don’t bloody swear!

A short one today, about swearing and kids. The question being: should we swear in front of our kids or not?

This dilemma raises its head from time to time in our house, usually just after one of my offsprings has told a sibling he or she is a bloody shitfuckbum. Once I’ve stopped laughing, I do the whole ’sweetie, you must NOT say words like that to people’ routine, to which the reply is always ‘well you do!’

For the record, I’ve never called anyone a bloody shitfuckbum, but that’s just splitting hairs. I do swear, quite a lot actually, because a) I find a lot of things irritating b) there are some GREAT swearwords out there and c) sometimes there’s nothing quite like a good ‘f**k!’

But when kids are lurking around everywhere, I do try to mind my language. Because however amusing it might be for a moment, there’s something just cheap and nasty about hearing the F-word coming out of a child’s mouth, and if they learn that swearing at home is OK, they’ll find it very hard to turn it off when they get outside.
Which is why you hear so many kids calling their mum a bitch in your local supermarket. Or maybe that’s just my local supermarket…

The first time we became aware of  ’toning it down in front of the kids’ was when my 2-year-old took my father down the garden, and explained very sweetly that we have to ‘Shoo away the Fuckingcat, Grandad’.
It occurred to me in that moment that I’d only ever referred to the neighbour’s moggy as the ‘F**king Cat!’ (because it shits in my garden and I find this a little but unpleasant) and so that’s what my baby thought it was called. Oooops.

This kind of thing is funny, and we all had a good chortle. Oh, isn’t it sweet. She swore! Hahaha.
But then comes the moment where you think, this isn’t so good really, is it? And then you start muttering obscenities under your breath instead like a miserable old man, until your kids ask you to speak up.

My last jokey swear moment I add only because it’s a good one:
we were sitting beside the river with our toddler one fine Cambridge day many years ago, playing a game of rhymes. As you do when you have a toddler and seven hours to kill. The idea is to say a word and then work throught the alphabet finding all the words that rhyme with that one: bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, nat etc. You get the picture…

I started. I picked the first object I saw on the water: a duck.
2-year-old Emily starts: buck, cuck, duck, f -
OK! Great, well done. Actually, let’s try another word now. OK, what can I see?

Oh look, a punt.
aunt, bunt, c-….oh dear.

Almost every parent I know swears occasionally in front of their kids, and I tend to agree with the argument that says they’re going to hear them anyway, so they might as well learn when and how to use them from you.
The important part is teaching them when NOT to use them.

Have a goodun’.
Liz.

check your facts…

Oh, this is a lovely one. This is….a rant! Whoohooo. Enjoy it. I rant seldom, but when I do….boy do I.

This rant is provoked by a charming little column in the Independent, which has the faint whiff of ‘Deadline Panic -must write about something – ANYTHING!’ about it. My quibble about the piece is not that it’s ever-so-slightly uncomplimentary about my first book. I welcome criticism (well, actually I like praise better, but I have to pretend to welcome criticism too) and I’d far rather write a book that is loved and hated in equal measure, than one which everyone thinks is a bit OK. A bit ‘meh’. 
If I wanted to do Bland I’d do cookery books.

No, what has got my goat about the piece is that it’s about as accurate as my son is at archery. (That’s not very, for those who don’t know him.)

According to the column, I have a ‘new book’ out! Great! And I didn’t even write one this year! What’s it called?? Oh, it’s called The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide. Hmmmm, that’s odd. I had a book published with exactly that name, oooh, about 4 years ago. I know it can take a while for word of best-sellers to filter through to everyone, but still.
Four years old is hardly ‘new’ , unless you’re a geologist.

The next minor problem that I have with the piece is that, let’s see now, what was it? Oh yes: it completely and utterly misrepresents what the books is a) about and b) trying to do.

According to the writer, the desirability of a ‘model’ figure “has just been depressingly reinforced by…a new book by Liz Fraser that offers tips on such gravely important matters as how to look glamorous in the playground.”

Really?? I said that? Let’s have a quick check…..nope. Nothing in here saying that. What it DOES say, is that many women feel pretty shit about themslves after having a baby. They feel fat, and ugly, and unsexy and sort of hippopotamus-like. Which is great, if you like feeling like a hippopotamus.
But I’m yet to meet a woman who does.

