Mrs Picklebottom Is Properly Horrified

Well hello, groovers and shakers. Or shakers and groovers, either way works. I'm back to talk all about LUURRRRVE.

Today is the 13th of February. See how sharp I am? This means that tomorrow is the 14th (razor sharp!), and you know what that means?!!

Yep, it's just another day. Well, it is to me. But for some folk, it's the most romantic day of the year: Valentine's Day. 

This means that Mickey Blue Eyes will be getting some very special treatment tomorrow. I might even make him a sandwich. And, when I serve up the burnt sausages and veg for dinner, I'll even do a little tomato sauce love heart. I'm thoughtful like that. 

Why am a such a cynical little soul? I mean, considering I love the Carpenters who usually sung about love. Birds suddenly appearing, sharing horizons and all that shit.  I guess I'm a weird mass of contradictions. 

The thing is, I don't really need a bunch of over priced roses to know that  my husband loves me. After all, why would he put up with my Carpenters addiction. That shit must be maddening.  Poor bastard. 

I will, however, take a million dollars and a life time supply of chocolate. I'm not greedy. 

Truthfully, I did fall in love for the first time at the tender age of around seven or eight. As soon as we touched I was besotted. My eyes met with the object of my affection and it was love at first sight.

I couldn't wait to meet with my new love for our daily trysts. We were together all the time. In bed. At school. Under the desk. In the playground. Parting was always heartbreaking. It was like leaving a piece of me behind whenever I forgot my books. Yes, books. What did YOU think I was talking about?

Forget about playing kiss/chasey in the playground, when you can sit in the corner with a book! Besides, fictional boys are better. Case in point: Gilbert Blythe. Swoooon. I wouldn't have minded if he'd called ME carrots! 

Books were definitely the first love of my life. This continued into my teens. When I was in Year 9, I had this English teacher. As you do. Honestly, I can't even remember her name, so I should probably make something up.

Let's just call her Mrs Picklebottom. Because if you're going to make up a name, it might as well be something ridiculous.  Now, since this blog is just me repeating myself ad nauseam, there's a good chance I've told this story before. But it's a good one, so here it is again...

It was during this particular time in my life that I enjoyed reading Mills & Boon romances.  Before you judge me, bear in mind that we didn't have the internet in 1985, so I had to find out about sex somewhere. I certainly wasn't the type to be off 'pashing' and being fingered behind the demountables. No judgement whatsoever if you were. I certainly hope you enjoyed it. Just wasn't my thing. So I stuck to the books. 

Mrs Picklebottom was completely horrified by my choice of reading material. So much so, that she immediately contacted my mother and demanded a meeting. The next thing you know, my bewildered mother was being informed by Mrs Picklebottom that allowing girls to read these type of novels would make them grow up to think that if they have sex and have an orgasm, they're in love! 

As my late aunt pointed out when Mum told her, you can have an orgasm masturbating, and it doesn't mean you're in love with your hand! I wish mum had sent my aunt to the meeting. Would have been interesting. 

At this point, I must apologise to my mother, some thirty odd years later. I certainly cannot imagine having to have such a conversation with a teacher. Mum replied that she disagreed. She thought it was just a phase I'd grow out of.

This proved to be true, as I no longer read Mills & Boon  novels. Enid Blyton and LM Montgomery on the other hand... 

Shhhhhhhh, don't tell anyone! 

I can't help thinking that if Mrs Picklebottom is still out there teaching high school English, she would have imploded at the Fifty Shades series. Not to mentions teens ready access to internet porn these days. 

However, maybe Mrs Picklebottom had a point. It was just a clumsy delivery. It's entirely possible that romance novels DO set people up for unrealistic expectations about love. 

That is my whole problem with Valentine's Day. It's so phoney and commercial.  Personally we don't celebrate it. We prefer to leave it for our wedding anniversary which has more personal meaning to us. We'll celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary in November instead. 

One other thing, if you're single and feeling a bit crap because it's Valentine's Day and everyone is posting all their loved up stuff on Facey. Don't. Or, at least, don't feel crap for longer than five minutes. Feel the crappy stuff, then move on.  

Those couples enjoying a romantic meal near the beach will be the same ones who'll be pissed off with each other the next day for forgetting to replace the toilet roll. Incidentally, it's me who always forgets to replace the toilet roll in this house, not Mickey Blue Eyes. Oops. Sorry! 

So I think I finally understand what Mrs Picklebottom was saying. Love isn't about hearts and flowers on one arbitrary commercial day. There is so much more to it than that. It's all the little things your partner does every day.  And the HUGE things; like supporting each other through cancer. (That's a whole other blog post...) It's been a wild 22 years, that's all I can say...

And tomato sauce love hearts are cute sometimes, too.

Maybe I'm a romantic after all? 

What are your thoughts about love, Valentine's Day and Mills & Boon novels? 

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Mick & Ness: A Love Story

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every blogger or  would be writer will pinch those opening words from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (damn she was good). So I did.  Just to get it out of my system.

Anyway, according to our GP, (who is all too familiar with our history of woes, all of which are a gigantic saga of epic proportions, more weepy and melodramatic than a Danielle Steele novel) Mick and I are 'Two gentle souls who found each other.'

