coming up, and all available funds are being diverted towards that. To be honest, I’m not massively bothered. The things that I want can’t really be bought in any case. Just in case any of the three Blondies are reading this, here’s my handy guide to what I really would like to receive.

     Not a lie in. I don’t want a lie in. Lie ins in this house always end up the same. The Girl tiptoes into our bedroom, whispers in my ear ‘MUMMAY! HUNGRAY!’ Alistair stirs, mumbles. I keep my eyes squeezed closed, and pretend to be asleep. ‘MUMMAY!’ Alistair rolls over, mumbles sleepily ‘THE GIRL! LET MUMMY SLEEP! COME AND GET INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE BED! AND SLEEP FOR A BIT LONGER!’ The Girl delicately replies ‘HUNGGGGRAAAAYYYY!’ Alistair whispers back ‘OK I’LL GET UP IN A MINUTE! JUST BE QUIET SO YOU DON’T WAKE MUMMY UP! SHE’S HAVING A LIE IN!!!!’ By this time I am wide awake and silently, poisonously furious to no longer be sleeping, and get up to feed The Girl. Alistair then says ‘Darling? What are you doing up? Go back to bed, have a lie in.’ My eyes narrow, my lips tighten and I hiss ‘I’m AWAKE now.’ So I don’t want a lie in. I want sleeping pills. Pills that will knock me out for upwards of twelve hours. And perhaps an afternoon nap on the sofa.

     Alcohol. Wine will do the trick nicely.

     Food. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A Pot Noodle and a bag of Mini Cheddars. Just as long as I’m not the one making it, and more pertinently, the one who has to clean up afterwards.

     I know it’s Mothers Day. But can we make it Fathers Day instead? So that if The Boy is sitting next to Alistair in the dining room, and I’m upstairs having a shower, The Boy doesn’t get off the sofa, amble upstairs to me, and say ‘Muuum? Can I have a cup of tea?’ resulting in the inevitable response of ‘You have TWO parents! Ask your father to do it!’

     Alcohol. Gin is good.

     I would quite like, at least once, to be able to have a wee undisturbed, and without having to chat about Moshi Monsters/Monster High/Animal Jam/CBeebies. A small thing, but a distant memory.

     Alcohol. I’m fond of Pimm’s.

     No chocolate. I’m really not a massive fan. I don’t mind it, but I don’t really buy it for myself, and massive slabs of the stuff have never really held any attraction. If you feel you ought to buy me some, then a Double Decker is fine. But really, I’d prefer wine gums.

     Alcohol. I quite like cider.

     I don’t want anything shop bought that in any way references ‘Mum’ ‘Mummy’ or ‘Mother’. I know I am a mother. Believe me, I know. It’s hard to escape knowledge of this, especially when the three of you are at home, and I can’t hear myself think, or walk across a room without standing on a Lego brick, or have a single day when I’m not battling the ever growing washing pile. Even the times when I’m on my own, I know I am a mother. All I have to do is look at the stripy stretchmarks on my boobs, or catch sight of my ‘wobbling and withered tummy’ (thanks to The Boy for that description). I know I am a mother.  I don’t need shop bought cycnically marketed tat to remind me of it.

     Alcohol. Baileys. A Baileys coffee is a good thing.

     No ‘funny’ presents. No ‘novelty’ presents. It’s just more crap to fill the house with, when we’re already teetering under an avalanche of toys and stuff I’m not that keen on in any case. Let’s face it, it’s stupid, it’s pointless, I won’t find it amusing in the slightest, it’ll never get used. And I will resent you massively for frittering away money we don’t have (according to you). A home made card, cuddles, and ‘I love you’ is enough.

    Alcohol. I’m really not fussy.

     Food. Actually, I don’t even mind if you buy the raw ingredients for a meal and I end up cooking it. Really, it’s fine. What I do want is to be able to cook, undisturbed, in my kitchen, without the three of you leaning against cupboards I need access to, moving things I’m about to pick up, and ‘helping’ me by stirring things that don’t need to be stirred, then knocking over the saucepan of sauce I’ve just spent an hour preparing. I enjoy cooking for you. But I cook best when I’m not being asked ‘What are we having? When will it be ready? How long will it take? And how long is an hour? Is it ready yet? What are we having?’

