The worst two hours of my life this year...

...were spent watching "The Holiday". Baby Babs was asleep finally so we indulged ourselves in a film. Light romantic comedy with big names Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, that should be ok shouldn't it?! No. It was bloody awful. One of my Worst Films Ever. They were all so smug. SO smug it nearly made our eyes bleed. Cameron and Kate have bad love lives and swap houses for 2 weeks - one in LA, one in a picture perfect cottage in Surrey. Within these 2 weeks, they manage to get over their exes, meet the men of their dreams and sort out their inner angsts. My god. It could have been so much better. Even Jack Black couldn't save it. Jude Law is a widower with 2 kids who all just "fall in love" with quirky Cam, and she gives up a high powered movie job in LA to move in with him and become their new mum. Kate charms everyone in LA with her 'refreshing Britness' and falls for Jack Black who likes to sing the themes to movies while walking round Blockbusters. Honestly. I could still be sick thinking about it. Miami Vice was a film classic compared to this one. Do the movie makers think as long as they have enough big names in a film that the script doesn't really matter?! Honestly. I want that time back! Thankyou.

Where is my mind?

Pregnancy and motherhood take quite a toll on a normal person you know. Symptoms I have become aware of include:

1) Someone tells you to do something. You agree to do it. Then it goes out of your mind completely. Hubbie is regularly driven mad by this, especially as before baby (herein "BB") I never forgot anything and never had to be reminded to do anything. But I think he should take the trouble to remind me again after reminding me, or even do it himself! What an idea?!

2) You fall out of the loop of everything you held dear BB. Take Chris Cornell. He is my rock idol and if I wasn't married and he hadn't turned into a bit of a strange man recently then I would have run off with him no questions. I knew that he had quit Audioslave. But I didn't realise he had a new single out until I read it in Heat! Heat!! The shame!! His new album is out on Monday and I only pre-ordered it yesterday!

3) I asked Lady Librarian (who thankfully still has her finger on the pulse) if she had heard that "good new cover" of the Smiths by Mark Ronson? Apparently it's been out for months and everyone is fed up of it now. Oh righty. Same goes for the "new" Manics single. Sigh.

4) I haven't read a book that didn't start with "there once was a ..." for months and months. I have a stockpile of books I want to read but can't find the time. When littl'un is asleep I either do housework or check my emails. I need to make a rota to fit everything in. Who has time for a job these days? :-)

5) You become oblivious to sick stains on your clothes and are quite happy to leave the house as long as you are fully clothed, never mind what combination of clothes you have put together in the 2 minutes you have to get dressed before littl'un rolls off the bed and a trip to A&E ensues.

6) You are quite happy to discuss highly personal details (birth/breastfeeding/baby poo) with anyone who seems interested. And bore people are clearly aren't.

7) You have the attention span of a small gnat and can cope with 1/2 hour tv programs if they cover property/decoration/animals/tattoo artists/holidays but films and complex tv shows are completely out.

8) You learn to eat most meals in about 5 minutes flat as your previously happy and smiley baby turns into the antichrist should you have the temerity (ooh long word get me!) to try and eat a meal and not pay them your full attention for a short while.

But hey it's not all bad! It's actually quite fun, it's just adjusting to the brain decay that is bothering me! Maybe I should start doing some brain exercises...2x2 is 4, 4x4 is 16...

Animal mortuary?

Whilst feeding the little'un in the mornings, I have been watching Animal Park on the BBC at 9am. Remember the AM bit, it'll be important later. It's a documentary about Longleat Safari Park, "ooh", I thought, "lots of nice footage of monkeys and lions and it's much better than Jeremy Kyle on the other side". So far this week I have been traumatised and am thinking of writing an "appalled of Essex" letter to the Beeb. The first day I watched it a baby giraffe died. Instead of glossing over the fact, they chose to show the giraffe corpse led on some concrete obviously waiting for the incinerator. The next day a white tiger had to be put to sleep as it had cancer. Queue a shot of the corpse and a slow-motion montage of her finer moments. Then two male handlers were nearly reduced to tears reminiscing about the poor old tiger. Yesterday a pregnant giraffe had to have an emergency caesarean but the baby had died. The voiceover declared gleefully "it had been dead for so long that it had started decomposing in the womb". They then showed the poor mum wandering round looking really sad. I couldn't watch it today. I'm all for seeing nature as it really is, but honestly, whoever edits this show is a sadist. And I'm surprised there are any animals left to show us. Jeremy Kyle seems full of happy normal people in comparison and that's saying something...

Strictly playtime?!

I was strong-armed into attending a 6 year old’s birthday party at the weekend - it was only for 2 hours, I thought, how bad could it be? How wrong I was! It was horrendous. Firstly, a room of screaming 6 year olds would have put me off breeding if it wasn’t too late already. Then the games. They were led by a very efficient mother and her cohorts who had planned the festivities down to the last balloon. The poor kids were herded into lines, circles, groups etc by a whistle - and anyone who decided they would much rather just run around or dance than follow the strict “fun” guidelines got a sharp blast of the whistle and told off! Poor things. It reminded me of the Spongebob episode when he has a party and has planned the activities down to the last second and gets upset when people veer off his schedule!

And what is it with the new idea that nobody can lose at anything? All the games, pass the parcel, musical chairs etc, were played with the kids who lost being given a prize. This is probably so they didn’t feel bad, and all the kids then got the same prize, but it meant that all the kids wanted to lose and then kept sneaking back in again, so the games never finished. The mother running it all never really caught on to this and looked perplexed when the game had run on for about 15 minutes and the kids were looking very bored and there were just as many as at the beginning. What is wrong with a little healthy competition? When I was little, I thrived on trying to win things, it made me try harder. If I was going to get the same prize anyway, why would I bother? Now admittedly I was one of the brighter ones of my class and so rarely came last (apart from in sports but enough of that!) but that didn’t stop me trying. How come kids nowadays can never fail or lose at anything without people worrying it will affect them adversely? I think it is more the other way round, we’re breeding a generation of spoilt brats who have never had to face being last or losing at anything, and who are given everything they want in case they phone the social, so when they get to the real world they are in for quite a shock. My poor boy is getting a reality check the minute he can talk!