So the point in the book, dear reader, was that if you feel shit after you have a baby, and if you think you’d feel a smidgeon less shit if you did some excercise and peeled yourself out of your milk-stained trackie bums for a moment and wore something, you know, not vile, then it’s surely worth a go. And if you’re happier, your baby will be happier too.
And then harps will play, and flocks of birds will descend from the sky and cheep merry tunes into your pretty face.

This is rather different from saying we should all look like Giselle Bündchen. But of course you know that, and you got that the first time around.
Because you, bless you, bothered to read the whole book, and read my blogs, and understand who I am, and what my (not new) books are saying.

I was doing pretty well reading the piece, until I reached this section, at which point I laughed so hard I almost gave myself a hernia. Be warned, it may make you vomit:

“The irony, of course, is that there is actually nothing more attractive than the glow of a pregnant woman, and the sense of tenderness, capability and pride a new mother exudes. This is what the female form is about. That, along with a healthy dose of self-confidence, is as good as it gets.

Bllleeeruuurrrghghghgh. Right?!

Now, I’m not sure if I’m hanging out with the wrong crowd or something, but in the 12 years that I’ve been on the baby block I don’t think I’ve met more than zero and a half women who exuded tenderness or pride when they were puffing around Tescos, plagued with haemorrhoids and leaking breast milk. And as for self-confidence….well, that’s the entire point of my (not new) book. You don’t HAVE any for a while, and you need to find ways of getting it back.

And frankly, if that takes a blow-dry and a new frock, then you go and get yourself one love!

Oh, I do feel so much better now. Nothing like a good rant to pass the afternoon, while someone else generates lots of free publicity for your work.
Now then, I wonder which other new books I haven’t written this week…  ; -) x

half term ‘holiday’…

Ohhhh, I’ve been bad bad bad and haven’t blogged for blimmin’ ages.

I blame half term.
Or, more precisely, I blame the fabulously entertaining and uplifting activity that is ‘Planning the Half Term Holiday.’

Planning family holidays is always my job, because as Mother of This Madhouse I come equipped not only with mammary glands and an ability to house a child in my abdomen, but also the apparently unique capability for sorting out the logistics of moving five people from Point A to Point B, where Point B is not a) a shit hole b) next to a paedophile ring or c) full of other people’s children. 

Cruelly, I’m not allowed to murder anyone who comes within six feet of me to ask for some Selotape or a glass of milk while I’m trying to perform this arduous task.

Oh, and then there’s thinking of, washing and packing every item of clothing, medical equipment and toy/game that could possibly be needed by an average family in a 9-day period. And figuring out exactly WHEN one of the party (the Man, who has the unique ability to be on a different Continent half of the time, and especially when he’s needed here) is going to be less than 3000 miles away, and awake.

Thus it is that I’ve spent the best part of a week refreshing the pages of the Easyjet, Rail Europe and various Very Cheap Accommodation web pages at 5-minute intervals, changed every date, time and other variable imaginable, and STILL not managed to find a method of transport or place to stay that doesn’t mean remortgaging the house or getting up at 2am.

I’ll get there.

The rest of the week has been taken up with another GMTV moment:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6usANbEeFs

and another piece for FeMail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1248317/When-did-giving-birth-competition.html

Right, that’s enough blethering. There’s a self-catering apartment to be booked. Some time this year would be nice, Liz….
Don’tcha just LOVE family holidays??!        ; -))

Oh how I LOVE tax returns…

Oh man, I’m telling you, if you want to get really turned on this weekend then check out the HM Revenue and Customs online self-assessment tax return pages. Cripes, they’re HOT.

Not.

So far I’ve spent a rivetting 5 hours in my office, found 259 receipts for Lord only knows what, added up a bazillion things like heating bills, phone bills, hairdresser appointments (OK, not that one) and bits and bobs of intertest on bank accounts – including such staggeringly large numbers as £0.07 (great. Glad I’ve got that account then) – and after much box ticking, swearing and coffee drinking I’m now a whopping 43% of the way through my annual tax return.

At this rate I’ll get it done by midday tomorrow, and then keel over and die of Calculator Flu.

Am thinking that perhaps a bottle of wine would help…or, you know a bloody ACCOUNTANT!! Sigh. Next year I might get one. In fact, I might get two, just for extra fun. Then the two of them can spend a weekend of misery together trying to find the sodding piece of paper that proves I really DID buy a new laptop, entirely for work purposes, and I’m not making it up. Honest.

