LOVELY JUBBLIES BY THE NAKED BREAST

“ Welcome to what I call my way of feeding , feeding’s got to be a laugh , it’s got to be simple, it’s got to be fun , it’s basically got to be about stripping the recipe down to the bare essentials ....only the top half though, this is a family show “

*Opening credits roll up to reveal pukka title sequence *

The Naked Breast

Ok , ladies what I have here for you is a recipe that’s been around since the dawn of time and you know what , it’s so simple and easy that should you choose to defer from it everyone including  celebrity chefs are allowed to make you feel bad forever after for not doing it the right way.

It’s packed full of health benefits so please do feel guilty about not doing what’s best for your child even if it’s unavoidable due to illness or other reasons when everyone informs  you about the essential vitamins and nutrients you’re depriving baby of that make them less susceptible to colds, chest infections and allergies.

Please do weep buckets full of tears at your failure to get baby to latch on because after all as your partner yawns and moans crossly “how hard can it be ? “

And should you choose to express your milk with a pump please remember all that pain and distress is totally worth it for that tiny amount you manage to squeeze out that barely covers the bottom of the beaker provided.

Top tip - A simple garnish of cabbage leaves works wonders if swelling and infection become too much to bear.

Finally, it is essential that you should feel compelled to have to sacrifice your own mental health and happiness, after all when you signed up for this baby malarkey you knew the rules stated that you were expected become a milking machine 24 hours a day 7 days a week lest you want your child to grow up and be at risk of long term illness, stunted growth and obesity.

Bish, bash , bosh and that’s it we’re sorted .

Or alternatively there is another “bold, brave “move you could make that works just as well for mother and baby.

You can do what works best for you , what fit’s best around your life and what makes not only baby happy but mum as well despite what everyone else wants to dictate to you .

I breastfed with difficulty for the first month of my twins life before deciding to switch full time to formula when I realised that with two mouths to feed and barely producing enough of my own to fill a tablespoon that if I wanted to feel satisfied i was giving them enough nourishment maybe it was time I started being not so hard on myself for not being able to give it to them personally and concentrated more on enjoying watching them thrive with a little bit of help from elsewhere.

They’ve grown up to be big, strong and healthy with rarely a day taken off school due to ill health.

Towering over 5ft me and catching up quickly with their 6ft 1 father they aren’t exactly stunted height wise and while they like their food they are in no way giving Billy Bunter a run for his money so I don’t fret quite so much that maybe I didn’t give them the best start in life by switching over to bottle feeding these days.

So ladies , I applaud you however you decide to do your feeding because while there are certainly reasons for why breast is supposed to be best , I think maybe letting every mother choose what works well for her without judging them is an even better idea , don’t you ?

Lovely Jubbly

 

And the producer said to me .....

There is an old Page family saying, it dates back to the early days of my childhood and has ultimately stood the test of time since it was first spoken way back in the early 80s.

It is uttered predominantly around the yuletide period when this particular activity tends to reach its maximum peak but can also be rolled out at other times of the year whenever we think it seems fitting to the occasion.

There are two main groups to which this statement ultimately applies, one of which involves a tall man wearing glasses with a brown paper bag folded neatly in his pocket and his friend with short fat hairy legs and alleged wig of which you can’t see the join.

And then of course there are the other two who know their place and are most distinguishable by their eyewear, matching first names and very differing size.

“You have to watch The Two Ronnies / Morecambe and Wise; it’s the law “so goes the famous family motto when presented with an episode of either of the two comedy duo’s shows upon the TV, it may be met with moans and groans from other members of the group but after years of training they come round to our way of thinking eventually.

So it’s from one diminutive personality to another that I pay tribute to a fellow 5 footer of mine this week.

Without him, rudeness of any kind would not be addressed by the phrase “Language, Timothy “, adjusting your glasses be proceeded by “and the producer said to me “and chats between myself and my mum wouldn’t regularly degenerate comically into the second guessing what the other is going to say conversations of Barker and Corbett as Charlie and Bert.

They say good things come in small packages, insert whatever innuendo you like here if you so wish but as you do light “fork handles “and let’s celebrate the life someone who not only still makes me laugh but has my 13 year old kids trawling youtube for sketches that are now about 40 years old because they think they’re hilarious.

So it’s a goodnight from us to him.

Ronnie Corbett, the little man who brought us big laughs.

 

 

Are you sure we're in the right seats , Mavis ?

The Central theatre, Chatham, now there is a place that has featured regularly in my life.

Performed up on stage in my preteens as part of my ballet school’s big show, visited it every year of my secondary school life for speech day, the award giving night where the students who had passed exams would go up on stage to collect their certificates whilst their parents sat in the audience all aglow.

Watched proudly as my own boys sang their hearts out in a choir at a school music festival and a pair of vintage swimming trunks I’d donated got wolf whistled while being modelled in a charity fashion show.

And finally pondered this weekend whether the two old girls who sat never cracking a smile apart from when presented with ice cream had maybe mistakenly thought they were seeing Russell Grant or Russ Conway when they booked the tickets for what was in fact a brilliant and very funny but not for the faint hearted Russell Kane stand up comedy show.

 

Spear an avocado on my lower portions .....(absolutely nothing to do with the column , just a line that makes me laugh :)

Comedy and music.

The eagle eyed amongst you can’t fail to have noticed that if there are two things that greatly influence my writing the most, then this pair just happens to be it.

They’re both perfect means of escape from the world when everything is getting a bit on top of you and guaranteed to pick you back up.

 Indeed the action provoked by one of them, laughter, is deemed at times to be “the best medicine “and as good reviews go you can’t get much better than that.

