To celebrate the release of my 30th novel A Soul for a Soul, due out 30th January 2024, I’m doing a quick rundown here of the past 29 books that I’ve written as well as offering goodies/signed copies of various novels and much more as part of a huge giveaway.

The following is an extract from my debut novel, Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines, that came out in 2011. Initially, the book was self-published but following huge success and articles in various magazines including a full feature in Woman’s Own, the book, along with its sequel, Surfing in Stilettos, was picked up by a small publishing house and republished.

Read on to find out how to win a signed copy of this book (which is now out of print).

CHAPTER 1 – JULY

WELCOME NOTE

Welcome to Facing 50 With Humour, the blog that gives you laughter lines. And, clearly, very bad tag lines. I was going to call it Facing 50 With Fear, Trepidation and a Bottle of Chardonnay but I think that title was already taken. I suppose it’s like a diary only anyone with internet facilities can read it. For me it’s more than a diary. This is the only way I’ll stop myself from going insane, or indeed committing murder. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave me a comment.

ABOUT ME

My name is Amanda Wilson. I like chick flicks, wine, romantic novels, wine, the 1970s’ and 80s’ music, chocolate and wine. I am a very desperate housewife. I live in a village in rural Staffordshire, populated almost entirely by elderly people. Even the local window cleaner is in his seventies. I used to have a life and a job. Nowadays, I seem to spend most of my time acting as a referee between my husband Phil who – since he retired – has become the grumpiest of grumpy old men, and my son. We waved him off with a fanfare to university a couple of years ago but he returned to the nest almost immediately, having turned into a complete drop out. Life is a tad on the dull side at the moment. However, there are changes afoot, very significant changes, and that is why I am writing this blog. By the way, did I mention I like wine?

Monday 5th

My very first blogging entry, and I for one am rather proud of myself. It’s taken five days to work out how to do it, but here I am at last. Where shall I begin? I could start by complaining about my rotten life and how last night, my revolting son brought back several of his drunken friends to our house after we had gone to bed. They made so much noise that at 2:00 am I had to go downstairs and ask them to leave. This morning, I got up to find toast crumbs and jam spread all over the kitchen tops where they had tried to make some food, and someone had left me a floating present in the toilet.

Or, I could rant about my crotchety husband who spent breakfast reading the back of the milk carton, ignoring my conversation about what we could do for the day. He withdrew to his study without a word. I might as well have been invisible. However, that is all far too depressing.

How about beginning with the subject of birthdays? My life has been turned completely upside down this last year for a variety of reasons. To cap it all I have reached a serious crisis point this month because I am going to turn fifty. How depressing is that? The big five oh! No one prepares you for this. You trundle along merrily with your daily business, striking off birthdays as if they were cricket scores, thinking nothing of it and then one day, you look in the mirror and see your mother staring back at you. You wonder how this can have happened without you noticing before. Your expiry date is just about up. You are going to be half a century. In cricket terms you are going to be fifty but, hopefully, not out, not just yet.

When it was Phil’s fiftieth, nine years ago, I pulled out all the stops in an attempt to celebrate the event. Part of me believes you should embrace these occasions and be spoilt by those who love you. In those days, I hadn’t quite realised how depressing it was to actually be facing fifty. I arranged a surprise trip to Dubai. I cajoled a free upgrade from economy class to business class on the flight by playing the It’s His Big Birthday card at the check in desk. Actually, I think the woman checking us in took pity on him as he stood in silent embarrassment while his noisy wife divulged his age to the world. I did the best I could to make it special. So, when Phil announced a few months ago that he would help me celebrate my birthday by arranging a surprise trip, I initially got very excited in spite of the usual anxiety that one feels at hitting a milestone birthday.

Last year it poured down in torrents on my birthday. It rained, nonstop, from the moment I woke up to moment I sank back into my bed in a semi-drunken stupor. As usual, nothing special was planned for the day. Phil is just no good at planning birthday surprises, and as he despises parties; I can’t even plan one for myself. It was too wet to go out anywhere. It was such a shame because I used to love my birthdays and the excitement that surrounds them. Unfortunately, it’s been some time since I’ve felt excitement about anything.

The novelty of going away and being spoiled rotten for a few days is beginning to wane slightly as the big day creeps nearer, and I consider just how old I actually am. I am as old as Coronation Street. I can remember miniskirts the first time they became fashionable. The problem is that I don’t really believe I am all that old. I still consider myself to be fairly young. Last month though, the realisation hit me, well more thumped me squarely on the nose. Almost immediately, I began to feel old. I don’t suppose my newly discovered depression is due solely to my forthcoming birthday. I have just realised how unimportant I have become and how dreary my life is. Still, there is no point in being too depressed about it, and going away will be such a treat.

