When your home life takes over...

We are now just over the 24 hour mark with no working boiler.

Yesterday was a living nightmare with water pouring out of the boiler, three shivering children and an aged dog on the brink of collapse. The corgi engineer actually said he couldn’t believe it when he saw it; that the flooding was the worst he’d ever seen.

Added to that, I have a terrible cold. The estimate is that it will be around 2 weeks before we can have a new boiler fitted.

The timing of this is strange and has almost transported me back through the decades. There’s a lot going on at the moment in my personal life (little of it good) but this intensity of cold has served to remind me of when I lived with my mum and dad up in Glasgow.

So I know we’ll survive. We’ll get through this. It isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, or that ever will happen.

Back then I knew things would get better.

And they will again, this time.

Tamworth Literary Festival

I'm really looking forward to attending Tamworth Literary Festival on Saturday, 3rd March, and also on Tuesday, 6th March. Please check the site for further details.

I hope to see you there!

Apologies are required I believe.

To all the other Ceroc dancers at the venue I attended last night, I have this to say : 'please accept my sincere apologies'.

Now I know that you are wondering what I did that was so awful I feel I have to offer a public apology, so I will tell you. But first I have to set the scene a little, so bear with me.

Imagine if you will, a smallish, very flat-footed woman who has low blood pressure which gives her a tendency to dizzy spells. Got that image? Good!

Now dress her in a flowing skirt and top and slide her feet into a pair of neck-breakingly high heels and there I am.

Having previously attended many Ceroc sessions in the past, I had somehow managed to convince myself that even though I had not been to a lesson in over a year, I would magically remember everything, every move, every dip and every signal.

More than that...somewhere in my befudddled brain I had managed to convince myself that in my absence I would still somehow have managed to absorb all the lessons I had missed, as if by turning up on one night, I could suddenly do every step perfectly, having gleaned it almost by osmosis from the dance teacher.

I was wrong. Oh boy was I wrong. I catapulted myself around the room, much to the initial amusement of most of the other dancers. Spinning like a drunken whirling dervish I collided with more than one other dancer, unable to spin on the spot as I had intended. Strangely, their amusement soon wore off.

But worse was to come...on executing a particularly difficult turn, I found the heel of my shoe firmly imbedded in the calf muscle of another lady dancer...and on trying to extricate it, I think I may have sliced rather a lot of skin from her leg.

There was a howl and possibly some blood [thankfully it was too dark to really see but there could not have been much, or we would all have been sliding around in it on the dance floor].

I apologised profusely at the time but the damage was done. I guess the fact that I did not remove myself from the premises immediately, only added salt to the wound, so to speak!

So here it is...people of Ceroc Bromsgrove, I apologise unreservedly.

But unfortunately for you, I had a great time and will certainly be back...

P.S. I was in town today and noticed that the price of football shin-pads had rocketed. Apparently, due to the business law of supply and demand, local demand has risen exponentially and prices have sky-rocketed...

Now there couldn't possibly be a connection there...or could there?

So be warned - I could be heading for a Ceroc venue near you! Get those old shin-pads dusted off! ;)

A Two-Way Mirror in a Bathroom???

I have just seen reports of a two -way mirror in a ladies toilet in  a club in Glasgow, which my friend put on facebook.

Really?? I mean really? Come on guys how weird is that? If the only way you can get your kicks is by watching some unsuspecting woman reapplying her make-up, or adjusting her hair, then I feel very sorry for you...

And as for the billionaire club owner who termed it "a bit of fun", let's think how he would like it if we all got a sneaky-peek at his most prized possession - his bank details. Not a lot I would imagine!

I would love to think that men would shun these private rooms where the images behind the mirrors can be seen but a good knowledge of human nature, suggests that there will always be punters ready to part with their cash, for the deviant thrill this will provide.

Britain - you are getting sleazier by the minute and I for one am ashamed.