     Alcohol. I’d even settle for a pint in a beer garden. Really.

     I love you three very much. You make me happier than I ever knew it was possible to be. You light up my life, make me cry, make me laugh, and I can’t bear to be away from you. But on Mothers Day, please just give me a little space, please.

     And alcohol. Obviously.

How are YOUUUU?

     I just had a bit of a weird experience on the way home. Walking with The Blondies, we passed a woman, a bout my age, who seemed familiar. Stop.

     ‘Hi Lucy!’

     ‘Oh, wow! Hi Jane! How are you?’

     ‘Good, thanks. How are YOUUUUU?’ Her head tilted to an improbable angle as she asked me, her eyes taking in The Boy (stuffing his gob with Skittles) and The Girl (inksmudged face, remains of lunch on her dress), before returning to me, in my laddered tights, my rucked up skirt (it's my bloody BAG), my side plait and boots.

     And I knew exactly what she was thinking, with the clarity of many years experience. It's happened a few times in the last four years.

     We were at school together. We weren’t really friends, but we knew each other, and got on reasonably well enough, just different groups of friends. We’re connected on facebook, but haven’t seen each other since Sixth Form. But. Her mum is friends with my mum. So doubtless my mum has told her mum about me spectacularly losing the plot a few years ago. And almost certainly Jane's mum has told her. And Jane has almost certainly told the people we were at school with. ‘Oh my god! Did you hear about Lucy? She had really bad depression and tried to KILL HERSELF! Yes! Even though she has two kids. She must be really fucking MENTAL. I bet she got sectioned or something. Her mum told my mum that the POLICE brought her home a few times. Can you imagine? Well, she always was a bit odd, wasn’t she? Do you remember that time she…’

     I can see them, the simple, straightforward girls, with their swishy hair, having a ‘cheeky glass of wine on a school night’ or even during a hen do, gossiping and picking over the bones of someone they never knew all that well, and know even less now. Speculating about what I did, why I did it. I’m almost certain that one of them would have thought me selfish. Also that they probably think it was ‘a cry for help’, that ‘she didn’t really mean it’. I know that because some of my 'proper' friends have been there on those nights and got into arguments on my behalf.

     And thanks to the eyebrow plunging, fake concern face of Jane, I know full well that the next ‘Ooh, haven’t we done well to all stay friends since Year 8’ Girls Night Out, Jane will be telling them ‘Guess what? I bumped into Lucy a few weeks ago! I think she’s still… a bit… Just felt sorry for her kids, really.’

So, Jane, here’s what I would I would have liked to say to you, had time allowed. If I hadn’t had The Blondies with me. If we hadn’t had to pretend to be polite.

     ‘Nice to see you again. Yes, you’re right, I did spectacularly lose the plot a few years ago. I’m much, much better now, thanks, even though you didn’t ask. But I can tell you want to. I was very ill. For a very long time. But I’m much better now. It scares me that I could have been that ill. Just one thing – yes, I know it’s human nature to gossip. I do it too. But when you’re having your girly chats, and I come up, just remember that it could happen to you too. Depression doesn’t discriminate. I never thought that I would attempt suicide. But having been so mired in utter fucking misery for so long, I am truly happy now. Because I have found something in me that makes me so very happy that it’s infectious. So it’s not just me that’s happy, it’s my family too. Can you say the same? No? Oh.’

     Headtilt.

    ‘Jane! How are youuuuuuuu?’

What hope?

     Sometimes, you read something that so perfectly expresses itself, that the words become ingrained in your mind for the rest of your life. I had that experience with the following passage from Roald Dahl’s The Twits, read when I was about six.