I’ve been in preparation for four months, cutting down on food and cutting out chocolate. I tried cutting out the odd glass of wine too, but that made me fractious. I have been a slave to sit-ups every night in an attempt to look good in my newly purchased Karen Millen shorts. I know it may seem as if I am making an enormous deal about it, but it is such a novelty to be going away let alone making a trip abroad.

We haven’t been away since Tom dropped out of university a year ago. One minute we were looking forward to Phil’s early retirement, doing some travelling and having “us” time and the next, Tom had returned from university with a hillock of debt (thank goodness he didn’t stay the full four years or it would have been an Everest-sized mountain of debt), and a huge attitude problem.

He has transformed from a nice young man into a hideous, selfish oaf. He spends most of the time lazing about in bed, down at the pub or on his mobile phone. I almost don’t recognise him as the dear boy he used to be. Whatever he learned at university in that year will certainly be of no use in today’s job market, unless there are vacancies for young men to test out free beer and cigarettes. I’ll certainly be glad to abandon him for a few days.

Phil won’t tell me where we are going but he looks very pleased with himself and keeps whistling Oh, We’re Going to Barbados. He also whistles Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, so maybe I’m reading too much into that especially as we are only going away for six nights. However, he knows I do not want to get rained off this year and that I love the sea so he’ll surely have booked a trip to the South of France or Spain. In fact, anywhere sunny would be acceptable.

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Wednesday 7th

This morning I woke up at four o’clock to find Phil’s side of the bed empty. He normally gets up early, but even by his standards four o’clock is suspiciously early. I wondered if he was feeling all right as he’s been having trouble sleeping recently and so I got up to make sure he wasn’t being sick or indeed, nothing worse had happened. He wasn’t in the bathroom, or in the office, where the computer lay dormant blinking its sleepy little red light at me. There was no sign of him in the lounge or the kitchen, and by the back door I discovered his slippers. No, he had not left home. I knew immediately where he would be. I made him a cup of coffee, got a coat and boots on and made my way down to the bottom of the garden to the paddock.

Phil was sitting on his haunches dressed in his old blue anorak and pyjama bottoms. In his hand he held a large shovel. He saw me and motioned for me to be quiet. I tiptoed as lightly as possible to where he was squatting. He pointed nearby to a mound of earth which was moving slightly. It stopped and then the earth moved again. Phil leapt up and smashed the mound with his shovel passionately, yelling obscenities, but I think we both knew that the mole causing the destruction of our paddock with its molehills had disappeared into the labyrinth of tunnels and would be back to torment him later.

The mole arrived four months ago. If you could see our garden you’d think there were at least twenty moles in residence, not just one. It started one Sunday afternoon. Phil had just spent his usual two hours walking up and down what we call the paddock – three quarters of an acre of grass overlooking fields. It was meticulously trimmed with smart green stripes resembling a well-kept bowling green. He’d cleaned his mower, oiled it, placed it back in the shed in its space between the ladders and the leaf blower, and gone for a shower.

When he went out to admire the field after his shower, and to hang out his towel to dry, he discovered a large mound of earth right in the middle of the paddock destroying the neat illusion he’d created. He immediately got his spade and neatly replaced the earth, jumping on it all to make it flat again and attempted to replace the grass which had also been pushed up. Twenty minutes later and the mound had been pushed up again. Phil fetched his spade and flattened the earth. All was quiet until the next morning when he discovered not only was the molehill up again, but so were two others at the far end of the paddock, and so he flattened them all and replaced the grass with ferocity and much cursing.

Since then it has become a battle of wills. The mole is definitely winning. We now have a paddock with so much tunnelling under it that Phil can no longer mow it properly. The lawnmower lurches from side to side in a drunken fashion as it falls into the dips. It is impossible to make the grass look tidy. Each morning he or I go out and flatten the hills. By lunchtime they are all up again. We repeat the process in the evening. Last Wednesday, I put back twenty-six hills before he could see them and rage even more. The garden has been annihilated.