Good luck with yours. It’s soooooo much fun. (Oh, last thing: do remember to keep your User ID and password somewhere safe, won’t you? It’s always a really hilarious moment when you realise you’ve lost it AGAIN, and have to wait 3 weeks for them to post you another one, which will make your tax return 3 weeks overdue. haha! Those guys have such a great sense of humour.)

I’m off for a cold shower. All this talk of interest and dividends is too much for me  ; -)

Mail today…eeeek.

 

Liz Fraser 29th Jan 2010.

So, I’ve written a piece for the Daily Mail which is out today.
This feels a bit like putting my head in the stocks and sending a global email to everyone I’ve never met, saying, ‘Hey guys – please come and throw rotten tomatoes (and worse) at me! Come on! Have go! I’m here for a bashing! Enjoy yourselves –  have a beer while you’re here! First one’s on the house!’

It’s lots of fun, really.

It’s also causing a certain degree of panic and obsessive page-refreshing behaviour. Thus:

9am. Have my first peek at the article. God, what is that photograph?? I look like a second-rate model in a homewares catalogue who was drafted in because the first person they hired came down with diarrhoea. And what’s with the sickly smile, Ms Fraser?? I don’t even recognise myself. Luckily this means nobody I know will recognise me either. Sorted.

(I bet you didn’t know that the Mail has a ‘dress code’ for pics, did you? Well, neither did I until the photographer arrived. Turns out there’s a ‘no denim, no trainers, no bedhead hair or generally looking at all like you normally do’ policy. This is a shame, as all I ever wear is jeans – skinny, boyfriend, bootcut…anything so long as it’s jeans! – long-sleeved Ts, flats or Converse and ponytail hair. You know…like most people. So off I went to find a skirt, pretty top and hair brush. I drew the line at heels and was allowed my ballet pumps. Still, it’s a look you’ll never, ever see me sporting anywhere else, so enjoy it…and then erase it from your mind.)

9.02am. OK, so how many comments are there? 15! Wow. Already. Shit. Someone’s actually reading it.

9.05am. Now it’s up to 21. Eeek. Are they nice? Dare I look?
I dare not. make a cup of tea instead.

9.07am. OK, this i silly. I dare. Can’t be that bad. Scroll, read.
Well whaddayaknow, some comments are actually nice. Very nice. Women who understand what I’m on about are saying thank you for the piece. Hurrah! Some people out there ‘get it’. I am not a complete laughing stock after all. Just a little bit of one.

There are other comments, of course, saying charming things like, “Oh, get over yourself, stupid woman!” (par for the course, really) and ‘what is this vacuous moron whingeing about – pregnancy has been making women fat and miserable for Centuries. What’s the big deal?’ (most of these, I notice, are written by a men, who haven’t expelled human beings from their Holiest of Holies and leaked breastmilk while shagging. If they had, they’d know it is actually quite a big deal. But hey ho. Onwards…)

The point is, I suppose, that everyone is different: some women give birth and feel sexier than they’ve ever felt before. Being in bone-crushing pain for 30 hours makes them feel stronger and more powerful and more…womanly. They are sexy, confident mothers from the moment the placenta hits the delivery room floor and I’d say ‘Yeah! You go girl!’ if it didn’t sound a bit too Oprah for me.  I do pats on the back instead.

But by far the majority of mothers I’ve interviewed over the years of writing my books, or mum friends that I’ve chatted with over a few too may bottles of vino, say that there was a period after they had each baby where they didn’t feel like a sexual being AT ALL. That their bodies were temporarily rented out to a small, crying, puking child who needed it for nourishment, comfort and love; that they felt more functional than sexual, and that this became a mental state of mind, a habit, that was hard to break for a number of years, not weeks.

In short, that they found it hard to play two roles with one body. (no, that’s not French Maid and Nurse, before you ask. It’s Mummy and Sexy Lady. Geeez, what are you like?)

It happens to many women, and it can really rock your sense of identity and confidence.