     If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

     A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

     Whenever I think of it, I always, unfailingly, think of the Hard Faced Bitches of high school. Does every comprehensive have them? There was a clique of them in my year at City of Norwich School, who liked to spend breaktimes in the Year 9 toilets, smoking Embassy fags and slagging off most of the other girls in the year. They ignored me for the most part, because I wasn’t competition – as a teenager my own face was magnificently sour and unattractive to boys of my own age – and a few of them were in my formgroup. There was always some enormous drama engulfing one of their number, usually involving someone else's boyfriend, a houseparty and the morning after pill, and they didn’t care who knew about it. Their faces were permanently scowling, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. They existed in a permanent state of pissed off, and by Christ, could you tell.

     Every day they could be found in a haze of cigarette smoke and Impulse bodyspray, shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel, pushup bra on display, skirt rolled up until it barely skimmed their bum, slagging off most other girls in the year and proclaiming that they didn’t give a fackin’ fack (blatantly untrue, they gave lots of fackin’ facks, indiscriminately and often, with no thought for birth control). The rest of the girls in my year were queasily intimidated by them, terrified that one day they would be target of the Hard Faced Bitches. It happened a lot, you see.

     We’d be minding our own business, sitting around the table in Room 9 at lunchtime when one of the Hard Faced Bitches would march in on vertigo-inducing heels and ask the room at large ‘Where’s that fackin’ slaaag Debbie Jones? Ave you fackin’ seen ‘er?’ Debbie would cower, and try to hide under the table. The Hard Faced Bitch (now joined by the rest of her posse) would march over, poke a finger at Debbie’s face and then issue a stream of fackin’ invective at her, usually something or other about she’d heard that James fancied Debbie, and f Debbie knew what was good for her, she wouldn’t touch him, because everyone knew that Hard Faced Bitch #3 was TOTALLY going to have a crack at him in Chapelfield Gardens on Saturday (I avoided these evenings – for some reason, hanging out in a park, drinking cheap cider, puking behind a bush, and then getting fingered by Ian Wilson didn’t appeal).

     When the Hard Faced Bitches left CNS after GCSEs, the rest of the girls heaved a collective sigh of relief and thought our days with them would be over. But for me, it’s turned out to merely have been an interval. The Hard Faced Bitches are back. And it’s impossible to ignore them. Because now they have children at school with The Blondies.

     They’re not the same Hard Faced Bitches, of course. But they share certain characteristics. A love of trowelled on orange make up, larded with aggressive blusher. Cheap knock off boots. Clustering around the school gates to smoke their faaags (I’m a smoker by the way, so I don’t judge them for smoking, just where they choose to do it). An inability to keep their voices down (again, I have a large laugh, but talking is done at normal volume). And their insistence on every other word being fackin’ this and fackin’ that (look, I know I swear A LOT – arsefaced twatboil, anyone? – but not like them, sprinkling every sentence with expletives like confetti). Their faces, always appearing to be itching for a reason to call someone a beeyatch and give them a slap. And most of all, their behaviour.

     Let’s get it out of the way now – I am not an Ace Parent. By nature, I am chronically lazy, disorganised, and I procrastinate. My house is messy, I am very bad at the routine stuff and I definitely do not do the things most parents do as a matter of course. On the other hand, my children are happy, confident, and very secure that I love them. That’s my parenting priority. I might forget to send in dinner money, but I will always go to parent teacher interviews. Maybe forget to check if faces have been washed before we do the school run, but never neglect them when they want to talk to me. There have been some monumental fuckups along the way, which have resulted in tears all round, but emotionally, I am there for them. Unconditional love is an utter bastard at times, but that’s what being a parent is, surely?

     So it angers me when I see how the Hard Faced Bitches treat their children. The mum who has her toddler on reins so short that he dangles like a marionette, toes lightly scuffing the pavement, and she doesn’t notice. The families where despite never speaking to any of them, I know all of the children’s names, because at hometime every day there are bellows of ‘OY! AYNGEL! CHARLIE! GET BACK ‘ERE!’ The mums who are so engrossed in gossiping in the playground they don’t notice that one of their children has escaped onto the pavement of the busy A road, and when they do notice, they tell the child off for wandering. Things like that on a daily basis. I just can’t understand it. Why have children if you, on the surface, seem to care so little for them? Even when they do things that might seem nice, it's not long before the contempt shows itself.