Naturally, we’ve tried to get rid of it. At first, I thought we could simply discourage it from coming into the field. We put anti-mole products on the lawn and a sonic tube that emits a noise which moles are supposed to loathe. Our mole put a hill up right beside it, so it must be deaf. We dropped mothballs into the tunnels as apparently they are sensitive to certain aromas and dislike the smell of mothballs. The mole continued to put up its hills. A neighbour suggested that moles hate the smell of blood and volunteered to get me a few buckets from the local abattoir, but I couldn’t face pouring it all over the garden. It would look like something from a horror film. I read that moles were haemophiliac. Phil cut down small branches from the pyracantha bush to shove down the hole in the hope of pricking it to death. I ripped my fingers to bits shoving them into the tunnels and bled all over my white top. When Phil wasn’t looking, I pulled all the pieces out again. It was too horrible a death, even for an irritating mole.

Eventually, what with the devastation it was causing and the annoyance factor, I became worried about Phil whose blood pressure was going sky high, and called in a pest controller. It cost a fortune but he put gas pellets down all the tunnels, assured us we would be rid of the mole, and he’d come back to check progress in a couple of weeks’ time. Two weeks later the mole was more active than ever; presumably it was hyper on all the gas it ingested before it put on its own little gas mask. The pest controller declared it a mystery. He gave up after the sixth attempt.

Phil the hunter is determined that he will catch this mole. He is often to be found sitting with his shovel in one hand and his fork in the other. Each time he sees a shudder of earth he spears the mound with his fork, and hits the hill with his shovel. The mole is almost a metaphor for what is happening in our lives. We are stuck in a repetitive, frustrating pattern. Phil is getting increasingly irritated by it. I know how he feels.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a mole catcher, one of those individuals who’ll catch it and transport it away, preferably to Greenland. You’d think living in the country there would be hundreds of mole catchers, but apparently it is a dying art due to pest controllers who now deal with moles. I think I’ll have my work cut out to find one. On the bright side, at least it’s given Phil something to do other than check his share portfolio all the time.

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SexyFitChick said … Hello! You sound like a desperate housewife all right. It gets to us all in the end. I’m a fan of chick flicks and wine too. I thought I’d leave a comment and hope you get the little varmint sorted. I mean the mole, not Phil, although it sounds like he needs sorting out too. Next door’s dog seems to keep critters away from my house. Good luck with it all. I’ll be checking back to see how you are getting on. In the meantime I’m raising a glass of Australian Shiraz to you. We have some great wines here.

Facing50 said… I am so pleased to meet you. It’s so nice to know there is someone else out there who understands my frustrations – and pleasures – cheers!

Friday 9th

Yesterday, I received a card and a cheque for twenty pounds “to indulge myself” from my mother. She is a widow and struggling on a pension. She grows her own vegetables, brews her own repulsively strong wine, which she insists on glugging straight from the demijohn before it is ready, and only spends money on cigarettes which she absolutely refuses to give up.

I’ve noticed that of late she has become increasingly like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters: Patty or Selma. She’s always got a drink in her hand, a cigarette in her mouth and growls rather than talks. Actually, to look at her, she looks more like Grandpa Simpson or one of those wrinkly dogs – a Shar Pei. Still, she is my mother and I remember her when she was very beautiful and looked like a glamorous Joan Collins. I saw a photograph of her taken when she was a young twenty-year-old and she was an absolute stunner.

Feeling very fond of her at that precise moment, I decided to spontaneously telephone her instead of waiting for the usual Sunday call.

The telephone emitted a sickening screeching noise. I almost dropped the phone trying to cover my ears.

“Hello? Mum?”

“It’s you,” replied a rather disappointed gravelly voice. “I thought you were one of those nuisance calls. I’ve had nine in the last forty-eight hours so I nipped next door this morning and borrowed an old chalk board from Bernard who teaches Art. I’ve been waiting all day for them to ring again. When I answer the phone I drag my nails down the board to put them off. I’ve been dying to know if it works.”

She demonstrated again and I experienced another ear deafening screech.

“I can assure you if I were a salesman, I definitely wouldn’t phone you again after that row.”

I waited for a response. There was a lengthy pause while she dragged on her cigarette.

“They always seem to ring when I’m upstairs in the bathroom. I have to rush down the stairs only to be greeted with “Congratulations, you have won a prize,’” she drawled in an American accent, which brought on a fit of coughing. “I’m sick of them. I thought I’d managed to get them stopped by using that telephone service but these calls are coming from abroad.”

There was another pause while she coughed. Not just a cough – a revolting hacking, stomach turning cough. She starts every day like that. It’s like an old engine coughing into life each morning. It’s horrible.

