Be More Mabel

It’s always weird, when you realise that one of your heroes has 4 legs and her most favourite thing in the world to do is play fetch! I have two dogs Cyril and Mabel, both named after my Grandparents. If Cyril were a human, he’d be a cross between Stifler from “American Pie” and Sherlock Holmes (The Benedict Cumberbatch one) He’s incredibly intelligent, but also a bit of a k**b, but you can’t help loving him!

  Mabel is a rescue dog and when she first came to live with us, she had a really bad eye infection. She had a patch round her eye and looked like a pirate and her back was bald from a skin infection. The vet wasn’t sure it would ever heal. We had no idea, where she’d come from or what she’d been through. There’s bits we can guess at.

   At the start she was petrified at going outside for a wee at night, unless you came with her (we think she was scared of being locked outside) She hates men with beards (Zac Dingle from “Emmerdale” makes her bark at the tele) and she didn’t like to be cuddled! Fast-forward a year and she’s gone from Shabby Babby to Fabby Babby! Her fur is glossy, she trusts that you won’t lock her outside and she loves a cuddle, she’s developed the Mabel loll….. she just sort of collapses at the side of you like a rag doll. When it comes to Zac, it’s now more of a grumble than a full on bark.

  She is someone so full of love, happiness and joy that she inspires me. The reality is, I’ll never know what Mabel went through before she came into our lives, I can only guess, but whatever it was or however bad her life was she’s moved on! She now knows what makes her happy and she indulges in all of them every day! She doesn't waste time moaning about what went before, it's like she's happily left that in the past and I swear if you were to look up the definition of "Joie de vivre", there'd be a picture of Mabel playing with a ball on the beach!

  In fact, my Mabel, isn’t completely unlike the lady she’s named after, my Gran. I’ve been very lucky, in that I’ve always been surrounded by some incredibly strong and formidable ladies, my Grandmas, my Mum, my Aunties, my cousins, both sides of my family, I’m related to some really amazing women!

   My Gran Mabel, was a lady who never did anything by halves. She never went abroad, until she was 57 and then, she didn’t head off for a few days on the Costa Bravo, on no not my Gran. The first time she stepped on a plane she flew half way round the world to visit family in Australia.

  My Gran was lucky enough to have never needed an operation until she was 78 and then it wasn’t something simple like having her appendix out, nope that was way too easy! She went in with a broken hip and whilst she was there, they realized there were other issues and she ended up staying there for 3 months and coming home with two colostomy bags. The 8-hour operation took place on Christmas Eve and we were told to expect her not to last the night! Not on Grandma Mabel’s watch….. she not only lasted the night, but lived another 10 years! Complete with dodgy hip, colostomy bags and a dicky heart and she would tell you she was as happy as Larry and she genuinely was!

2016 has been an incredibly busy year, getting up at 4.15am, working 12 hour days and things have gone by the wayside. Not just this blog!  I’ve not seen a huge amount of some of my friends, I very rarely go out during the week, gym classes are weekends only and I find myself frantically working out in my head every day how I can possibly get as much sleep as I can. What’s the latest I can be in bed for me to still function like a normal human? The last few weeks, I’ve gone all Len Goodman and pretty much gone to bed at “7”, which makes for a very dull life!

  I realized I needed to start to be a bit more Mabel, it’s time to put behind me some of the stuff that’s made me unhappy this year and focus on doing the things I enjoy, just like the 4-legged one and it’s time to not do things by halves just like the Grandma version.

  I think everyone could be a bit more Mabel at times!

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

Earlier today, I asked my sister if she had to compare me to a Disney character, which one would I be? She replied without hesitation “you’d be Anna from “Frozen”, because you always want to build a bloody snowman!”

  The question came about, because I’d been reading by friend Ali’s blog “The Ali Sandwiches” and she’d been speaking how her inner Snow White constantly battles with her inner Dobby the House Elf and how she fights between letting one rule the other and it set me thinking…....