     Like the incident at the ice cream van last summer. I was behind another mother in the queue, and we were chatting. Then we saw something that still chills me. One of the Hard Faced Bitches was handing out ice lollies to her children – a toddler in a pushchair, an older toddler holding onto the pushchair and an older child, perhaps around six. She shoved a lolly towards the toddler in the pushchair, who was unable to reach it. The Hard Faced Bitch tutted, smacked the toddler on the back of the head and then said ‘HERE, shit for brains’, dropped the lolly in its lap and started walking off, briskly. The toddler next to her couldn’t keep up, and fell over, flat on his face. ‘FUCKS SAKE!’ Hard Faced Bitch picked him up, plonked him on his feet, ignored his cries, and carried on walking, her crying toddler now howling, and trotting to try and catch up. The other mother and I stared on in horror, and she said to me ‘What hope do those kids have? Really, what hope?’

     Last week, I was standing with The Girl at the junior school, and one of the Hard Faced Bitches was stganding behind me, having a vigorous conversation on her mobile phone. ‘I’m fackin’ not fackin’ havin’ that, I’m fackin’ done wiv bein’ treated like fackin’ shit’ is a key phrase I remember. A few other parents heard, and we all exchanged significant eyemeets, and then looked down. Next to the Hard Faced Bitch were two of her children, both pupils at the Infant School. Children of that age shouldn’t look as defeated as these two did.

     And then this afternoon. After I’d picked both Blondies up from school, we had to go to the shop to get a few things. A boy I recognised nodded to The Boy and they both said hi. Before they could say anything else, one of the Hard Faced Bitches swept past, grabbed her son by the arm, yanked him over to a car and shoved him inside, slapping his face. ‘I FACKIN’ TOLD YOU TO STAY IN THE FACKIN’ CAR YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. WHAT THE FACK WERE YOU DOING? I DON’T GIVE A FACKIN’ SHIT. SHUT IT’ There were a few more slaps as she spoke, with the palm of her hand, and the back of it. 

     We stared. Lots of people stared. But not one of us said anything to her. No one intervened. Were we waiting for someone else to do it? Were we too worried that we’d get a volley of abuse back? Were we scared that if we said something to her, it would only make things worse for her children? Whatever it was, it’s not something I’m proud of. Because if no one speaks up, then what hope do those children have? Really, what hope? What kind of adults will they grow up into, when the only lesson they are being taught is that they are a pain, a pest, a nuisance? When there seems to be no love from the people who should love you best? And other people see what's happening, but do nothing? What lesson does that teach them about their importance, and their selfworth?

    I don’t know what to do. But I can’t do nothing about it any longer. This isn’t high school. This isn’t the Hard Faced Bitches scaring off other teenage girls. This has to stop.

My imaginary friends

     I had an imaginary friend when I was a child. Bored, alone in the living room while my mum did other things, I thought ‘Hmm. I’ve heard some children have imaginary friends to play with. Maybe if I have one, I won’t feel so fed up?’

     I imagined her into life – she had big blue eyes, rosy cheeks and golden ringlets (kind of weird, when I remember her now, I can only think of her as looking exactly like The Girl). She was very naughty, and I called her ‘Guilty’, so that if I was about to be told off for anything, I could pin the blame on her: It wasn’t me, Guilty did it. Perfect.

     I sat on the red carpet of the living room with her, and we started playing with my Star Wars figures. I said ‘Guilty, you can be Princess Leia if you like’ (massive sucking up gesture there, it was my precious Forest of Endor Princess Leia, whom I shared with no one). Then I thought to myself ‘God, this is stupid, Guilty’s not real’, felt hideously embarrassed by the whole thing and killed Guilty off forever. And carried on playing on my own.