The tirade about cold callers continued for a further seven minutes, at which point I began to wonder why I was even bothering to phone, when she suddenly barked, “Anyway, why are you phoning? Did you get my card and money? I sent it yesterday so it should have reached you today. I hope it hasn’t got lost in the post. I sent it early so you would get it in plenty of time and be able to take it away with you…” That was that. She was in full flow. You can’t get a word in sometimes with her. She barely pauses for breath.

Steam filled the kitchen as the kettle boiled. I put the phone down on the counter and poured hot water over my tea bag. I let the flavours infuse and removed the bag. Cup of tea in hand, I retrieved the phone.

“… I put a first class stamp on it, too, so it would get there in time. What a price they are. I remember when it only cost six old pence.”

I seized the opportunity as she paused to take another drag, to break into her monologue.

“That’s why I’m phoning. I thought you’d like to know I’d received it. Thank you for the money too.”

“Well, it’s not enough for a toy boy or a yacht,” she chuckled throatily. “Mind you, you’re too old to know what to do with a toy boy now. You’d probably just sit him down with a cup of tea.” There was more raucous chuckling followed by a coughing fit. “Anyway, looking at your last photograph you sent of yourself I thought you could probably use it to get some of that buttocks stuff. After all, you’re not getting any younger, are you?”

What was she waffling on about? Jennifer Lopez had had her buttocks lifted. Is that what she meant? Mine need more than a lift. I think they reach the backs of my knees. No, she couldn’t mean a buttocks lift. I mused about it while she launched into a further monologue about the past.

“Do you remember that time when you broke the door handle and we couldn’t get out of the lounge for hours? Oh, and what about that time you fell down the stairs and landed on the vicar who had just popped around? I’ll never forget the time – you’d have been about fourteen – you got stuck attempting to climb through the tiny open kitchen window because you had lost your house keys and couldn’t let yourself in. When we came home from work, there you were, bottom in the air. Ha, ha, ha!”

I just added the odd “yes”, still curious as to why I needed stuff for my buttocks.

I’ve always had a large backside. No one has ever suggested I needed it enlarging. It was sufficiently large, hence I got stuck all those years ago trying to get through the window. Her ability to recall events from thirty and forty years ago astounds me. I pondered further on what she might have meant. Maybe old age had caught up with her at last and she was just talking gibberish. She continued her personal trip down memory lane…

“Mum, what do you mean “buttocks stuff?’” I asked, as she inhaled deeply on a freshly lit cigarette.

“For your wrinkles. You know, injections that freeze your face and stop your laughter lines from becoming too pronounced. Buttocks injections,” she emphasised, getting back on to the subject in hand, which at that point was my inability to cook and how when I was a teenager I had boiled a pan dry trying to cook an egg. She really does live in the past. I hope I don’t get like that. Mind you, I can barely remember what I did last week. All the days seem to blend into one dull and pointless one.

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SexyFitChick said… What a character! Is she for real? My mother spends all her time on the beach wearing a large hat and worrying about her SPF cream. Still, she doesn’t remember much about what I was like as a teenager – thank goodness. I was a bit of a tearaway.

Facing50 said… Yes, she’s always been like that. She loves to criticise me. I suppose I’m used to her put downs now. She can be quite funny, though, when she’s had a few drinks and is telling a story. My mother used to put olive oil on her skin to get a suntan. She looks like a walnut now. At least your mother is sensible.

Saturday 10th

Goaded by my mother, anxious about my waning looks and depressed about getting older, I spent this morning staring gloomily into the magnifying mirror while wearing my reading glasses to get a better look at myself. She had a point about my laughter lines. They are quite obvious around my eyes, but deeper lines are etched into my forehead through years of squinting because I refused to wear my glasses. “Ah, vanity thy name is woman.”

I also appear to be sprouting hair all over my chin and sides of my face. I’m going to turn into one of those hirsute old women that I used to laugh at when I was young and hair free. What do you do about this problem? Do you pluck the hairs? No, I read somewhere that makes it worse. I’ll have to look it up on the internet. In the meantime, I’ll leave it alone because Phil’s eyes aren’t so good any more and he might not notice. Crikey – what’s happened to my eyebrows? I know I had an unfortunate experience with a threading session last year but there seem to be hairs all over the place and I look like Sam the Eagle from The Muppets.

