An Evening with Paddy
Now I might be a million miles wide of the mark here... But I shall plough on regardless with this tale.
Now as I might have mentioned I see Paddy McGuinness (from Max & Paddy) fame all the time around where I live. He's driving his ginormous Range Rover or pulled up at the side of the road chatting on his Dolce & Gabba mobile phone. I thought it strange at the time that he'd live in run of the mill home on an average Bolton housing estate, but maybe there isn't that much money in comedy these days.
Anyways, I was advised by someone supposedly in the know, that Paddy does indeed own a house on my estate, and what's more is looking to buy more smaller properties in order to rent out and earn millions in his property empire. So I wondered wouldn't be interesting if Paddy decided to buy my place to rent out!!! We all win in that case, I can move to the new place, some one gets a lovely house to rent and Paddy earns more money to supplement his DVD sales.
Then my muppet estate agents rang me on Monday to say that the stroppy teenager liked the house (I frankly don't believe that) AND that a local property investor was interested in viewing.
Of course it has to be Paddy!!!! But he has cunningly used the name Mr Graham to avoid being recognised.
He can buy my place if he gives me lots of money and signed merchandise that I can sell on E-bay. I'll let you know how I get on with my vewing with Paddy tomorrow!!!
Things that go ouch in the night
Due to a family palava I ended up driving to Bolton A&E on Thursday night. We got there at 11pm and it was really busy!! Full of some real characters like stepping into a Little Britain sketch.
There was a very young mum, who couldn't have been more than 16/17 and she had two small children with her. A boy in his tracksuit and wellies and a baby girl. The boy was running round the waiting area and he came across one of those paper mache bowls that are given out to people who are sick. "A HAT!!" he exclaimed, picked it up, turned it upside down and ran round with it on his head. (It was an unused one!!) The triage nurse called the young girl in shouting "Demi-Leigh Parker". And the mum, baby and little boy all got up and trooped into the cubicle.
Demi-Leigh?? What kind of Lancashire name is that??
Another mum and daughter were waiting, the girl was in her early 20s and very heavily pregnant and the mum was about late 40s, they barely spoke and spent the whole time texting on their mobile phones. It's funny seeing someone my mum's age texting as my mum wouldn't have the first idea. Occasionaly they paused to take photos of the little boy running round with the sick bowl on his head.
There were about a dozen injured sports people all dressed in football kits etc which just proves how keeping fit is dangerous. Some young lads who looked like they had been in some scrapes, and some various elderly people being pushed round in wheelchairs by porters looking very bemused by the whole thing. Before us in the queue was a family, possibly from Eastern Europe who couldn't speak English and handed over a card with their details to the receptionist who struggled to complete all their details. Times like this it would have been handy to have paid more attention to learning languages from my grandparents.
All in all it wasn't a bad wait by A&E standards, and was home by 1am, but as we were leaving the next bunch of injured and ill arrived. Thank heavens for the patience of the staff.
Stroppy on a Sunday
My very first house viewing took place on Sunday - not bad for over 5 weeks on the market, and of course I blame it all on the useless bunch of plonks I've employed on my behalf.
At 10am my viewer arrived, and I was suprised to see a young guy and a woman on the doorstep. I felt suprisingly nervous showing them round and was desperate to impress them with my beautiful house. But... the boy had the most miserable face I've ever seen. He stropped round the place didn't show any interest in anything and was just plain grumpy. I was so tempted to get stroppy with him as it was really disheartening to have someone sneering round my house. He rang me to visit - I didn't force him to turn up.
It turned out that the woman was the boy's mother and it would transpire that she was keener than him to flee the family nest. They lived nearby in a 4-bed house so precious son wouldn't be that far away from his home comforts and laundry service.
After about 10 hellish minutes, I asked Kevin the teenager if he wanted to look round for himself. "NO" he muttered at his shoes and with that, him and mum were gone with him twittering how much houses cost. Tough!! I'm not going to give it away!!!!
I'm not holding out any hope that he even remotely liked my home and I don't think I'd want him to buy it anyways, if you can't even crack a smile - you're not moving in.
You Want To Put What Where?
I learned of a tricky situation this weekend, one of women I know through netball coaching has found out that her 15 year old daughter is pregnant.
I feel for the family as it's a pretty mad situation to find yourselves in, and no decision made from here is ever going to be easy and this is where you definitely find that there are serious consequences to your actions.
They are a close family and I'm sure that the daughter wasn't naive or clueless and I'm sure she must have been given advice from home or school at some point. The odd occassions when I've met her she's bubbly, lively and just a teenager really.
So why does it happen?? OK, I'll admit that it has been a long time since I was a teenager and fortunately for my parents I didn't give them cause to worry in that area, too busy rebelling elsewhere.
Talking to friends and moving away at 18 we often discussed matters of life, love and sex. My friend Jen summed it up when she said "I only sleep with men I don't like. If I really like, then I won't, I'll make them wait."
I think this is very true, for some girls (can't speak for everyone) your teenage and 20s are just a nightmare of body-image and insecurity. I was terribly awkward about my looks and figure and probably contributed to my eating problems. It's hard to like yourself, so if a guy shows interest and wants to get jiggy then, hey I musn't look like a swamp monster...
Only it would transpire that most blokes will take anyone to bed!!!! Now learning that it doesn't boost your self-esteem and the next morning you feel ever so slighly worse about it.
