are you drinking to get maudlin, or are you drinking to get numb?

Dear Marianne,

I had to go to Welwyn the other day, I thought it would be a sleepy place, and it was. I had a whole hour for lunch so I went in to the village centre for an innocent drink, but was dragged in to a kind of vortex for forty minutes, and only just managed to get back in time for work.

It all started down at the local pub... Now, I have had a number of different pub experiences in my life. The country - you're not from round here - pub experience, the ear bleeding - turn it up - club/pub experience, the city -only time to stand & drink - pub experience, the sports - you can ask us to get off the pool table but we fucking won't - bar experience, the cheeky irish chappy - let's sell them Guinness - pub experience, the faux drawing room - books on shelves, game of backgammon anyone? - pub experience, the families welcome - through the back next to the bogs smiley potato faces - pub experience, the physically dangerous - are you spilling your drink on me! - pub experience, the student - huge black hole beer too cheap desperate for a shag - experience, and the slightly smelly but local - can I cash a cheque - pub experience. But I have never experienced the thanks for your order - but I can't manage it - pub experience. Not until my visit to the centre of Welwyn that is.

This sleepy little village boasts five (could be more)pubs. I noticed a sports pub and a theme/stuff your face with deep fried food for less pub, amongst others, but I wanted a quiet time with a glass of wine and a sandwich. The Black Horse looked happily unassuming from the outside and I thought it might do the trick. It was a bit shabby inside and I hadn't banked on the huge TV screen delivering non stop soft rock videos, nevertheless I carried on.

I odered a white wine spritzer (slightly wanky drink for drivers and people on diets). Then I was lost in Welwyn for a while.

Me:Oh and is there food on?

Barman: I thought you were going to ask me that - no, nothing, but we were thinking of knocking through, but that's no good for you now is it.

Me: Not really, but I'll have the drink.

Ten minutes later the tension in the pub is palpabale. The barman is very red, he is also out of breath, having been up and down the stairs a couple of times.

Me:Everything all right?

Barman: No.(He showed me two bottle openers). This one broke last night and this one wont go into the cork.

He returned to the gently warming bottle and after some more pulling eventually opted for pushing. The cork went in but the wine wouldn't come out. I was running out of lunch time, and, though I hadn't been before, I was now desperate for a drink. The barman looked haunted and embarrassed. I mentioned that I might try another pub, this idea was warmly welcomed along with helpful suggestions on what might be the best place to get a white wine spritzer and a sandwich.

In another pub, the name of which escapes me, I just had time to throw down some liquid and a pie and then run back to work hot and bothered. Next time I go somewhere sleepy, I think I'll keep it easy, visit the local tea shop for a pot of Assam and a tea cake, I should be safe there shouldn't I, they haven't started to theme tea shops yet have they?

Rx

goodnight sweetheart, goodnight

Dear Marianne,

I calculate that I have had approximately 14 minutes sleep over the last two weeks. Mike's cough is keeping us up all night, it is a real dry hacking cough, horrible. Sleep deprivation apparently is bad for you and is a form of torture, but I'm fine, no noticeable effects from lack of sleep. Michael and Anna's toys are looking after me today, we are having a tea party, it's fun, look at all the pretty colours Marianne...no, really I'm fine.

Anna and Becky have the cough now - so looks like I will be seeing a lot of the night again tonight and tomorrow night and perhaps for another few weeks. I'm trying not to show my panic to anyone else as I stumble up to school with my hair leaning to the left, my eyes black and my clothes leaning to the right, but I am utterly consumed by the fear of this forthcoming lack of sleep. I spoke to London Bird Ali, and we discussed how it used to feel when we had just had a baby. We were quietly agreeing that sleep deprivation came with the territory of newborns, and then she said suddenly and violently, "Yes, you are so tired you wish you were dead, but it's worse than being dead, because you are alive!" Worringly, I completely understood.

Last night in the middle of all this lack of sleep, insomnia got me, how can that be, isn't that a living form of a double negative? I tried to deal with it by staying up very late, watching Australia versus New Zealand, I mean watching Australia crucify New Zealand, in the One Day gigs. This I mixed with a little light relief, provided by American Idol auditions on one of the weird channels. Then I tuned to 24 Hour News - which I have heard is often the cause of sleep.