95% of the time my inner Anna wins every single time, I’m the first one who wants to pull on her boots, winter coat and gloves and head outside to build a snowman (if it’s snowing obviously) I’m up for trying anything once – see my previous blogs on pole dancing and burlesque (which I still do!)

  But over the last few weeks, my inner Cinderella has silenced my inner Anna… Trinderella if you will. I don’t mean the one who gets to get all dressed up, go to a party and meet a fit prince. I mean the one who thinks she’s only good enough to stay at home and do the chores. It’s not even the Cinderella who manages to convince various woodland creatures that making her a frock is a good idea.

 The last few weeks have been really tough and I’ve really struggled with my emotions for many reasons. I’ve felt like I’ve had to fight to prove my worth in just about every situation, whether it’s been what I’m being paid, to actually getting people to acknowledge my very existence. I think I understand how twins must feel, when they get dismissed as one person, just recently I’ve found myself answering to my sister’s name…even in e-mails!!! And being lumped into the X Factor category of “The Girls”, which is sort of flattering, but I’ll be 40 next year and Simon Cowell is nowhere to be seen!

  I apparently also have magical powers to fix everyone’s problems, my favourite was an acquaintance asking me to locate her an antique Welsh dresser! Why I would know where to find one of those is beyond me!

  I think I let all these things grind me down and Anna was sent to her room, to dream of building snowmen, whilst Trinderella scrubbed floors and tried to make sure everyone else had a lovely life. My diet has been unimportant, there's been a pound lost here, half a pound gained here, it hasn't really mattered.

  Hanging out with my God-daughter Eve at the weekend, helped put things into perspective. Eve is 3 years old, but she likes to whisper loudly in secret to Lucy that she’s the one who looks after me! She’s 3; she knows the difference between Aunty Katie and Aunty Lucy! Eve arrives, budges Cyril up so she can sit on my knee, declares that Cyril is one of her dogs and then decides we should eat pink cake and play on the park. Sounds like a plan to me!

  Seeing Eve and her brother Nate, running around like lunatics and enjoying everything made me happy. Before I knew it, we were planning a trip to go trampolining, cinema and a craft afternoon, where I think I promised Eve, there’d be painting. 

  My inner Anna was back; life is about adventures and trying things and not having to prove anything to anybody. If someone tries to put you down by using then wrong name, then screw them. Maybe it’s not disrespectful to be referred to as “the Girls”. Me and my sister are an unbreakable force, (think Ant and Dec, but without the millions and a love of golf) some people never get that type of friendship in their life. And I can’t solve everyone’s problems and truth be told, I don’t even know what a Welsh dresser is, let alone where to find one and I’m OK with that!

  I always tease Eve that I’m her Fairy Godmother, but truth is, I think she’s mine!

Fat and Fit!

My Dad grew up in Kent and so when he moved up to Nottinghamshire after he married my Mum, he was considered a “foreigner” In fact my Aunty Marie never actually directly acknowledged him. Instead she would ask my Mum “does your whattsit want a cup of tea? “Does he take sugar?”

This is a stunt Aunty Marie, not the real one.

  I’m not sure if she thought, that if she spoke to him he would somehow start to brainwash her with his southern ways and before she knew it she’d be dressed as a pearly Queen, serving up jellied eels and asking people if they wanted a “barth” and not a “bath” She assumed that because of the Midlands / South divide there would be no way they could understand each other and therefore nominated my Mum as their interpreter!

My Mum & Dad...quite normal really!

  The reason for my tale of family history is because a similar thing happened to me yesterday. Somebody made an assumption about me and as we know “assumptions are the mother of all f*** ups”

When you’re overweight people assume that you’re not fit, a couple of steps and they expect you to collapse in a heap on the floor begging for someone to fetch you a mobility scooter. 

   Yesterday Lucy and I went to a meeting and in the course of general conversation we got onto the subject of golf and Lucy politely mentioned that she might like to give it a go one day. Straight away this lady offered to take Lucy along to her golf club and play 9 holes with her. I saw her look sideways at me and I could see the thought going through her head “ I wont ask fattie, I doubt she could walk the distance to play 9 holes without having to stop for a family bar of Dairy Milk and a sit down”

Now don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t run a marathon, but for a fat chick I’m actually quite active! Most weeks I go to the gym a couple of times a week and do high intensity dance classes and because I wear a fitbit, I know, that most days I achieve 10,000 steps. 

