The Babylon Lane Tales - Filed under 'Celebrations'

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chin(s) chin(s)
This is a week of birthdays.

My lofty ideas have me convinced that I am Queen of All I Survey (which includes, but is in no way limited to: my house, my village, my corner of Manchester city centre, The Internets, and YOU), so celebrating my birthday for a week only seems the proper thing to do.

And it's a Big Birthday this year: 35. This, according to my much older husband and friends, means I am moving into my late thirties. I object: 35 is most definitely middling, not that this makes it any better. Who wants to be middling? average? dull?

I've handled being in my early thirties with something approaching grace, with a little bit of ugly crying for good measure. I'll admit it is definitely better than my twenties: I have more cash, I'm more confident and my career is going well, despite George Osborne's attempts to steal projects from my door. And for 7 months, when I was 31, I was even comfortable in my own skin.

During that 7 months, I looked better than I ever had, my clothes fit without hurting and my skin had a pre-pubescent glow. How I laughed as I stalked facebook school friends, who had been unnaturally beautiful throughout their teens, but now had more in common with the underside of a truck. I gloated and felt superior, and the karmic backlash has been cruel.

At 31 years and three-quarters, this brief glimpse of beauty was eradicated by: legs that wobble when I walk (forcing me to sit with toes tiptoe-d so that my thigh flesh hangs down to give the illusion of thinness, rather than bunching like play-doh on the seat of the chair); a nose that is flame red, and amazingly unrelated to gin but some weird autoimmune thing that is festering in my middle thirties sag; and jowls. My friends I am jowly, like Bagpuss but less pretty.

My early thirties have left me a wreck, so the thought of the mid-thirties onslaught is horrifying; I'm not sure I can take much more of the slow shimmy southwards of my flabby bits.

When all you have to look forward to is tucking your flesh into your socks, you deserve a week's wake to mourn the loss of your pert jawline and right-angled nipples (both last seen idling around the pastry aisle when you were 31 and three-quarters). It also takes a week to apply the youth-giving potions, that you've sold your kidneys/child/house to buy, on the understanding that they will halt the cruel droopy progress of time. (They don't, you'd be better off spending the money on crack to numb your vision.)

This year's birthday week coincides with the first birthday of this blog and the redness of my hair (here and here). Normally I would see this as an opportunity to extend my birthday celebrations threefold, but as I can't trust my saggy skin to hold itself in place - never mind my vital organs - I am showing some restraint. No one wants to drink with a woman sitting with her liver in her shoes and chin resting on the bar.

Here's what I've learned this year:
1. Technology makes me cry and Posterous is rubbish. It eats posts and has tantrums if you insert more than one picture.
2. I overuse the words: slattern, satsuma, nits, jesus. And contrary to Klout, I really know nothing about them.
3. There are people out there who really want to know 'if incest is a good idea', 'if skittles are part of your 5 a day', 'how to make a fondant rollerskate', 'how to avoid being a needy singleton', 'how you gestalt yourself', and 'why my custard break'. These people think my blog has the answers, even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't, I am starting to doubt my own sanity.
4. That although I'm shy and sometimes stiltedly inarticulate in person, I will confess to anything on this blog to up my readership, including: eating chewing gum off the floor, drinking pickled onion juice straight out of jars, the exact quantity of booze required to endure a camping trip with kids, how to recreate Glastonbury in your own home (including the unforgettable rules to cider roulette) and the best method of getting your hens to clean the kitchen floor.
5. I may have an almost chillingly Single White Female obsession with Nora Ephron, Lorelai Gilmore and lipstick, but will always have more in common with Sally Field's Sybil and Elsie Tanner
6. We really do get nits during every religious festival and my daughter is more than a little likely to be the second coming of jesus, or the future dictator of some small, butt-fuck nowhere principality.
7. I spend most of my days gazing despairingly at my navel and trying to cure my neurosis with increasingly complicated lists written entirely in Yoda Speak (here).
8. I can't spell and my use of grammar is eccentric at best, retarded at worst.
9. I am three parts gin and one part wotsit.
10. That my readers are lovely, supportive, humorous strangers (except for the incest craving ones) who not only keep coming back, but were also responsible for me reaching the finals of a blog awards.
That's a year well spent, I'm sure you'll agree? And what's more important is that I've stuck this out, something I never do. Go me.