 More like two mega dorks from hell who couldn't find anyone else, really. And clearly she hasn't heard some of the swearing around here. Or seen me throw things when I have a  melt down. But perhaps she has a point.

As how we met is quite the touching love story. It goes like this. Cue the schmaltzy romantic music. Or not.

Around age 21, a long-time friendship and suddenly went pear shaped.  Distressed, I confided in a work colleague. 

"Don't worry about her, she sounds like a bitch," was her advice. "you've got other friends haven't you?"  To which the answer was a resounding - No.

"Oh," she said "well, you'll just have to make some."

Right. Easy peasy.  Especially for a painfully shy, quiet, introverted Aspie like me. (Not that I knew about the Aspie part at the time).  Then Jeanette, the work colleague, suggested I  should go to something called Rotaract.  I had no idea what Rotaract was really, but she was quite persistent. She gave me a number and said "If you don't ring up, I will!"

So I made the phone call, hands shaking, voice a whisper.  The cheerful sounding girl at the other end of the phone didn't seem to notice. It turned out that Rotaract was some sort of Community Service and Social Club for 18-30 year olds, which was sponsered by Rotary.

 "We're all going to Studebakers Night Club this Saturday, "  Cheerful Girl told me "you can come." Yay. I lurrrrve Night Clubs. Thumping 'music' and passive smoking are SUCH a thrilling way to spend a night out.

Subsequently, I ended up sitting there at Studebakers,  the following Saturday night, with a bunch of strangers, passive smoking, feeling awkward and answering the usual polite questions.  Among the strangers was Mick.  The only impression he made on me was that I thought he was really serious.  He was having a really intense, grown up conversation with some others about something really Accountant like, such as mortgages or the stock market.  I glazed over.

I kept going to Rotaract, also known as Rootaract, due to the high number of marriages among our friends that resulted from it.  Luckily, I made a good friend, Kim, and was constantly glued at her side at every Rotaract outing and function.   So, for the first time in my life I actually had something resembling friends and a social life, even though in reality I was still painfully shy and quiet.

We had many outings and functions and I'm sure all those wine tasting weekends at the Hunter Valley and Priest and Pro's Dances we had were extremely *coughs*, erm...helpful for the community.  At one such function Mick and I were chatting. I'd been going to Rotaract for possibly close to a year by now. During the conversation, Mick casually asked me out.

I have always been completely and totally clueless when it comes to flirting or catching on if somebody chats me up. Which is a shame, because it obviously happened ALL THE TIME in those days, in light of my striking resemblance to Nicole Kidman.

 Consequently, when Mick asked me, I so wasn't expecting it, that it took a full minute to register that he'd even asked me.  The moment passed and I didn't answer him.  I felt quite upset that I hadn't answered him and might have hurt his feelings and left him pining away. I have since brought that up years later, and he doesn't even remember, so he obviously wasn't pining at all. Hmph.

I agonised over it like a herione in a Victorian novel.  Like Lizzy Bennet did over Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.  Like Rachel McAdams and Ryan Goseling in The Notebook. Like Maria did over Captain Von Trapp. Kind of, sort of...

I gave it some thought and sent him a rather enigmatic letter indicating that I wished I'd answered him, like the dark and mysterious (ie. awkward and cowardly) person I am.  He asked me again, and we embarked on a date.  We went to the movies. Mick gallantly let me choose the film. So what did I choose for a first date?

Sleepless In Seattle. Save me.

You know. Tom Hanks. Meg Ryan.

One look and it was...magic. And all that crap.

Possibly just a tad over the top for a first date. Plus, it hadn't really happened like that for us. My first look at Mick, I glazed over. Oops.

A year later, he asked me to marry him in his usual blase fashion.  Over an Italian meal in a restaurant. With my parents present. I said yes. We finished our Veal Tegame and he went home to his place and I went home with my parents.  So romantic. I rang Kim and a few other Rotaractors and told them we were engaged.

The next day they rang Mick at work to congratulate him. He had yet to inform his parents and siblings.

We look slightly different now..sigh..

We had our wedding a year or so later. Luckily I didn't know what was going to happen over the next 16 years or I might have run shrieking from the church. But I didn't.  It was quite an eventful day, so that might be a whole other post.

Put it this way, over the last 16 years we have certainly been through it all... for better, for worse,  in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer...

Hang on. Wait.

We actually haven't been through the richer part.  Even after Micky Blue Eyes promised me he would be millionaire by the time he was 40.  And he is turning a big number with a zero in it next year, and the number isn't 40. Hmph.  And  a big snorty honking sound even.

So I can only hope the richer part will be along presently. And then we can live happily ever after in wedded stress....oops, I mean bliss.

Linking up with Cathy from The Camera Chronicles for Flashback Friday.

Linking up with Kirsty from  My Home Truths for I Must Confess. One more time, for the good times.

Linking this up for I Must Confess AGAIN because I couldn't be bothered writing a new post  it's SUCH a touching love story.

Have you ever heard a more touching love story? I doubt it....

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