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Thursday 15th

This morning I got some terrific news. For the first time in a year I was going to be able to go to the shops alone. On my own. By myself. Just me. Since Phil retired I feel like we’re conjoined (not in all matters, of course – we do go to the bathroom separately). Ordinarily I can’t leave the house without him.

“Just off to the supermarket, dear.”

“Oh, wait for me. I’ll come along and carry the bags.”

“I’m going to get my hair done. I’ll be about three hours.”

“Wait for me. I’ll come and wait on the bench outside the hairdressers’ and read my paper.”

I don’t really mind him coming with me, but I hate the comments about my driving…

“So, you didn’t see that pothole then?”

“You’re too close to that car. Slow down.”

“Don’t forget that the indicator stick is on the left. Feel free to use it any time you overtake.”

“You might want to pull over here to let that ambulance that has been trying to get by you for two miles go past.”

“Turn right here, no, the other right.”

Most of all, I hate the fact that he sees everything I buy. There are no more “secret” purchases. No more “This old thing – I’ve had it in my wardrobe for years.” At first, I tried hiding new additions to my wardrobe in an old supermarket plastic bag, but he rifled through it one day in the hope of finding a cake for afternoon tea, and nearly choked when he saw what I’d paid for a blouse. A few months ago I had a better idea. I’d been torn between a Marc Cain beige jumper with a large leopard printed on the front and a flattering cashmere cardigan in crimson.

“I’ll take them both,” I decided.

The shop assistant looked approvingly at my choice.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” she cooed. She caressed the cardigan as if it were a cat. It might even have purred.

“Would you mind just folding them up in tissue paper for me?” I requested.

The assistant looked at me puzzled.

“I don’t want my husband to see them,” I explained. “I want to put them in my bag.”

She gazed at my bag and looked at me as if I was about to commit a heinous crime.

“They won’t fit in there,” she spluttered.

I looked at my large bag. I had brought it along deliberately to hide goodies.

“If you fold them up into small packages, I’ll be able to stuff them in, under my glasses case and my purse,” I explained.

She glared at me and held the cashmere cardigan protectively to her bosom.

“Maybe you should just take one item today and one next time you come in. Otherwise they’ll be ruined. You can’t crush items like these.”

In the end, I agreed and just bought the leopard jumper. She continued to glower as she folded it into a tiny, tissue enveloped parcel and handed it begrudgingly to me. As I left the shop I’m positive I heard her talking to the cardigan, telling it what a narrow escape it had had.

I have resorted to more devious tactics since then. Now, I always carry a large recycle bag. Phil thinks I’m doing my bit to save the planet. I’m not. I’m saving my sanity. I pile ordinary stuff like toilet rolls on top of any new garment which lies hidden neatly at the bottom of the voluminous bag.

Of late though, there hasn’t been any money for special purchases and I spend more time looking in the shop windows than buying clothes. Today, I felt liberated. Today, I granted myself the freedom to buy whatever I wanted, within reason. After all, I am going to be fifty.

Euphoric, I accompanied Freddie Mercury on Queen’s I Want to Break Free, which blared from the car radio as I drove to town. I saved Phil the trouble of having to agonise over choosing a suitable present for me and bought a new dress with the joint credit card, one that did not have to be squashed up in my bag. On the way back to the car I was inexplicably drawn to a new shop offering Cosmetic Services.

I opened the door and nervously looked around. A fresh faced receptionist looked up and asked if she could help me. I edged towards her and explained that I might like to have a procedure.

“No trouble,” she said, smiling pleasantly. She didn’t seem to find my request at all bizarre. Now, here’s a form to fill in and if you’d like to sit over there and complete it, I’ll let Nurse Younger know you are here. “Yes,” she added when she saw the look on my face. “She is called Younger and her first name is Eve. Eve Norma Younger.”

Chuckling, I dropped down onto one of the leather chairs, which squeaked rudely. Younger by name and Eve N. Younger by nature it would seem as a woman in her late twenties with a porcelain wrinkle-free complexion met me in the treatment room. She needed no treatment. She was perfect. I gazed in admiration as she assessed me.

I won’t go into all the details here of what was done. I didn’t feel a thing when she injected the stuff into my forehead. It was all quite painless and strangely pleasant.

“I hope this makes me look as youthful as you,” I quipped as I prepared to leave.

“It should do. I use it regularly and I’m forty-eight,” she replied.

This could be the tonic I need. I’ve recently been lacking in confidence. Phil never looks at me. He’s certainly not interested in me physically any more, probably because I’m turning into an aged crone. I am undeniably getting old and, let’s face it, regardless of what magazines may say: that you are still beautiful at fifty, or fifty is the new thirty, if you don’t feel good about yourself then you are going to be unhappy.

