Wot I dun at crismas by me age 37

The silly title is inspired by the feeling I got whilst typing this up for the fourth time. I'm drowning in memories of returning to routine after a holiday to be greeted by a teacher that spent the whole time pissed as a rat and now prays fervently that the kids in their care will just, please, be a bit quiet for an hour if they're busy writing their own experiences while the alka-seltzer takes effect.


Dear Miss,

Christmas came and so did I, thanks to sending P the same text I sent a shedload of other people in order to pre-empt and ward off the 'Oh dear. Are you ok on your own you poor, single parent thing?' calls. Er, people? This is the eighth year I've done this!

P rang to thank me for the good wishes (he wasn't to know they were generic, bless him), I told him he was a drama queen drunk and should still come round later to help us eat the thirty tons of food I was preparing. Long story short; he did, the kids were fine (well, once the eating machine that is No 1 Son realised he wasn't about to lose any dinner, anyway) and we all had a lovely time stuffing our faces then cuddling up on the sofa whilst passively watching comedy on the beeb despite having the choice of a million and twelvety-five channels. Plentiful alcohol was consumed, children were eventually sent off to bed and we (that is, P and I) snogged and generally fooled around like semi-chaste-promised-to-jesus-american-teenagers on the sofa till about 2.30am when he walked home with a massive hard-on and I sat up reflecting on how nicely weird it felt to have had adult company for christmas.

He called me on Boxing Day but I was at my sister's place for the annual get ratted and gift-swap with her family (aka my adopted in-laws) festival so couldn't pop round like he wanted. Tough luck, baby. The rules are different this time, I did warn you! Having said that I was bloody frustrated by then so when he offered to cook me dinner after work the following day I said yes. The kids were with their dad so I had a lovely, quiet day to myself other than his texts then drove round to get fucked and fed, both rather well. Now that's what I call a christmas present!

The following day he's texting and calling again so I said he could come to me for dinner as I had no kids again till late that evening. After a fantastic session (in my bed this time, which was a bit weird - A was the last man that saw my duvet cover and that was way back in July!) he taught me to how make bubble 'n' squeak with left-over roasties and I taught him how to ask someone for dinner and get them to do most of the cooking. Bloody blissful!

Friday was the family get-together at my cousins house. This would be the first time I'd seen my aunt and uncle for, ooh, two years or so? This being my most beloved maternal uncle who has taken the disclosure extremely badly, blaming himself in a big way for introducing step-dad to my mother in the first place. It was a heavy prospect emotionally and I really wanted to let him know that I continue to hold him in my heart as the best man in the whole, wide world and assuage his misplaced guilt so I had no time to fit P in as I spent the day mentally preparing and the evening verbally repairing broken relationships.

We (me and the kids, that is) got home around midnight and, though I was happy at the outcome of the evening, I was totally exhausted mentally and desperately needed to touch base with someone strong while I fell into a bottle or two. I found myself not even thinking of texting or calling P but following my initial instinct to mail an online friend whose presence I'd missed due to being a tardy email bitch (yes, I do mean you, again! xox).

Saturday dawned and I was, once more, off-limits to P as it was No 1 Son's birthday and, although the kids asked not to spend the day with their dad again, he was joining us and my sister's lot for a celebration meal at the pub early that evening. This was also Hogfather day of course. You couldn't make this stuff up, I swear! I'm still wondering which of my very ordinary, mostly elderly, suburban neighbours had a medieval feast for christmas dinner; complete with pigs head centrepiece and jugs of foaming mead! Did they dress up, too? Were there car keys and fruit bowls involved? What the rubbery yellow hell else goes on behind these net curtains that I'm not privy to unless a semi-urban fox deposits the remains in my parking spot? More to the bloody point, why am I not invited to such wonderful debauchery?! I'd love an excuse to dress up as Nell Gwyn, showing off both my terrible knowledge of history and plenty of boobage at the same time. Bastards, the lot of 'em, they don't know what they're missing.

Anyway, I digress. P called on Saturday and mentioned that he was worried about his mum. She'd told him to expect a delivery at 10am for his birthday. The woman is 80-odd years old and more than a little doddery, therefore, when Interflora tell her 'sometime between 10 and 6' she hears only the 10 as truth, bless her little old lady heart. She also refuses to have a landline and only turns her mobile on when she's expecting a call (which I find hilarious - old ladies and mobile phones really tickle me) so the fact that he'd called twice and she'd not answered was worrying him, to the point that he was thinking of jumping a train to see her but would be back in time to join me for the NYE party I was attending the next day. To be honest I was so busy with building the required mental fortitude to subtly dispose of an unwanted pigs head then share a car as well as eat a meal with the ex-husband without fuelling his mad, scorpio I-just-know-she-still-loves-me! fantasies I was quite chuffed that P was otherwise engaged.

Nephew No 2 brought his girlfriend to the meal, No 1 Son brought [mate] who took umbridge at being (rather gently, by our standards) ribbed and swore at my brother-in-law, thus causing much embarrassed giggling between sis and I as BIL did his 'look here, laddie; I'm not only physically hyoooge but I fight furious fire for a flamin' living so have soooo much more testosterone than you' thing but hey, at least it took the edge off being in the same pub as my ex-husband.

Surrounded by people like this, is it any wonder I drink!?

Talking of drinking, I sent a really stupid drunken text apologising for the hurt I caused to my ex later that night. I must tell you about T but for now, you just need to know that we spent the most part of five years in a part-time, long-distance relationship and I finally finished it early November, 2005. He's a totally self-obsessed, up his own arse, middle-class drama queen and hates my very guts since I finished things between us but despite that I still credit him as the man that taught me to embrace and enjoy my sexuality for what it is despite it's screwed up beginnings. He didn't answer. I'm hoping it's because he's changed his number but part of me is seriously worried that it's because my communication has sent him shopping for razor blades. Eep! Oh well.

Gosh, that was a load of old rambling nonsense! New years eve was great but I'll let you rest your poor eyes for a while before posting that account!