     That was over thirty years ago. But, as a sign that my levels of maturity are receding as my age advances, Guilty is back. Not just Guilty, in fact, but a whole cast of characters, about whom I know everything. And I do mean everything. Because I have completely made them up. In my head. 

     It started last summer, and I can remember the exact moment. We were on holiday, the three Blondies and I, and we’d gone to the beach. I HATE going to the beach, unless it’s for a walk. It’s hot, it’s sandy, seawater stings my skin, and that sensation of sand gripping onto your feet is so unbearably awful that my fingers are curling involuntarily just thinking about it and oh my god I can’t stand it and I feel like I’m covered in sand now and urgh. Alistair knows I HATE going to the beach, so he suggested I take myself off to one of the beach bars about ten metres away from where he’d plonked the towels. This sounded like a great idea to me, especially as I could see there was a daybed free, and a cocktail with my name on it about to be ushered into creation.

     So I lounged there, glugging a massivo Pimm's, writing a few things down. Nothing exciting, just observations of people around me, speculating what their relationship might be, what they could be talking about. I’d look over to where The Blondies were every thirty seconds or so, and see them bouncing up and down in the waves (Alistair & The Boy), or playing in the sand (The Girl). And, because my brain can be a twat at times, I looked up, saw The Girl and a terrible, terrifying thought stabbed me. What if I looked up and The Girl was gone?

     Shudder. What if she vanished? What would I do? How would I react? Would I be able to scream and shout and get people to help? Or would I become paralysed with the horror of it? My mind helpfully offered up several film previews of the different scenarios, just to make me feel worse. Then I calmed down, told myself to stop being so idiotic, sipped some more lovely, lovely Pimm's, and calmed down. And stared fixedly at The Girl for the rest of the time we were on the beach.

     But that thought stayed with me. And it irritated me. A lot. I kept thinking about various cases of missing children and what the parents must go through. And to know as well that thanks to the media and the internet, that every other person has a theory about what ‘really’ happened. And that some of them suspect you of being involved and/or responsible for their disappearance. Every person you meet knows who you are and what happened to you.

     And then one night, I was arsing about on facebook, and there was a massively awkward argument going on between a husband and wife in my timeline. And I thought how sometimes social media makes relationships really bloody difficult, or in some cases, falter altogether. Hmm. Facebook. Bloody facebook.

     And then another thought occurred to me, and I was so excited that I had to scribble it down, there and then.

      I know I had that massive RANT the other day about bloody writers boring on about writing and word count and writing and how many words they’ve pissing written and how well it’s going and ooh, I LOVE MY WRITING! I promise I’m not going to turn into a book bore. But something’s happening and it feels like it’s writing itself. And no, I’m not letting anyone see it (in any case, it’s encrypted by virtue of my appalling handwriting. So nur).

All a bit pedestrian

     About a week before I spectacularly Lost The Fucking Plot, I had an unwelcome experience when picking The Boy up from school. This was an unusual event in any case – for the first five years of his life I’d been working long days, seven days a week, so I didn’t really do the school run, or birthday parties, and things like that.

     I waited in the playground for his teacher to call his name so he could come out. And waited. And waited. The rest of the class were reunited with their parents and left. Finally, the teacher said to me ‘Can I help?’ I replied ‘Yes, I’m here to pick up The Boy.’ (I did say his name, don’t worry, I wasn’t that distant a parent in those days). ‘Oh. Sorry, who are you?’ She asked. There was a brief pause as my heart shattered into a million tiny fragments of guilt and remorse, then I managed to pull myself together and say ‘I’m his mother.’

     Another brief pause now, as I gulp at the memory.

     Obviously, things are very different now that I don’t work. I’ve done the school run for the last four years and working it out, I’ll be doing it for at least five years into the future. The Blondies go to schools that are a mile away from our house, so I walk four miles a day, every weekday. I don’t drive, you see, and in any case, it’s good exercise and it gives me time to think about stuff.