I’m not completely convinced that I’ve done the right thing but if it helps to eliminate those hideous lines between my eyes and makes me look a little younger then… I also had my eyebrows shaped and tinted. The gorgeous young beautician, who was presumably put off by my continuous anxious babbling, has arched them a little too much, giving me a permanent look of surprise (which could be useful when I open my birthday gifts).

I was advised to frown a lot for the first few hours. That isn’t a problem as I constantly frown, usually because even to this day I refuse to wear my glasses unless I absolutely need to read. The last time I went to the optician he warned me that if I didn’t put them on for driving I would be driving illegally. He looked so sternly at me that I thought for one moment he was going to report me to the police, so I promised I would wear them more, and then spent the next hour walking backwards and forwards past his shop in them so he could see me wearing them.

Phil was distracted this evening and didn’t notice me frowning all the time at him. He seems to be distracted more and more these days. Some days I feel I should try to get his attention by striding about wearing nothing but a thong and thigh length boots. Sadly, I’m convinced that it would just backfire and he’d just look right through me. He does that more and more these days. He doesn’t see me any more. No, it’s a bad idea. Besides, I don’t think even I would want to see me in just a thong and boots these days, not with this cellulite and these flabby bits.

I pointed out the tinted eyebrows just in case he wonders why I look different when the “buttocks” works. I told him about the present he’s bought me, which seemed to cheer him up. Maybe he’s simply relieved that he doesn’t have to think about it any more, or maybe he’s just pleased that I didn’t spend too much on it. I checked in the mirror before bed but the lines are still there and I can still frown deeply.

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SexyFitChick… Can’t wait to see if it works. I’m going to get some if it does. No point in looking your age if you don’t have to.

Friday 16th

This morning brought disaster. Okay, I admit, that is an exaggeration. It was not quite disaster. One of my eyebrows has lost its tint overnight leaving me with a comically quizzical look. I tried using my eyeliner to fill in the gaps but it was too coppery and now I have one slightly ginger eyebrow and one dark brown and I can still frown deeply.

Phil was a little grumpy; in fact he is always grumpy. If you met him you would invent a new verb “to grump” as in “Phil grumped to the shops”. He epitomises grumpiness, and if he were a character in an A.A. Milne story it would undoubtedly be Eeyore, whereas I am definitely Tigger – an irritating, effervescent, bouncy Tigger.

Last night, in a moment of madness, probably due to post buttocks hysteria, I insisted on starting my birthday celebrations early and opened last year’s birthday present – a bottle of Lanson rosé champagne. I should have drunk this sooner as it had lost its pink tinge and looked more like Lucozade. Having been off the drink for a while, Phil was soon the worst for wear. He dozed off in the chair and had to go to bed at eight thirty, leaving me to attempt tipsy sit-ups in front of the television, which swam in and out of focus. Well, I do want to look good for this birthday trip.

He was also crabby today because it is Friday, and we do not go out on a Friday. Actually, we don’t go out much anyway, but on Fridays Phil flatly refuses to drive. He just can’t face the traffic; he complains about it every single time we go out. For some reason the road that goes past our house is absolutely jam-packed on a Friday with heavy goods vehicles, caravans, motor-bikes, tractors, vans, and cars.

To cap it all, this morning at seven thirty, a procession of vintage steam engines puffed past followed by about six miles of traffic stuck behind them. The house shook as they rolled over the potholes, causing Phil’s lips to tighten in a thin line. Tomorrow, there’s going to be a Vintage Steam Fair in the next village which is three miles away. The speed they were going, they might just make it there in time if they don’t stop for lunch.

Fridays are also a drag because Tom doesn’t normally work on a Friday. This means we have to put up with him lying in bed, or as Phil calls his room, “the Pit”, until midday and then stinking out the bathroom before disappearing to the pub. At least when he’s at work we have some respite. Whatever happened to him? Before university he was a normal teenager. I thought we’d grown through the difficult period but apparently not. Since he’s come back, it’s just been one unending nightmare.

I had a really bad night’s sleep, and not just because of the champagne. Phil likes to go to sleep with the radio on; I hate it on. A creature of habit, he goes to bed at 9:00 pm on the dot and puts the radio on a timer to turn off at about ten thirty, which is roughly when I go to bed. Last night, not only had he mistakenly set it to turn off at eleven thirty, but it was playing dance music.