Luckily for us and our partners, there seems to come a day when, without fanfare or warning, we suddenly get our mojo back again. A day when sex – for our own pleasure, and not because we feel we really ought to in case he runs off with Sue from Accounts, if you know what I mean –  is on the menu once more. We are no longer milking machines or baby factories or tied 24/7 by invisible but darned strong apron strings to people who need us to wipe their noses for them. 
We are sexy WOMEN in our all glorious guises – are far sexier than we’ve ever been before. Just a little bit less pert in places…

And just knowing that this is a common thing that many mothers experience will, hopefully, make mums worry less that they are failures, be more open about it and try to take steps to keep their Sexy Mamma side in check.

So, read the piece (unless you’re pregnant, in which case avoid it like the plague and read my books instead ; -)), ignore the photos and vomit-worthy captions – actually, do read those. They’re hilarious - and make your own mind up about it.

It’s meant to provoke debate, get people talking and help. I think it’s certainly doing that already! xx

Here you go:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1246916/How-I-learned-mother-AND-feel-sexy—wobbly-cushion-tummy-all.html

a day of parts…

It’s been a day of several parts.

Part 1.
Paint my kitchen. This is extremely necessary, as when we moved in 2 years ago (and after we renovated the entire thing  – oh that WAS fun. Not.) I painted every wall, ceiling and floor a subtle shade known in the trade as Pure Brilliant White, and to you and me as Completely Blinding. Seriously, you need sunglasses to avoid being dazzled the moment you walk in the door. So now I’m gradually reducing the amount of Completely Blinding, and adding some of what’s known in the trade as Off White, or to you and me Three Times As Expensive As White, But Still Pretty Much White.
Great.

Part 2
TV stuff. Today one of the episodes of GMTV’s Baby Breakfast Club that I contributed to went to air, with me banging on helpfully about smacking. The temptation to stand up and say OF COURSE YOU SHOULDN’T SMACK YOUR KIDS.  IT’S HORRIBLE! BUT WE ALL GET DRIVEN INSANE ONCE IN A WHILE  AND DO IT ANYWAY, AND THEN FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. SIGH. was pretty strong, but I think I did OK, even if I did prattle on a bit too much here and there. 

http://bit.ly/7P5plR here, judge for yourselves. Please forgive the ads at the start. I come in about half way through, and finish, um, at the end.

Part 3
Arguing with my delightful (no sarcasm meant there, for once) 12-year-old who is going through some kind of  crisis about Facebook. More specifically she is going through a crisis about not being allowed to go on Facebook. I’ll save you the details, but let’s just say that I cling on for dear life to stupid, romantic ideas about kids climbing trees and building houses out of boxes and not spending their entire childhood talking to people they see all day at school anyway, on a small, flickering screen, and what’s the world coming to ANYWAY??!
And that’s the end of that.
(This is, of course, another way of saying ‘I am completely addicted to it, and cannot come off it without requiring years of expensive therapy, and I don’t want you to end up in the same boat. So because I’m bad, you can’t be as well. So there.’ But I’m putting the Mummy Spin on it and saying things about child abduction and square eyes instead.

It’s getting me nowhere.

Part 4.
Finishing an article I’ve written for the Mail that, between you and me, I’m a tad nervous about, and which should come out on Thursday or Friday in FeMail. I shall let you know.

That’s if I’ve finished painting the kitchen, bien sur…

: -)

what’s in your bag?

Big news: women’s handbags are getting lighter, it’s official. I KNOW!! Hold the front page.

I’m a tad curious about this non-news, because I want to know what ‘most women’ HAVE in their slightly less humungous handbags. I mean, is a significant proportion of  the average 3lb 5oz bag – equivalent to six packs of butter, and 57 per cent less than the average just two years ago – made up of plastic pirates, apple cores and empty Bic biros, like mine? Or packs of butter?

Ah, no. It seems to be something to do with a new generation of smaller, lighter multipurpose gadgets. To me this means Transformers and tissues that double as bicycle saddle wipers. To most other women, apparently, this means techno gadgets like iPhones and Blackberrys (how DO you spell blackberrys? Is it Blackberries? Discuss…) 

Anyway, the point is that we’re not lugging about laptops, mobile phones the size of bricks or chargers any more. Now all we need is an iphone, and off we go.