To me, it's harder for teenage girls now with the proliferation of the rise of young, sexy, attractive girls on display in very little all over magazines, in reality TV shows, or on the internet. If you are't comfortable in your own skin it does make the comparison very difficult. However, most of these girls have personal trainers, hair stylists, fake tan, boob jobs so it's not an exact comparison!! Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh saying that the likes of babes from Hollyoaks are forcing teenagers to sleep with their classmates but I think there is a lot of pressure all around on girls and some may find self-esteem shot to pieces and seek reassurance from where they can - their peer group.
No matter the cause, it's a tricky time for the netballing family and yet it so could have been prevented which makes it harder to take on board. I'm sure whatever decisions are made the family will work through it together.
I just hope I have a boy, girls are sooooo complicated!!!
Reasons to be cheerful
Returned to work today and so far has been OK, not too many emotional moments.
However, despite the rough times... I've still reasons to be cheerful:
- Pixie Junior due in December - I have a big tummy!
- The uninvited houseguest returned home after 4 weeks and 4 days
- Kicked a$$ with the muppets selling my house - and the house I like is still on the market
- I have lots of wonderful friends who are brilliant
- Went to visit Becks and saw her six month old daughter at the weekend - gorgeous
- My Name is Earl - new series started!
- It is almost sunshiney outside
- My parents are fabby and cool
- BWFC are the best team in the world (IMO)
That's it for now, I think!!
A heartbreaking loss
To bring my blog up to date I need to write about what has been happening recently. Which may explain some of the neglect.
Back in April I found out I was pregnant. I was delighted after being advised I'd find it difficult or impossible to ever have children. An early scan brought even more good news as they located 2 heartbeats at 6 weeks, and then another scan at 8 weeks showed them getting bigger and developing. They each had their own sacs and placentas which meant that they weren't identical twins.
I did a properly stupid thing and started telling people, I couldn't help it. What's more it was getting hard to hide my nausea from work colleagues and friends and my tummy was getting rounder by the day. At nearly 10 weeks I went to look round a house for sale and the vendor asked me when my baby was due.
The best thing was telling my parents, they'd long since given up on me producing grandchildren so sharing my scan photos was very exciting and my dad was over the moon at the forthcoming arrivals. I started ordering books on twins from Amazon and bought some maternity clothes and started searching online for double buggies.
At almost 13 weeks disaster struck, I regular check up was scheduled and the nurse said they would take another scan, at first this wasn't going to take place due to the 6 week and 8 week scans. The sonographer was very quiet, and then said, "I'm sorry, your baby isn't moving."
It was the most horrific thing seeing my dead baby lying on the screen, whilst next to it, a brother or sister kicked and wriggled away. The sonographer sought a second opinion who confirmed that the fetus (can't be a baby) was dead.
The last week has just been total shock and I feel such a fool:
- I didn't look after myself and my babies well enough
- I told people before it was safe to do so
- I ordered books and looked for equipment therefore tempting fate
- My healthy baby had taken over and not allowed the other baby to grow and develop.
I wanted both babies so much, I was delighted that I'd go from the posssibilty of never ever having children to an immediate family. My children would always have friends forever.
My consultant who saw me for some operations last year came to see me and told me to be focussed on the positive I have a baby alive and growing who all being well is due 15th December. However, I can't forget the image of the dead brother or sister that I will never get to meet, who I wanted so much, who I didn't protect.
They told me the dead fetus will just fall away and perhaps it's my imagination but my tummy feels smaller and less firm, as if it has gone. I want to feel positive but it hurts so much to think how the baby died and I had no idea.
I'm off work for a few days to get my head together I think they were worried about me having some kind of breakdown in the office. I just feel incredibly foolish and sooo very sad.
A Moving Experience
Aaargh I can’t believe that the estate agent I engaged to sell my house has fallen out with me!!!!
I’ve been trying to speak to my nominated ‘case worker’ and on Thursday we ended up having a big row about my “demands” (that they sell my house this year) and now I’m raging. I’m soooo pished off that the estate agent was so rude and really unhelpful and was one of those people who is really patronising when the say things like “you see Pixie the problem is, you don’t understand… Pixie, your house is too expensive…. Do you really think that we sit around and not do anything Pixie??” Well it bugs me when people constantly use your name 200 times in a conversation just to belittle you (yes I’m already little). The big point is that the valuation that THEIR valuer gave me is apparently too high and that it’s my fault because I’m greedy and want too much money.
I’m soooo cross that I fell for the pitch when the guy came round and told me how hard they work, how dedicated they are and in reality they don’t return my phone calls, talk to me like I’m a piece of cr*p on the phone, they guy didn’t even bring the chip in his camera when he came to take the photos the first time, and then when he came back they were rubbish. So I took some of my own and they put them on the website alongside the rubbish ones!!! What is the point of that???????? It now looks like a before and after makeover show. Plus they want a ridiculous amount of money for doing bugger all. I’m getting my friend’s fella who is a solicitor to write me a letter because the contract I’ve signed is all confusing about when I can fire them off.
Since then they rang me to say that they had viewer for me on Saturday morning. It all sounded a bit too convenient and I was highly suspicious. I got up extra early and made sure that everything was in perfect order, I even dropped a bag of old videos and books to a charity shop in town. I came back threw my cats out and practiced showing imaginary people round, highlighting the best bits of my house. Ten minutes before the imaginary (in my opinion) viewers were due to arrive the useless estate agents rang and said that the viewers had cancelled and not given a reason. I was fuming. However, as it was such a beautiful day, I dragged my deckchair out picked up a magazine and dozed in the sunshine plotting my revenge on the useless bunch of muppets who call themselves estate agents.
I woke up a few hours later with bright red arms ouch!!!