Dance music is fine when you want to dance, not when you are trying to get your beauty sleep. I had just listened to the extended version of Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby with accompanying panting, and was about to get up and pull the plug out of the radio because I couldn’t find the remote control to silence it, when it went off with a loud “phut!” I eased back into the pillow, breathed a sigh of relief, and then Phil started snoring, gently at first but then louder and louder. He sounded like a pneumatic drill. The walls reverberated with each snore. I kicked him, of course, but that only stopped him for a moment or two and each time he restarted, he was louder.

My brain began to whir in time to the cacophony of snorts coming from next to me. In the darkness, anxieties assaulted my tired mind. As the minutes turned into hours I started to worry about Tom and wonder when, or if, he was going to come home. It was now very late and all the pubs would be shut. He had only gone into the local town. There were no nightclubs there or all night bars, and he was hardly likely to be hanging out at the all night supermarket. I worried about his safety. Maybe he’d had his phone and money stolen. He might have been involved in a brawl and was now sitting in casualty. Worse still, he could have had an accident. Was he sitting on a pavement in town in the cold, too drunk to remember where he lived? Those ridiculous fears that mothers all over the world experience when their children are out at night gnawed at me relentlessly. The stupid thing is that, while he was at university, no doubt drinking his body weight in alcohol, and hanging out in the most frightening places in Manchester, I didn’t worry. Now that he’s back in the nest, I fret every time he goes out, even if it’s to the shops.

I thrashed about for a further hour before eventually dozing off. A stomach ache caused me to sit bolt upright in bed. It was probably due to all the anxiety. Many illnesses are caused by worry. I agonised that I could even have something serious wrong, like appendicitis. Those thoughts and fears always seem ludicrous in the daylight hours, but at four in the morning, laying awake alone in the dark, everything gets out of proportion. I cursed Tom. I wished he’d behave normally, and at least let us know he was okay. Unable to stay in bed any longer, I got out for a glass of water. My mobile phone was flashing on the bedside locker. Tom had mistakenly sent us a text intended for his girlfriend: “Hi Babe. Soz. At Dave’s. Bit pi**ed. C u SatSun? Miss U xx”

So, the inconsiderate so-and-so was at a friend’s house, and he hadn’t even thought to let us know that he was safe. I got up, carefully ensuring I didn’t wake Phil. The phone flashed again.

“Hi SexyBum. Fancy a romp in the car wiv me again? Luv u Xx”

Oh Lord, should I tell him he’s texting the wrong person? Wide awake by now, I went online and checked my symptoms on the internet at one of those very useful health clinic sites. My stomach gurgled and knotted up with pain. The phone flashed.

“SexyBum R u cross wiv ur Hunny Bunny? Txt me bk. Miss u n ur soft boobs xx”

I wiped the message off. I don’t want to know about Tiffany’s breasts. The knot in my stomach grew. I clicked a few more websites. Another flash and another text message.

“Hunny Bunny is feelin randy –wish u were here to hold me up lol”

Rather embarrassingly, my symptoms seemed to indicate I had trapped wind. Great, I’m apparently turning into a flatulent, hairy old woman. The phone flashed again.

“Hunny bunny needs his sexysexyBum. Dave is sleep n I lonely xXxX”

I switched it off and my stomach growled. He’d probably forget he had sent the texts in the morning. He sounded completely sozzled. I drank a glass of red wine to settle my stomach and went back to bed.

Posted by Facing50Blog.com – 2 Comments

SexyFitChick said… Thank goodness I don’t have kids.

Facing50 said… Some days I wish I didn’t have one too.

Saturday 17th

Finally, I’ve managed to produce a header for this blog. It’s taken ages. Tom told me about something called “Paint” on the computer, and after many attempts I’ve succeeded in producing a picture for the blog. I chose a champagne bottle with a cork flying out of it, and painted the number fifty on the cork. I’m rather proud of it. It is a minor achievement in my otherwise dreary life. I emerged from my room bursting with enthusiasm shouting “ta dah!” Phil looked blankly at me as I bragged about my newfound skill and then asked why I would want to write a log! I attempted to explain what I was doing but he had resumed reading the business section in the Telegraph in a dismissive manner. I finished the bottle of wine from last night in celebration. Well, one or two won’t hurt, after all.

