Week from Hell

 My car needed major repairs and I shelled out the best part of £200 just to change the battery and reattach the exhaust only for it to be impounded due to a clerical error on the insurance. Of all places for this to happen it just had to be south London! You would not believe what I had to go through to get my car back, having to return twice (80 miles round trip)  as they weren’t sure I was the legal owner despite them writing to me to tell me I was! During my 2 hour wait to get to the counter there were no fewer than 2 arrests for disorderly behaviour, and the cars just kept on being towed in!

 

Real shady characters

The weeks after Barry goes back to school is always a tough one. Hanging up my Super Mum suit is always a difficult transition. My life all of a sudden seems so vacuous; it’s a horrid empty feeling. I sometimes curse those women who lied and said we could have it all. I guess you can if you are okay with doing it all in a half-baked sort of way, but then I'd be riddled with guilt at being a crap mum and having a crap career. If you want to be excellent in at least one of these you have to choose one or the other, work or family. It is as simple as that.

 

Unfortunately, as a lone parent you have even less of a choice: work or live a life relying on the welfare state! This is something I am strongly against. I sometimes feel like screaming at the “smug married” who say silly things like, “you don’t have to work such long hours.” Erm, yes I do, or they will get someone else in to do my job, and probable a man because they are more “flexible.”  Prior to me setting up my own consultancy I used to be surprised at the amount of times meetings would be set for 4:30pm, but then I would look around the table and see I was the only woman there and I would be seething, thinking “don’t you realise that after school club closes at 6pm?”, and “Oh of course you don’t, you have your lovely wives at home tending to your broods!” Needless to say, when redundancy was on the table I grabbed it and ran!!!!

 

Classic shifts and day dresses 

Another SM (Smug Married) suggestion would be, “Why don’t you just stay at home?” Erm, and rely on the elves to provide me with food, electricity, oh and pay my rent? And finally, “You could just get a job in a supermarket?”  I have a HND, a Degree and a Masters and you feel I should be stacking shelves? I wouldn’t last a day on the shop floor; by the end of my shift I would've  devised a new process to run the department more efficiently, delivering 10% savings, and would turn up the next day with an implementation strategy and no doubt fast track to senior management. Its what I am trained to do!

 

Floral and Paisley prints  

But they all can’t be crazy. Perhaps they are right and I am wrong. Maybe it is time to take up a slower pace of life. Have less and live more? Its worth a thought.

I thought I’d mull over this whilst I go check out this summer’s Selfridges window display. Enjoy the pictures!

 

All of the above in neon!

Training is going very well. I have really upped the ante by increasing my weights and durations. With less than four weeks to go, though, my nerves are kicking in.