Sisters

Today is my sister’s birthday. We are not related by blood, she is my soul sister, one of the gals who keeps me sane when life seems too much to bear. She is a very private person, very discreet, so I can tell her all my secrets. We have been friends for 30 years, so I know when we are 93 and have blue hair and no teeth, we will still be giggling at our own shortcomings. Love may be blind, but friendship is clairvoyant. Happy birthday mate.


9/11

There are so many words that can be said about today, but as I watch the footage from the memorial in New York I weep as I look at the faces of the 9 year olds who will never know their fathers.


These boots aren’t made for walking

I went out dancing with a bunch of wild gay men. It was a night of jazz hands, time steps, kick ball change, Solid Gold poses and lots of throwing each other in the air (almost). I got home at five in the morning with a…throbbing pain in my knee. Maybe I’m too old to dance all night in high heels. But I thought, ‘I’ll get acupuncture, that’ll fix it.’

I love my acupuncturist. He has seen me through many traumas. He can tell when my monkey mind needs to be quiet. I turn up stressed and carrying on, lie down on the table and he sticks a needle right into the cranky part of my forehead. Some people call it the third eye. Acupuncture is great for emotional dramas too. Ladies, the best way to get over a needle-phobic man is to have acupuncture. So I’ve started going every week. But at my last appointment Mr Acupuncture looked at my Mexican cowboy boots and shook his head. He said my boots are hurting my feet and my spine. So apparently my boots aren’t made for walking…


Freddie Mercury

Today would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday. What a showman.


Single mother club

I am a member of an association I didn’t want to join. A card carrying crazy haired mummy in tracksuit pants, wearing bare feet, I am doing single motherhood the feral way. According to studies, single motherhood is not a pathway to physical nor mental wellness, more like emotional chaos.

My family was way ahead of the trend when it comes to single mothering. My paternal grandmother and my maternal great grandmother were both single mothers way before it became fashionable. When I am exhausted I think of my dad’s mother raising two children on her own in the 1930s and 40s, a time when single parenting was not chic. She couldn’t open a bank account nor get a loan because she had no husband.

My mission is to share the joys of single parenting. I don’t mind being single, it’s the single parenting I struggle with. My friends tell me I should be looking for the next man I’m going to break up with, but right now I think it is

Better to be alone than in bad company

I don’t want to be a single mum cougar, ogling young men on a Saturday night. Young men who are emotionally living on another planet. And their taste in music is appalling. I don’t want a grandpa either, I’m not that desperate.

But I’m sure I’m not the only single smother who behaves like a debauched old tart when the children stay at their father’s girlfiend’s place.

I don’t like to bash men on my blog, just tenderise them…


Freedom

With the past I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now – Ralph Waldo Emerson


Spring has sprung something stupid

Today is the first day of spring down under. My garden is yawning and waking up. The gardenias will be in bloom soon, filling my house with their divine aroma. Spring is the time to breed like rabbits, spring clean and turn over a new leaf. The days will get longer and warmer and mating season begins. But we must hurry, there are only 115 shoplifting days until Christmas.


Plastic paradise


What a day

Sharing a birthday today:

MICHAEL JACKSON, CHARLIE ‘BIRD’ PARKER, RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH, INGRID BERGMAN and LENNY HENRY


Brush with fame

Whenever I travel with my mum we run into someone famous. And usually my mother has no clue who they are. We were in a music shop in London and I looked over and my mum was talking about jazz albums with Elvis Costello. She didn’t know who he was. After he left she said, “What a nice man, we talked about Ella Fitzgerald.”

Declan Patrick Macmanus was born on this day 57 years ago. Tim Burton and Gene Simmons were also born today.