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Sunday 18th

Over the weekend the rest of Europe sweltered under the hottest conditions for decades while we stared gloomily out of the window again, watching torrents of rain fall against the panes as it overflowed from the gutter. We even considered lighting the fire to cheer ourselves up. Roll on birthday trip and, dare I say it, roll on sunshine. I endured the weekly phone call from my mother. The phone rang at four on the dot and I was greeted by the sound of the usual drag on a cigarette.

“Hello.”

It was going to be one of those difficult conversations where I don’t know what to say and there are horrible long pauses. I only spoke to her a few days ago. What on earth will I manage to say today?

My mother is one of those people who believe that life for me stopped the second I left home. She steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anything I have done since then. As a consequence, conversation is limited to things that happened between 1960 and 1979. It’s been difficult between us for decades. We haven’t seen each other for years and only dare communicate on the telephone. It’s better that way for both of us. Either we are too similar or too different. I can’t work it out, but we still manage to rub each other up very easily.

It was the same for Phil and Tom when Tom reached the age of sixteen. He only had to walk into the room and Phil would start bristling with annoyance. It seems to happen at about the time when the child gets taller than the adult. I remember my mother got twitchy when I zoomed past her tiny five-foot-nought inches. She took to wearing the most enormous platform shoes. They were like the ones Elton John wore in the film Tommy. Goodness knows how she managed to stagger around in them, but she did, and thereafter when they were no longer fashionable, she would wear ginormous heels instead.

A similar thing happened with Tom and Phil. Luckily, Phil didn’t take to wearing platform shoes, but he suddenly got prickly and starting pulling himself up to his full height when Tom was around. They are very different. Phil is the tidiest man I know: he puts his socks in colour-coded order in the drawer. Tom throws his in a smelly pile on the floor and under the bed. Phil is very careful with money, having worked so hard for it, and having built up his business from scratch. Tom seems to think it’s to be spent as soon as he can get his hands on it, earned, borrowed or whatever. Phil has a very strong work ethic, whereas Tom… well, you get the idea.

My mother was particularly ratty today.

“So, the gardener said he couldn’t stay as he had a bad back and left me with two hundred and eighty plants to put into tubs on my own,” she complained, taking short angry slurps from a glass in between sentences.

“I didn’t know you had a gardener.”

“I don’t now. I fired him. He was no use. He only managed to pull up a few weeds and make a mess of the vegetable patch. And he was always taking coffee breaks and scoffing bacon sandwiches.”

“Did he bring sandwiches with him for two hours gardening?”

“No, I made them, of course. You have to keep the workforce happy. It made him too happy. He spent more time sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating bacon sandwiches than working.”

She cursed as her lighter ran out of fuel, and her voice faded as she rummaged around looking for another to light her cigarette.

“So the upshot was that I planted all two hundred and eighty plants myself,” she continued, banging down a glass.

I could hear the glugging as the glass was filled again. “It shouldn’t have taken him two hours to cut that patch of grass, either. I can do it in twenty minutes. I know I’m a bit younger than him, but that’s no excuse. If you say you are a gardener, then you should be able to garden.”

“Mum, how old is the gardener?”

“Oh, I don’t know… about eighty-five, I suppose.”

I gave up. She was just going to be hard to please. Letting her drone on about people’s standards declining, I put the phone down, got a packet of biscuits out of the cupboard and poured out my own glass of wine. She didn’t notice I had disappeared for a while.

Eventually, she terminated the one sided conversation with a begrudging, “Well, have a nice birthday. I don’t suppose I’ll get to talk to you next week.”

As I’ll hopefully be hundreds of miles away, and she probably won’t phone me while I’m abroad, I guess not. “Happy Birthday to me.”

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Monday 19th

Good news – I can’t frown as much. The bad news is that I’ve started to screw my eyes up from the bottom instead. So that’s how it works. You get your wrinkled area treated, which in turn makes you overuse the muscles in another area, which means you have to get them treated and so on until you have a face full of the stuff and can’t employ any facial muscles. I think I’ll leave well alone in the future. As they always write on Facebook: “Six more sleeps until we go away”. Opened a bottle of Chablis to celebrate and drank the lot after Phil went to bed grumbling about the mole.

Posted by Facing50Blog.com – 2 Comments

SexyFitChick said… Maybe I won’t try it then. I might get one of those machines that make your facial muscles work by twitching them with electricity. It’ll be better than standing in front of the mirror for hours trying to do facial exercises.

Facing50 said… That sounds like a better idea. I’m not getting on very well with the buttocks treatment. This stuff always seems to work on celebrities though.

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