Happy Birthday to me, my blog and my hair. Chin-chin. Now excuse me, while I fold my neck into my bra.

Read previous post: i scrabbled. i scrabbled on the floor in Soho.

Tags » Celebrations Gilmore Girls List Slut MAD awards Nora Ephron camping choovers despair glastonbury key word search
- 10 October 2011
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Sparkly Balls, Nigellawitch & Brown Paper Bag Sherry

It's been a truly wonderful Christmas, with all the vital ingredients: child manically bouncing with excitement, bestfriends and family, good food, too much sherry and lots and lots of sparkles.

As most of you know we also had a surprise gift on Christmas Eve Eve. Yes, this year we got Christmas Nits. NITS. Santa came a little early and obviously decided to give us a Pan European Child Whipper type warning. We eliminated the nits and I stopped referring to Nigella as the Twatful Witch That Stole My Soul & Christmas. The change to Nigellawitch removes the ungodly undertones, but still allows me to spit on the floor at every mention. Warning successfully heeded, the gifts exponentianally improved on Christmas morning. And oh my they were remarkably good: piles of Ephron, V&A Pattern book, mustard patent go-go boots, jelly moulds, Festival of Britain cushion, 6 year old sewn bookmarks and handmade biscuits in a glorious vintage tin.

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Tags » Celebrations Christmas Domestic Goddess Family Life despair slattern
- 26 December 2010
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A Not So Silent Night

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Tags » Celebrations Christmas List Slut Music
- 21 December 2010
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Christmas Number Ones

I love Christmas. Love it. But this year it all feels a bit flat, I haven't yet managed to muster enthusiasm for the events leading up to Christmas or even the day itself. This is not like me. I'm blaming silly deadlines, too much work-related social whirling, a stinking man-flu cold and not being brownie-guide ready. The latter is troubling me most, I'm usually very, very ready. I like nothing better than the planning and associated list making: searching for a present that is just-so for a loved one; glittering my house with glorious abandon; caroling at any church where I don't get struck with a thunderbolt on entry; and, working my daughter into a frenzy of santa-mania. This year it's all been too last minute, too rushed, too manic. Lack of readiness has not only robbed all the Christmas joy, it has also meant that I have spent a week throwing money around Manchester like Victoria Beckham on speed. Depressingly this money has been spent on a mountain of pink plastic shit and costly gifts to make up for the lack of imagination.

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Tags » Celebrations Childhood Christmas Domestic Goddess Family Glitter List Slut Music
- 20 December 2010
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Just call me Bertha...

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Tags » Celebrations Culture Family Football Literature Music despair
- 7 December 2010
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A celebration...

This photo was taken in Italy in 1983. Me, my mum and my aunt: three girls who laughed a lot.

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Tags » Celebrations Family
- 1 December 2010
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Car Crunch + Cornerhouse + Cut Crystal = Car Park Party

Saturday was a day of monumental firsts, well for me anyway.

It was the first time I have pranged my car. Crunch against the retaining wall on our drive-way as I reversed in a hurry to get to my friend's birthday celebrations. Late. Late. Crunch.Crunch. Cry. Cry.

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Tags » Celebrations Cornerhouse Culture Life Manchester chickens
- 28 November 2010
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The Journey of the Magi

A cold coming they had of it, just the worst time of year for a journey. Such a journey. They came bearing gifts and wearing large smiles.

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Tags » Celebrations Life Literature
- 17 October 2010
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gin-nurtered time waster.
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