Really? Let’s just take a peek inside my handbag, shall we…

1 half-eaten Pret Love bar; eight tissues, three used; glasses case + glasses; notebook; six pens, three without ink; wallet; 2 Lego policemen; six Gogos; five hairbands; mini AtoZ (why? I’ve not needed one for 2 months); Nurofen; tampons; plasters; three AA batteries (??); hand cream; a Wispa bar; an apple (soft. must dispose of this); deodorant; oooh, another Wispa bar; 2 letters from school; 2 plastic spoons; Rescue Remedy; a Captain Underpants book; copy of Elle Deco; small bottle of water.

Not quite the high-tech contents of your average working woman then. Still, all is not lost. I read today that Victoria Beckham has recently been spotted with an £80,000 silver Himalayan Birkin, which is much smaller than some of the oh-so-last-year big bags she was hauling around before.

Oh good. Now, if I can just find a spare £80K hiding down the back of the sofa I’ll be able to buy myself a nice, small bag, and leave half of my junk at home.

: -)

Five Live tonight…

OK, so am doing an interview on Radio Five Live this evening at….midnight.
So that’s nice.
The subject is pushy parenting, sparked by Kirsty Young’s remarks about them last week. If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written, you’ll know exactly which side of the fence I sit on (hint, it’s not the one with extra Chinese lessons and six hours of private tutoring a day.)
It should be a lively debate – nothing gets parents more hot-under-the-collar than how they educate their kids - so if you’re up and about, or lying in bed and can’t sleep, or breastfeeding or working the night shift, tune in.

Until then, my Big Questions of the day are these:

1. am I going to finish my novel mauscript today and hand it in on time? Aaarrghgh.

2. if I DO manage to complete this mammoth task today, should I go to straight to the pub to celebrate or is that a V Bad Plan given the live interview at midnight situation…?

3. should I have a kip at my normal time and then wake up at 11.30pm, or go straight through and try not to fall asleep in the middle of the interview?

4. is it normal to have a hot water bottle in your office?

So, plenty to ponder while I re-write chapter two AGAIN.
Tune in later… : -)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/

thanks…

OK people, a short one today because I’m deadlining like a maniac to get my novel finished on time. Going well…but a few more days needed.
You’re going to love it… ; -)

So, just wanted to thank all of you for popping by this week (had a massive surge in new readers, which is always lovely. Nice to have your company!) and for all the kind words. I’ve had so many emails and comments after the Grazia whatsit, and it’s good to know there’s so much understanding of what’s a bugger of an illness.

You all rock.

Now the only questions left for me today are…am I going to manage to pop out and get some bread and milk without needing ice skates… and am I the only person in the UK sitting at work wearing a woolly hat and a blanket??

x

an un-funny blog

For once, an un-funny blog. Boooo. But you’ll see why…
Today I’m featured in a big piece in Grazia magazine here in the UK. Grazia is generally full of fashion and pretty people and badly-dressed celebs and must-have face creams. And today, it contains a bit of me as well. Eek.

The story – for those of you who live outside of this currently snow-covered Isle – is about mothers and what we want to pass on to our daughters. Or not pass on, in my case.
Because my story is about eating disorders. See – not so hilarious really.

Thing is, everybody who knows me, knows bubbly, happy, fun, smiley, positive, energetic, ‘Yes I CAN!’ Liz. Which is good, as this is how I am most of the time these days. Apart from when people piss me off or I’ve got PMT, obviously. Then I’m a witch.
But it wasn’t ever thus. For fifteen years I had an eating disorder that came as close to killing me as it’s possible to get without actually knocking at the Pearly Gates and having your bags checked. 

It started when I was about 15 or so, and continued throughout the last years of school, through my Gap year – what a bloody waste of a good time! – through university (the worst years of it), and throughout three pregnancies.

This last bit has raised many concerned eyebrows since I first wrote about it in my best-seller, The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide (the title was ironic. Nobody got it. Ho hum…) in 2006. It was one paragraph in a 370 page book, and WHAM! I was on the BBC Breakfast sofa, on the GMTV sofa, talking to Marie Claire, and journos and random people in Tesco’s about it.
Crikey, I touched a nerve!