It is tinnitus which keeps me awake, I have it all the time, and my chosen ear noise is usually high pitched, but sometimes it turns to a low rumble, like a lorry parked outside my bedroom door. When it first arrived about ten years ago, I was so freaked out that I would drive fast in the car in the middle of the night - good for cutting out tinnitus, bad for sleeping; dangerous for sleeping. In the end it was Craig, who read to me every night(I know each Ray Bradbury short story very, very well)who instilled a sense of calm into me and my noise and in the end it worked like a drug - I would often be asleep before the end of the first page.

Last night Craig was asleep before I could put in my bid for a story, and after bad tv had failed me, I eventually tried bed as an option. At 2am I fell in to bed and then at 2:30 out again, to do medicine and milk (for the kids, not me). Howling winds and the lorry parked outside my bedroom door, competed and conspired to keep me wide awake until this morning. And, since fourteen minutes is just not enough sleep for a grown up to operate on, tonight at 7pm, I plan to put on my pyjamas with Anna and Mike and settle down with a blanket, a bottle of milk and a gallon of Medised and have Craig read us all a Bradbury story - should have thought of it earlier, but I was too darned tired.

Rx

like a natural woman

Dear Marianne,

I had my cervix scraped just before Christmas. When I say scraped, I don't mean like against a wall or something, it wasn't an accident, it was deliberately organised by my Doctors Surgery, obviously to put a damper on the festive season.

I had called the surgery to arrange a test about two years ago and they reminded me that I had had one six months after Mike was born. I had completely forgotten this smear test. I suppose it must have been a combination of a sleep-deprived addled brain, completely numb ladies bits and an indifference to yet another bird fafffing around down there, which put it clean out of my mind.

By the way it's not a smear test anymore its now called something like your: "women's screening programme appointment" - which implies something a little more glamorous and Hollywood-like than the actual fact of laying on a hard bed with your chuffer hanging out and a stranger coming at you, with a lump of cold unforgiving metal, saying,"and relax".

Apparently I will get my results in the new year, so says Jane, my nurse. Jane scored quite well on my Smearometer, a marking system I invented after my first painful smear test experience at a "well woman clinic" in Putney, 24 years ago.
For the Smearometer I give marks for general communication and behaviour on the one hand and for actual undertaking of the smear/scrape/screen on the other. Jane scored very highly in the second category, I would say a seven or an eight, but she lost points for using the word "pop" in the sentence: "pop your knickers off". Although after all these years, you would have thought that I wouldn't have to be asked. But I don't like to presume, I always fear that actually I may have the date wrong and I'm just there for a blood pressure test.

Jane scored less well on general banter etc. which seemed a little forced, and led us up a cul de sac when she said: "It must be very exciting for your children this week",I thought she was still talking about my anxiety over the test but she had moved on to Christmas. However, she had warmed the metal vice (which as always looked the size of a house), which was good, and I didn't get that feeling of ice cold water running through my veins as she scraped, so relatively speaking it was a positive experience.

They send the results to you now whether there is something wrong or not. Jane told me that this is because they found people were so anxious they always called to check in case the letter had been lost, or that somehow the horrible truth was being kept from them. I am very much from the unenlightened school of "don't tell me, don't want to know". In my twenties I got something quite unpleasant after staying in a dodgy flat in Barcelona - the loo was the shower, yes, not in, the shower or next to the shower the two holes were used for the water and wees. Poos had to be held in until you reached the local bar, as a morning person in this context, you can only imagine the terrifying way each day began. Anyway, after feeling unwell for some time I had to leave a stool sample with the Homeopathic hospital in London. "Just post it through the letter box" they said, so I did, and never heard another thing, I never checked, I wasn't called, my bum became my own again, eventually, and, I suppose, someone somewhere woke up one morning to find that the postman had delivered a test tube of poo.

I took the same "head in the sand" view when I was pregnant, saying no to most of the tests they offer when they take your blood, and they take a lot of blood, and wee, it seems when you are pregnant. The folk in the lab in Maidstone ignored me, obviously, and got carried away doing all the tests they could, so they reported back that amongst other things I'm not a man, I don't have hepatitis, or a strange inherited blood disorder etc. etc. After receiving this information I spent months worrying that the results were wrong, see it doesn't help to know you know.

I didn't tell Jane that I'd rather not know one way or the other thanks, it seemed ungrateful. So, here I am pretending not to wait for the brown envelope each morning. When it comes I may just post it back outside or take it down to the Homeopathic Hospital and "pop" it through their letter box.

