Hormones, Holidays and Homicidal tendencies

My exam was a breeze....I can say that right now because I have no idea whether I passed or not.  Admittedly I shall look a bit of a fool if I failed but I am pretty certain that I waltzed it.   Man I'm good.

So that was the 'up' part of the day.  I say up..it wasn't one bit enjoyable as it took me three and a half hours to complete and for most of that I felt I was about to wet myself.  Not wishing to make a fuss I stayed seated and crossed many parts of my body hoping and praying I would not spontaneously cough, laugh or sneeze thus opening the floodgates.  Finally I comprehend the purpose of the somewhat hideous Tena Lady.  

I have once had to, in a dire emergency I would add, pee in to a nappy.  Not something I am entirely proud of or would wish to repeat but an experience worth sharing nevertheless.  It was a few years ago when I had just had our fourth baby (Maisey) and Chris was still working in/commuting to Dublin each week.  He had asked me to collect him from Birmingham Airport, which was always going to be a bit risky as it involved the M6 at 5.00 on a Friday evening - a sure recipe for gridlock.  Anyway I had been trying out a new diet (Cambridge) which involves nothing but drinking meal replacement shakes accompanied by a minimum intake of 2ltrs of water per day.  Now really, what is it about water that makes you pee so much????  I can drink 18 cans of diet coke in succession and only use the toilet once but give me a glass of water and it's like constant cystitis.  No sooner have you done one than another is on its way.  

Naturally, before the start of the journey I emptied myself as much as possible. Two hours later I am sat on the M6 stuck in stationary queues of frustrated drivers with a belly the size of a basketball almost crying because the need to pee was becoming acutely painful.  The only thing putting me off going was the fact , as is typical of my luck, I was sat next to a van whose driver was positioned at such an angle he could see absolutely everything I was doing.  In the end though the wee won.  I had three nappies (of Maisey's) with me in the car and figured I would just go for it.  Discreetly I tried to stick one down my jeans, closed my eyes and began to relieve myself.  Now you would think wouldn't you that nappies would be the perfect absorber of urine....they are designed for that very purpose are they not?  Unfortunately however there is a MASSIVE difference between the size of a baby's bladder and mine....quite obvious really to the rational human mind, but a desperate woman doesn't have one of those.  In fact the average non-desperate woman doesn't either.   After about four seconds of 'streaming' I realise that this nappy is almost full and so is my bladder, still.  So as discreetly as possible I have to grab another nappy out of the bag, pull out the full one and slide the other in....by which point I think my trousers are half way down my bum but I am past caring, and so I continue.  For the second time, the nappy is full (and no, to my embarrassment, I am not enhancing this story in any way) and so I have to move on to the third.  What happens next is almost too disgusting to admit.  The third nappy is full, I have no more nappies to use and my bladder, whilst nearly empty, has gone past the point of return and I simply cannot stop.  To add insult to injury the traffic is now beginning to move; the nappy overflows eh voila, pee on seat, pee on trousers, pee everywhere and three pee filled nappies in the footwell.  Such a pleasant looking wife greeted her husband that day.  Never see that in movie airport-reunion love scenes now do you.  Pity my breasts didn't start leaking just to finish off the look.

I digress.

After my exam I had a few hours to kill before attending an interview, also in Birmingham.  I decided it would be nice to sit in the College refectory and use the internet for a while...in fact I was considering updating this blog.  No sooner had I picked my seat than a DISGUSTING pig sat at the Computer to the right of me began to 'hawk' up making the most revolting noise I have ever heard in my entire life and, being married to Chris Ford, that is saying something.  I initially forgave him, thinking a dose of the evil eye was probably unnecessary, after all he was surely embarrassed enough about it without me making a fuss.  Obviously not.  15 seconds later he did it again.  Then again. Then again.  Now I am usually quite a tolerant person but there are a few habits which push even moi to the edge.  Slurping cereal is one, eating with your mouth open is another and gratuitous sniffing is a third.  But hawking up in public is probably the most despicable lack of good manners possible.  Slam a door in my face, push in front of me in a queue, steal my bag if you have to, but DO NOT hawk in front of me.

I started by glaring at him.  He was oblivious.  Clearly he was not only deaf to his own noises, he was blind to other people too.  I then started saying in my loudest non-confrontational whisper "why don't you go and get a tissue?" but still this had no effect.  Then suddenly I had this incredible urge to walk over and smack him in the face.  I began to consider that if it really were true about Birmingham and guns (they say you are never more than 30 metres away from someone with one) that possibly somewhere in Kaplan someone may have arms I could borrow and blow his snotty nose off with.  At this point I realised that my period was due, I was coming over all homicidal again and really should STEP AWAY FROM THE HAWKER. 

And so I went shopping.  Deja Vu.

So yes, my period is coming and I am typically manic.....I inevitably have three days of craziness, one where I feel like killing everyone around me, the next where I feel like killing myself and the third when I just cry about absolutely anything that's remotely well...anything actually.  Third world poverty or a missing lipstick.  Anyway that explains why I have been feeling so tired and why, I must confess, I have done NO exercise for two days.  However Corrinna and I are off up the Wrekin in the morning (although now I have told you that nugget of information on my whereabouts I may have to change my plan as my mum is worried I am a wanted woman.....I should be so lucky!).

Report back soon.

And thank you to those of you who have made comments.  They have all been very kind although way too complimentary.   And as for your comment, my darling Bianca, about holidaying together in our bikinis.....even if I lose three stones my arm will still be the size of your torso thus the chances of me standing anywhere near you and your eighteen year old super slim body in a anything shy of a burka are pretty much zero!