So at risk of Girl from the neck down starting to sound like the obituary column as 2016 rolls on wreaking havoc on our treasured celebrities list, I’d like to pay tribute to a lady without whose influence in both those areas, my writing would be a much more sober, serious affair and probably not quite as much fun.

Ladies and gentlemen, would you please be upstanding for the brilliant and multi talented, Miss Victoria Wood.

A down to earth lass with an excellent eye for observational comedy she tickled our funny bones by finding humour in people and situations that go on around us in everyday life.

She inspired many a bookish, funny, clever girl to realise that they could be a woman in comedy and that that particular accolade didn’t have to equate with being either a nagging old harridan or the token sexy dolly bird being chased about by the likes of Benny Hill and not only that they could also be the writer of the show as well as performing in it.

In fact without a little influence from Victoria and her unique take on things, I could guarantee some of my more, let’s just say “interesting” concepts for what has appeared here on these pages may never have even gotten past the “I could do this but maybe it’s a little too mad and out there to appeal to the general public “stage from the idea’s scribbled in my notebook.

So let’s raise a toast to the woman who taught us that being witty is just as amazing as being pretty and that should you ever doubt yourself in anything you do just look to the words of the heroine of the ballad of Barry and Freda and embrace the oddness that is your most appealing trait with an almighty shout of

“Let’s do it “.

She ain't heavy ...well not as much as she was anyway

Be happy with yourself just as you are.

The sort of statement you’ll often hear me shouting from the rooftops, so I can understand that maybe some might question my own devotion to that declaration when confronted with my weight loss journey.

So as I reached my 1 and a half stone loss this week I felt I should reassure you that it’s still a motto I believe in its just that certain things have benefited greatly from letting some of the extra weight I was carrying go .

Gone is the heel pain that I had to wear a support arch insole to resolve, the ache in my back where certain items of underwear were holding up a heavy load, walking up steep inclines doesn’t feel like it requires the help of the emergency services and I have plenty of stamina to play Just Dance with the kids now instead of feeling like I’ve got those “moves like Jabba”

I have always been happy with myself just as I am; it’s just that my body is now also happy with itself just as it is.

 

 

Inspiration's what you need

Kate Bush , Margot Fonteyn , Audrey Hepburn , Debbie Harry , Frida Kahlo , Tracey Emin , Sylvia Plath , Tavi Gevinson ,Nina Simone , Caitlin Moran , Helena Bonham Carter , Kris Hallenga , PJ Harvey ,Josephine Baker , Mary Seacole , Harriet Tubman , Astrid Kircherr , Dusty Springfield , Ronnie Spector , Drew Barrymore, Etta James, Molly Parkin, Malala Yousafzai, Poly Styrene , Viv Albertine , Louise Brooks , Mia Farrow , Amelia Earhart , Grace Jones, Elizabeth Taylor , Ruby Wax and my mum.

A simple flick through the line up above reveals that had you asked me “which female most inspires you most “on international women’s day (8^th March) I would’ve been hard pressed to name you just one alone.

Why, that’s just a small portion of a gargantuan sized list so it would take weeks of work to condense it down to a singular person if needed.

Each has their own special reason for why they inspire me but the overwhelming similarity most of them possess is that they’ve had the gumption to stick two fingers up to those who believe there is a certain way to behave and be and go out and do their own thing and succeed.

They hear the word can’t and endeavour to release themselves from the restraints of that apostrophised T, they hear negative and turn the power of it back on itself to make it positive, they use the thing that takes them down as a stepping stone to lift them back up where they belong and when they are told that’s not right they set out to prove you wrong.

And it’s not just the girls there are plenty of men who fall into my inspirational people category as well.

Wilko Johnson and his amazing lust for life when he was faced with his own death, David Bowie for doing his own thing always regardless of what other people thought of him and one I discovered most recently in a BBC documentary, Brett Nielsen, a man who never let what thalidomide robbed him of having stop him from doing anything he wanted to achieve.

 Seriously, if you ever get a chance to catch “the boy with no arms “on Iplayer please watch it because if anyone is the epitome of there’s no such thing as can’t then Brett is surely it, having learnt to drive, play the piano and built his own recording studio as well as toting quite an impressive C.V including earthmoving contractor, music producer and engineer, recording artist, composer and motivational speaker amongst other things.

So who to name as the most inspirational person on my list is a tough call as you can see and there’s only one way I can resolve it I reckon and there’s a chance it might come across as sounding slightly conceited however hear me out as I think it’s something maybe we could all do with making ourselves believe.

For that reason it is then that I’m proud to announce that the most inspirational person award in my life goes to.....me, because if we could all convince ourselves that the most amazing and influential person in our lives is not the one who has the most hits on YouTube , likes on their latest selfie or four yes’s from a panel of talent show judges but the one who’s reflection they are staring at in the mirror , well that would be absolutely brilliant ,don’t you agree ?

 

Spring , that's my bag , baby

While it might be hard to believe at the moment as you step outside and are either drenched before you reach the end of your drive or swept off your feet by the high winds, spring is just round the corner and so are all the lovely colours that come with it.

Blues , pinks, yellows ,all shades of the pastel spectrum line the lanes and pathways , poking out through bushes , punctuating the grassy fields where animals and children frolic and play and giving the spindly branches of bare naked trees a shot of colour that’s much needed .

It’s just a shame that this rainbow symphony is not the beautiful work of dear old Mother Nature really, rather more down to dog owners who upon having good intentions to start off with fail to see their job through to the end, leaving their gift wrapped deposit discarded on the ground for someone else to deal with.

Come along now you lot finish your job off properly, you’ve bagged it, now bin it and maybe our streets will start looking a little more bright and beautiful.