Rx

the sun always shines on tv

Dear Marianne,

Mike keeps saying, "don't be silly you fluffy old fur ball" , whenever I suggest something like a bath, or bed time, or tea. It's very charming until you realise that he is regurgitating stuff off the tv, in this case, Bits and Bobs.Bits and Bobs are two fluff balls made with someones old knitting wool. It is a Cbeebies show made with budget of 24p, and the cost is reflected in the utter crap that it has produced. Luckily, for almost everything shown on Cbeebies, (with the important exceptions of Peppa Pig and Charlie and Lola)children under five aren't at all discerning, they will watch any old crap, despite what the child psychologits tell you.

Becky's chosen line was, "I love you more than life itself", which did stop me in my tracks, she was about four and pretty intense, but this seemed a bit much. Turns out it is a line direct from that quite bad Disney film Robin Hood - I think Robin says it to Marian. Actually Becky's love of the film The Wizard of Oz was so deep, and she knew it so well, that she would also quote the opening lines of the tape - "If you are watching a pirate video please contact..." - very scary. That film so dominated our lives for a while that I cannot watch it now without feeling physically sick.

Today Becky regularly offers up quotes from Friends, the programme not the uhm friends, and, if it is on the tv she can turn off the sound and recite every characters words in most of the scenes. I think I may not have spent enough time baking and playing connect four with her. Stan does the same thing with The Simpsons. If there is a gap in the conversation he will start to retell a "funny bit" from the show - it is never funny and always very long.

Craig and I have started to fight back - refusing to listen, or just saying boring, don't know don't care, like the petulant children they used to be just a few weeks ago. Archie knows all the Soaps, since he spends quite some time with his granny in Bognor Regis - we don't even use words, Archie clams up when he sees our faces.

Craig and I have no contemporary quotes, we don't go to films, tv frightens us now with all its reality and celebrity. We do quote ancient history though, such as : "do you remember the time we used to go out after dark, do you remember the times we had conversations with grown up people, do you remember that black and white film, do you remember the time when we read books, do you remember me..?"

Have to go, Mike's calling me now because Granny Murray is on the tv and he knows how much I love the programme Me Too, except I don't, but don't tell him for god's sake. He also thinks I like Lazy Town, Big Cook Little Cook and the Shiny Show. I don't really though, I call the shows, Big Cock Little Cock, The Shitey Show and Arsey Town - it isn't clever or funny but until I have time to tune back into tv quality Dramas or read a whole book, or go to a film or have a conversation with a grown up it's the only way I can fight against the tv land demons who have possessed my children.

Rx

you'll look sweet upon the seat

Dear Marianne,

Well my biceps are in very good order you'll be interested to learn.

Have I been down the gym? Have I been bullied and bribed into a January fat fighting binge by LA Fitness adverts which tell me off then let me off with their great: discount deals. "Have you stuffed yourself stupid this Christmas? Forgive yourself with four free days at our shiny gym" - their advertising consultant is definitely a Catholic.

No I haven't been seduced by the gym business, or by anyone as it turns out, but that's another story.

I have been down the p..a..r..k (spell it out otherwise the kids hear - if you say Park... doh!) with Anna and her new b..i..k..e. We started without stabilisers (yes, we - it's definitely a joint project), so I spent about an hour bent double and holding on to the shiny purple saddle - absolute hell - my lower back (upper arse) is in agony. Anna was thrilled, terrified and then pissed off - and so to the stabilisers.

When I was young - we had a bike which was one size fits all - the seat went up and down according to who was in a bike mood. Learning to cycle was a couple of trips to the p..a..r..k with Dad, who would run along holding the saddle then let go, this would go on until you got it. I also remember the puncture kit was vital to a day's enjoyment, and having a "slow puncture" was compulsory.

Becky and Stan got sensible, time consuming guidance from loving parents, when they were learning to cycle. Archie, not so much, he was so keen that he got on Stan's too large b..i..k..e at the top of our road in London one time and set off, whilst I shouted, jump now you bloody idiot! as he approached the High Road. I think the neighbours enjoyed it. For a long time Archie would dismount by throwing himself on to concrete, we kept this up as a method for learning, it kind of fitted his kamikaze approach to life.

Anyway, the stabilisers have done the trick, Anna is up and cycling and I can walk upright again. But since the weather has been mostly hurricanes with light gales, much of the cycling has been done indoors between the front door and the cooker. Mike meanwhile has graduated to Anna's tricycle, although it needs to be painted blue because he is a boy, and the pink and purple is all wrong with his violet dress.

By Spring I plan to have Anna on one stabiliser and by Summer she should be proudly on two wheels. As for me, I need to get my lazy arse on a bike too - that's right, no gym for me just two wheels, a calorie counter and a typhoon blowing off the Brighton coast.