     But there is one thing you very quickly realise when you are a pedestrian, and that is that you are SCUM. The lowest of the low. Unworthy of consideration, generosity, and acknowledgement. We all know about drivers vs cyclists and how easily that debate quickly descends into stripped to the waist fist waving in rush hour. Well, I’m here to tell you, that when your mode of transport is nothing more than your feet, WE FUCKING HATE EVERYONE ELSE WE ENCOUNTER WHO USES WHEELS.

     Seriously. I mean it. Cars, lorries, buses, tractors, bikes, scooters, milk floats and pushchairs. All of you. You are all massive fuckers. Where to begin… hmm, where do I even start?

     Let’s go with pushchairs. I relied heavily on the pushchair I had with The Blondies. It was an absolute TANK of a threewheeler and I took it everywhere. But I appreciated that it was a massive, unwieldy thing, and so I took care to keep in to the side of pavements, to check for people around me, to let others overtake. I didn’t take it into school when I was dropping The Boy off. Little things like that. So why the buggery fuck do other parents not do that? If I had a pound for every time my ankles have been clipped, or my shins rammed, or a pushchair has been swung round into my stomach, I wouldn’t be typing this now. No, I would be lying on a beach in the Seychelles, with Rafa Nadal rubbing suntan lotion into my… shoulders? Yes, shoulders. No, lower. Lower... Hmmm. Rafa… Vamos indeed…

     And scooters. Fucking scooters. Those sodding things should come with a bloody great klaxon to warn you that some little shit child is about to smash into the back of your toddler and then sail onwards, their parent jogging to keep up, and seemingly too out of breath to notice that you’re trying to fix the face of your daughter into something you recognise after she was sent flying. The Blondies have scooters. They use them. But they weren’t allowed to use them on the pavements until they’d learnt to control them properly. It’s not that fecking hard, parents. And don’t even get me arsing started about the bastards who let their kids scoot in and out of the school grounds at the beginning and end of the school day. THERE ARE FUCKING SIGNS UP ASKING YOU NOT TO DO THAT BECAUSE THERE ARE A LOT OF CHILDREN AROUND YOU TWATS.

     Bikes. I’m glad a lot of people cycle. It’s much better than driving. And the majority of cyclists seem like decent, honourable people. But some of them are not, and I notice this and it makes me get The Rage. Like the time a teenage boy rode straight into the tank/pushchair (bloody good job it was such a behemoth, or he would have landed on The Girl), picked himself up, shrugged, and rode off. ON THE FUCKING PAVEMENT, NEXT TO A FUCKING CYCLE LANE. Or the arseholes who think that a red light means, yep, you go right ahead matey, sail through that pedestrian crossing, the rules of the road apply only to the drivers you’re overtaking. Or the wankers who ride silently behind you on pavements and zip past with no warning ‘TING’ of a bell or an ‘Excuse me!’, missing The Blondies by millimetres. Or the tossing teenagers who ride three abreast on a buggering pavement and give ME dirty looks for dragging my children out of their way.

     But really, it’s drivers. Fucking car drivers. Oh, yes, you are so important. So very fucking important, aren’t you? It’s far more important that you shave those precious three seconds off your drive to the shop for a pint of milk, instead of slowing down in a 20mph residential area, isn’t it? And of course, red lights at junctions are just for show, aren’t they? Nothing to do with allowing pedestrians to safely cross a major A road. Nope, you’re fine. You keep the flow of traffic moving, you utter bellend. Go on, we’ll wait another five minutes in the rain, waiting for the lights to change again, and hope that this time we’ll encounter a driver that I don’t have to mouth ‘TWATTWATTWATTWATTWATTWAT’ at as they pass us.