Yes I’m overweight, but I am doing something about that and I know for a fact that I’m far healthier than some of my skinny friends who must have been blessed by the Gods of “having a laugh” as they never do any exercise, eat chocolate all day and spend most evenings sat on the sofa. Ask them to go for a walk and their first question is “how far” and then a look of panic when I reply, “Until Cyril (my crazy beagle) starts to look a bit tired”

  It’s really easy to judge people and assume you know all about them by how they look or sound, but the reality is you don’t. So just as my Aunty Marie should have spent a bit of time actually getting to know my Dad and learning that Kent isn’t in the East End, maybe the lady yesterday shouldn’t have discounted me from a game of golf. Although secretly I’m glad she did, because if I’m going for a walk, I like Cyril to be there too!

PS – Another pound gone!

Better to be the One Who Smiled First

I love this quote and it’s something I always try to do. When you first do it, you feel a bit daft, but before you know it you’ve had half a dozen conversations with random people and the daftness has definitely faded. If I didn’t do this, how else would I know that Snoop Dogg (or is he Snoop Lion now?) has a member of his posse called Rat a Tat Tat? It’s amazing what you can learn from random men in pubs!

  At the train station a few weeks ago, I ordered a couple of coffees and the lady behind the counter treated me like she’d just found out I had been round to her house and chopped all the arms off of her jumpers. She was really rude! As she crashed and banged cardboard coffee cups around and sighed at the fact I wanted milk, I found myself chatting nonsense at her. I went for the obvious weather smalltalk (grunt) wasn’t it busy today? (Another grunt) she must see all sorts in her job (grunt grunt) I could see the woman look at me like I was completely mental. As she finished our coffees and I paid I said; “have a lovely day”, the look on her face was priceless and she grunted back “yes you too” and then she actually smiled!

  For the last week, I’ve kept a note of every time someone’s paid me a compliment, when I started this, I thought it might be a really short list, but actually it hasn’t been. I’m normally really rubbish at taking compliments, so when someone says;

“That’s a nice skirt”, I’ll normally reply with something like “oh thanks, it was only £10.00 from Sainsburys, I’ve had it ages” (other supermarket clothing ranges are available)

  The first compliment I received was from someone telling me that my nails looked nice. They do, Sam who does my nails is a genius.

  As I made a note of the compliment, I thought I bet that’s the only one I write down. Then as I posted a link to last week’s blog, my friend Steph left me this message;

  To be honest it snowballed from there. I noticed even the tiniest of compliments “nice handbag”, “I really enjoy reading what you write”, and “Isn’t your dog well behaved” (Believe me that’s probably the biggest compliment I’ve EVER received!)

  My friend Paula also left me a voice message, which really made me smile and was just what I needed to hear at that point.

  I noticed that gratefully receiving the compliments, meant that in turn I said nice things to people and tried to help people where I could. I also noticed that I started to treat myself better. I’ve made time to go to the gym, I’ve taken Cyril for a walk, really enjoying the peace and quiet and the chance to just wander with him, rather than worrying about having to get back for something. I’ve made loads of lovely fresh food from scratch and enjoyed being in the kitchen. I’ve spent time in the garden painting the furniture, that I’ve been meaning to do for ages, I didn’t even get stressed when Cyril decided to help me and got paint on his bum. I even found myself saying no to things I really didn't want to do, as well as having the confidence to say when I didn't think things were right.

  I’ve also lost another pound this week, so that also added to my general sense of well being, even though after a weekend away with my sister and friend Julie, which involved Fish & chips, ice cream and wine, I’m not wholly sure I deserved it, but I’ll take it.

  So if you didn’t join in last week, this week just try it, see how many compliments you do get throughout the week and make a note of it, I guarantee it will put a smile on your face!