Rx

the wonderful thing about tigger

Dear Marianne,

Nothing says happy new year quite so well as an old fashioned hanging, we should all join the Iraqi people in thanking the American and British governments for bringing democracy to their country, because it is so much better than a dictatorship don't you think. We can all breathe a sigh of relief - that will certainly put an end to the violence in Iraq and probably all the Middle East. Hoorah for invasions and lynchings - Mugabe should be a piece of piss - go USA!

Anyway, Christmas.

We spent it at my parents house, who heroically put up five children and us two old folk. On Christmas eve at 7pm when the two wee ones went to bed we put five stockings around the tree - was supposed to be above the fireplace but there was a real log fire going!
At 11pm when all the big kids had gone to bed, we filled the stockings and then ate the mince pie and drank the whisky which Anna and Mike had left for Santa, then we ate the mince pies and drank the whisky which we had left for ourselves. We sat by the lovely warm fire, with the intention to talk long in to the night about life and love, but within minutes we were overcome by the heat and the single malt and started to doze off in our chairs, like the middle aged parents we pretend we are not.

I wish I had stayed in the chair, because whilst all five children and husband slept, I was wide awake, since Mike, who wasn't comfortable on his temporary bed, was now in ours and sleeping with his feet in my ear. Children know that the trick for a good nights sleep in the parents' bed is to be horizontal to the vertical (its all angles - lessons learned in the womb), so I knew that if we had turned ourselves to sleep sideways with him, he would of course have switched and I would have been head butted instead.
Anyway, after trying to sleep up the other end of the bed, (bravely next to Craig's feet) and then attempting the sofa, the floor and the chair again, I eventually crawled back in to bed and fell asleep about ten minutes before everybody else woke.

The children were really sweet about the presents, all seemed to get what they had wanted, which as any Santa knows,(and by santa I mean tired and emotional Mothers)is a bloody good result. My Mum realised some years too late that she had to stop embracing the fun of giving at Christmas quite so firmly, when she found herself shattered at 2am doing stockings for her grown up children returning from university.

I remember one Christmas Eve, in our teenage years, (long after we knew it was Mum and Dad reeaalllyy), sitting with friends in our front room, washing down sausage horrors (sausage roll with extra stuff which oozed out of the meat)with cans of Colt 45 and Light Ale. Down the stairs came my father dressed in nothing but pants, he walked between and over the lanky legs of us teenagers, grabbed four satsumas from the fruit bowl and some nuts from the nut thingy and quietly made his way back upstairs to help Mum put these goodies with the wrong presents in to the wrong stockings. "Goodnight Santa" we said sheepishly as he disappeared up the stairs.
We were not nearly grateful enough I now realise.

Auntie Linda and uncle Mike sent some great presents from Caly-4-nigh-eh: Anna was fully Barbied out with Barbie ear muffs and gloves and two new sets of Barbie clothes - my god she dresses like a right slag these days, Barbie not Anna.
Mike got a fantastically aggressive robot – which has a gun in each hand(?) And robots around with lights flashing, body swivelling, and gunfire sounds, screaming Stop! Drop the gun! Fire! in very quick succession, very quick succession - honestly we tried it, the robot doesn’t give enough time to put down a gun before it fires; truly an American gift. Linda and Mike sensibly gave money for the big kids - you should see the relief on their faces when they get money and don't have to fake opening gifts they don't want.

The one gift which truly brought family together though was not Deal or no Deal the board game, or Sports Trivia 2007, or Therapy - which turned the family against one another, don't ever play it, it actually invites you to analyse your family relationships - something you want to avoid at this time of enforced family togetherness. No, it was bouncing tigger who was the favourite for grandparent, teenager and three old alike - cuddly, cute, innocent, did what it said on the tin, bounced on his tail and sang in tigger voice, "the wonderful thing about tigger is tigger's a wonderful thing..." If America had stopped its world domination with Disney and coke its ratings would be much higher these days.

Craig cooked the meal, I had a nap for god's sake, Mum and Dad were on grandparent duty, Dad cheating at games and playing football in the park with Archie, Mum doing whatever Anna told her to do and kissing the oh so kissable Mikey. Some old bollocks was watched on the box, Becky read a whole book, Stan drove a very fast car into a police station - on his PS2 of course you fool. At 12ish that night I heated up some brussel sprouts to have with cold turkey and fell in to bed very smiley, having consumed quite a lot of Champagne - it is a testament to Craig's love for me, and his inability to smell, that we are still together.

Hope you had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Rx