Kay's 17th Birthday

Kay is 17 today. She really wanted to celebrate by inviting a lot of friends round to the house tonight to watch films and have a girlie chat. But how can you do that with a drunk father in the house? We had considered other alternative ways of celebrating, such as a meal in a favourite restaurant or a group visit to a cinema or ten-pin bowling, but they all proved rather costly given that there would be at least twelve of them altogether. Not to mention that even if I did fork out for twelve restaurant covers or twelve cinema seats or twelve bowling games, that would only provide entertainment for an hour or so and the girls would still be looking for something else to do after that. To make a whole evening of it. In the end, we had to make Greg promise under duress that he would stay upstairs in the bedroom for the entire duration of the "party" and not appear once to embarrass Kay in front of her friends. He has said he will, but our hearts are in our mouths in case he wanders down nevertheless in his dishevelled state to see the celebrations. He will say he will not do something and then do it anyway. I feel awful that Kay cannot invite friends round without worrying what he will do. I also feel equally awful that we are having to ban Greg from participating in the birthday celebrations, but he has brought it on himself.

Onto a different subject altogether, I have been nominated for the Arte Y Pico Award by the lovely Dulwich Divorcee. Having snapped my high heels just as I was about to go on stage, I had to hobble around for a day or two before I could accept the award (in other words I could not work out how to transfer the image to my site without some little pop-up telling me it was an illegal image!!) But a big thank you to DD for suggesting little old me. I shall wear my badge with pride. The rules dictate that I must now nominate five others to whom I think plaudits are forthcoming.



These are in no particular order but all in my opinion deserve it equally. My first is to Stinking Billy without whom I would never have been encouraged to start blogging in the first place. I bet he wishes he hadn't asked now!! He has managed for the best part to keep up a daily contribution (quite some record) to the blogging world on all manner of subjects. He always manages to cheer me up, but he has a serious side too and his devotion to his family is without doubt. My next is to Crystal Jigsaw. She comes across as a lovely person, mother and farmer's wife. She writes eloquently and has a wonderful knack of making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end whenever she relates to the spirit world she shares her farmhouse with. My third is to Big Blue Barn West. Aims writes such a gripping true story with a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. She also comes across as a very genuinely kind person and always ready to help. She has attracted a wide spread of supporters. My next is to Reluctant Memsahib for her tales of life in Tanzania in an outpost. Her stories and pictures very much bring that part of the world to life. My final award goes to Fern's Lakeland Blog for bringing such beautiful photos and views of a favourite part of England into my concrete London jungle.

I would nominate Dulwich Divorcee too but, she already has the award and in any case she nominated me! Likewise Goodbye to all fat . There are many more I could mention whose lives I have dipped into, but I would need to go on all day and night listing them! It only remains for me to burst into tears and to thank my agent, my producer etc etc, not to forget my husband, without whom all this would not be possible, and my lovely daughter. And now I shall stumble off stage.....hic.