Seemingly, nobody had publicly admitted to having an eating disorder during pregnancy like this, and questions were asked of me: how can a woman who is pregnant have an eating disorder? How can she be so selfish? So irresponsible? Why can’t she just love her enormous belly and be happy that she doesn’t fit into any clothes without using a shoe-horn?
Well, my own question was always this: how on Earth can we expect any of the million or so people who currently suffer from an eating disorder in the UK alone, to miraculously snap out of their ‘selfish, stupid’ behaviour the second the sperm hits the egg and burrows its way in? Does it not seems a TAD unlikely to you that no pregnant women starve themselves, or make themselves sick, if this is the addiction they suffered from before they were pregnant?

And let’s be clear: the eating disorder I had – it was the B one, by the way, not the A one, although it was probably a bit of both most of the time, as is very common – is an addiction like any other. I lived for it, thought of nothing else, missed lectures and meeting friends and boyfriends, and experiences and too many fun times to list, spent hundreds of pounds and incalculable hours of a young life in the pursuit of eating more food than I now eat in a week, and then throwing it all up again.

Great. Nice one Liz.

The high was tremendous: during a binge (how I HATE that word) I felt I could achieve anything. My heart raced, my palms sweated, I was filled with adrenaline and excitement and possibility. The world and all the worry, insecurity, fear and crushing self-loathing it contained, disappeared during the eating, and I felt powerful, able and clever, I would pass these exams, write that book, achieve all my goals and show the world what I was made of.

And after the high, the inevitable low. Low, low, like you can’t imagine. Low so you want to die, every second, every minute because you’re such a waste of space on this Earth. Low so you hate yourself in ways you never dreamed possible, even on very shitty days. Low because you know you’re hurting others, and wasting everyone’s time. Low, so you swear you’ll never do it again.
And then you do. Because you’re an addict.
And there were the headaches, the strange heart beats, the sore mouth, the swollen face. It’s not a pretty illness, that’s for sure.

In late 2003 I came within a minute or two of dying due to this illness and I can honestly tell you that when you see that white light at the end of the tunnel, and you didn’t choose to see it, and you realise there are 3 kids upstairs in bed whom you might never hear giggle again, you want to LIVE more than you’ve ever wanted to live before.

And that’s what I set about doing, from that day: LIVING. I have never binged again, nor wanted to. Not ever. It’s as though someone flipped a switch, and I woke up in a different, better, clearer world.

A year after that day, I sent a book proposal to an agent, and a year after that it was sitting pretty in the best-seller charts. Then I wrote another. And then another. Now I’m writing my first novel, and loving every minute of it.

All of this is possible because the fog that clouded every day for fifteen years of my life lifted the second I got better. I could see clearly, remember things, hold information in my brain, concentrate, work, have friends, be a better mum and make up for the lost days and months and years that I’d flushed away. Every day now is a chance to make up some of that lost time, and every morning I’m happy to be here to live it.

I’ve done a huge amount of press about this, as I believe it’s still a massively misunderstood illness, and the more people who’ve had it – and have fully recovered, like me -that can speak out and explain what it’s really about, why it can happen, how serious it is, the after effects it leaves (I still have an irregular heart beat which terrifies me and my tooth enamel is a bit buggered in places) the more sufferers may be helped.

And I know I’ve helped many. I’ve had piles of letters and emails from readers over the years, saying everything from ‘you’ve saved my life’ to ‘you’ve saved my marriage’ to ‘thank you for making me aware of what my daughter is suffering from. I had no idea it was so serious and we’ll seek help now.’
That kind of thing makes the embarrassment at speaking of something so ghastly and un-pretty, worthwhile.

One of the most helpful comments I’ve ever had about this came from Dr Hillary on GMTV not long ago. He said to me ‘You didn’t have an eating disorder while you were pregnant. You had a pregnancy during an eating disorder.’ He is so right, and if you are suffering, please, please try to get help and get it sorted. It CAN get better. It CAN go away forever. And when it does you won’t believe how much EASIER and BETTER life is when you don’t have an eating disorder screwing up your brain 24/7.

I’ve not seen the Grazia piece yet, but I’m going to pop out now, slither across the ice and buy my copy. If you get a sec, do the same. They’ve no doubt chosen the worst mug-shot of me and Emily, but never mind. She’s an incredible girl, and all I can do is hope that I raise her to believe in herself and to be happy. And to come to me if she’s not.

Thanks for trawling through this. Like I said, not so funny today, but hey, because I’m better, now there’s always a tomorrow.
And there’s always a smile : -)