      And when you arrive at your destination, don’t worry about the pretty road decorations. Those double yellow lines mean nothing, nothing. They don’t put them in places where there are lots of children for any reason. They’re definitely not there so that people can safely see if there is oncoming traffic – oh no, wait, nobody can see anything,  because outside a certain private school there is a phalanx of thirty black Range Rovers, parked nose to tail on either side of the road, as close as possible to the school entrance so that their precious teenage girls need not walk more than twenty feet to get collected by their parents. And shit it, if there’s no room on the road, just mount the pavement. Who cares if it means that people have to walk on the road to get past? We don’t mind. You. YOU are important. And arse it all to hell, if you manage to park half on, half off the road/pavement, I don’t mind if you open your car door just as I pass you, so it swings into my leg and leaves me bloody and bruised. I get it. I totally get it. You are paramount in this. Those BIG yellow signs saying ‘School entrance. No parking at any time’? They don’t mean YOU, of course they don’t. And when you drive off, I don’t mind if you cut a corner and drive on the pavement! It’s probably my fault for being there in the first place. How careless of me to get in your way! I feel so ashamed for frightening you. Are you ok?

     I’m wound up now. I think I might go for a walk to calm down.

     FUCK.

Did you cop a feel?

     I am angry. Really, really angry. I might not make much sense here, because I’ve reached that point of anger where you can only really articulate things like RAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!! And feel the need to push big things over and set fire to the world.

     If you’re a woman and I say ‘cop a feel’ to you, what do you think of? Because to me, I think of being groped by an overfriendly man in a pub. It makes me think of ‘lads’ and ‘banter’ and ‘Alright, darling? Givvus a smile!’ It makes me think of the type of bloke who sits in a pub reading The Sun and commenting, loudly, on the baps of the Page 3 stunnas. It makes me think of blokes bragging that they 'managed to cop a feel of her tits'. 

     And, if you’re a woman, and I say to you ‘Page 3’, what do you think of? Because to me, I think of women being objectified, sexualised, demeaned and being made to feel ashamed because my tits aren’t perfect.  They’ve seen life, my spaniels ears, and now they head south for the winter of my years.

     If I say to you ‘Cop a feel of Page 3’, what do you think of? Because to me, I think of the worst kind of unwanted male attention. I shudder. It sums up so much of what is wrong with the way society feels about women, breasts, and what we teach our children about both.

     I’m not a prude. Trust me, really I’m not. I wear tight skirts, short skirts, low cut tops, and push up bras when I feel like it. I have my bikini area waxed. I’d wear high heels if I could walk in them.  I love having my tits fondled. But crucially, by someone whose attention I welcome, in private. I’m not a yoghurt herding, hemp cultivating, moss-encrusted toenail hippy who sculpts fertility symbols and talks about breasts as being the giver of infant liquid gold. Yes, their primary purpose is to produce breastmilk, but, let’s face it, boobs can be sexy too. That’s why Page 3 exists. To exploit men’s prurience and lechery. To exploit women. To make women out to be nothing more than a pair of tits. Who cares what else she’s got to offer when you look at the tits on that? By having a pair of baps whapped on the first inside page of a national newspaper, we’re being told that our norks are public property, and we should welcome any attention they get. Well, no, actually. My tits belong to me and whomever I choose to share them with. My choice. But because of the existence of Page 3, it seems as though I have to shout a bit louder to get that message across, especially to men.

     Now let’s put ‘cop a feel’, ‘Page 3’ and ‘breast cancer’ together. What do you think of? Because to me, it doesn’t work. The first two go together, in a seedy and unpleasant way. The last one doesn’t fit at all. It’s a medical thing. A terrifying thing. A thing that can and does kill. A thing that requires invasive treatment, that might result in mastectomies. Doesn’t quite chime with ‘Kelly, 23, Essex, 36-22-32’, does it? It doesn’t suggest a glamour model with watermelon tits, grinning, dressed in just her pants, does it?

     So if I were to say to you that this is an actual campaign, that The Sun is promoting a breast cancer campaign called ‘CoppaFeel’ through Page 3… What do you think of that? Because to me, it feels wrong. It feels shabby. It feels exploitative. It feels that The Sun has cynically hijacked an already badly named crusade in order to bolster support for Page 3. How many women, realistically, buy The Sun? And how many of those women, realistically, pay any attention to Page 3? What do you think of that? I know what I think.