emotional abuse

The law is allegedly going to stop emotional abuse within relationships.  I think it's the right thing to do but how to monitor is difficult.  Having been in an emotionally abusive marriage and my ex still attempting to bully when others aren't around to witness it, I know first hand how it can seem the person being bullied can seem like the one who's losing their mind. These psychopaths, because that's what they are, are usually highly financially functional men - although there are women - who come across as charming, laid back individuals.   I know this is so common.   I see it amongst friends.  In fact with one couple I had both versions of one story and knew the woman was speaking the truth but the man spoke with such sincerity that it made me feel sick. I knew he was lying, well not lying quite, just twisting the truth.      The problem occurs when you can never separate from them because you have children.  The best thing to do always is to have as little contact as possible on any subject.    It's difficult again when you have children because you will need to talk to each other, but eventually the buttons they will try to push won't work.  The marriage may stop but the abuse doesn't.    They will never stop trying of course.   Last time I sat with my ex for 10 mins, because that's all the time he had to talk about an issue, it lasted two hours. I walked back wondering how it could have lasted that long and then realised he had mentioned everything that he possibly could to push all buttons and none of them had worked. The only time I felt sad was when I learnt that his father was ill and it reminded me of my own father.    I wrote the Control freak Chronicles to identify the 'type'.

any one tried some pussy?! www.pussydrinks.com

new drink out www.pussydrinks.com. They were selling it at Feastival and I'm looking through my notes writing out the features and picked this up and laughed. The twenty something girl at the stand told me with a straight face when I asked her - why call it 'pussy'  - it is a distinctive name and it was available.  Its a Branson product I think and he knows how to market.   Perhaps they should have regional versions like Essex pussy, Berkshire pussy and Surrey pussy, or cities, like London pussy, or Urban pussy.  or like that brand Cowshed - sexy cow, grumpy cow, smelly cow.    I don't somehow think that would work with pussy, or that people would buy it - especially smelly...... The spiel says 'the drink is pure....it's the mind that's the problem.'  !

NEW SCHOOL, OLD SCHOOL

Tom's started a new school and I'm told 'big school' has less chance of playground politics because parents have less opportunity to mix with each other - although I have a coffee morning with the new parents this Thursday which I think is an annual event so I don't think that will cause too many issues.   Tom did well at the previous school, getting a drama and art scholarship for which his teachers should take all the credit as well as Tom (teachers thank you for your support in calling Tom's dad to tell him how important extra curricular stuff was).  Of course his dabble dad (dabbles at parenthood) is now taking the credit for his son's success but I'm told this is common. The child does the work, the teacher does the work, the mother does the work and then when the kids reach teenage years and have something the dads can relate to they appear to become all fatherly forgetting the past twelve or so years when their kids bored them witless.  I don't think Tom's dad is alone in this, I just think he's an example of the behaviour.   At the speech day, the dads all stood around patting themselves on the back for the success of their son's, including Tom's, the gracious ones (and ironically the ones who had genuinely done the most) conceding that their wives had done all the work. There were a few of them but not many.    Because as far as men are concerned playground politics is like office politics. Men who talk good parenting rarely practice it. Those who do, just get on with it.  I'm told it was always the way.  

FEAST FOR ALL - LOVELY SUMMER!!!

Attended the feastival in Cotswolds last weekend.   Have delayed putting it on the blog as wanted to get it into perspective as the end to a fascinating summer of travel, being amongst people much younger than myself rather than being with people who wanted to be much younger than themselves.  

The real yoof.  In the States it was 20 somethings in a van touring California, Nevada, Arizona, hiking with a twenty something genuine hippy in the Lech valley, taking a trip to Greece - where, um, the Olympics all started,  I'm sure there's a twenty something connection there, but can only think of family, excellent spa and wonderful artist I met there who his wife described as a teenager - so that's probably the connection, and then to Ibiza where you had to be 20 to keep up with the 7am clubbing all nighters.

Rather than being exhausted I returned so happy I'd spent the summer travelling and not gawping at the TV.   I visited places which despite their own hardships don't need billion pound sports events to give them a temporary high.  The smile is innate in their culture. It is not in ours. OK, perhaps not so much with the Austrians, but where I was it was.  And the views from the hotel we stayed in were as awesome as those in the Grand Canyon.   Last week was Ibiza and clubbing.   Red bulls and vodkas. Completely over rated. Swedish House Mafia.  Mmm.  

And the camping stops in America, great if you are 20 something but waking up to a glorious sunrise and aching back wore off on the fifth morning.     And then I attended feastival, Jamie Oliver event mixing fab music and fab food, full of monied flowery dressed and Hunter wellied set, who had second homes in the Cotswolds and had kids they dressed as mini me, the car park field was full of BMWs and Audis as my ex (who was there...of all the fields in all the world you had to turn up...)  pointed out. Although he has an Audi so perhaps he doesn't realise he's part of that pampered past it set.   The lead singer from Texas desperately tried to get the crowd to scream back and dig down into their souls, but I'm not sure the crowd had souls or at least soul.   They were tame or tamed, or tired or something, but it didn't come out as anything that verged on hysteria which I think is what she was wanting.  

They ate their hummus and special indian curries and paid their £8 for their teeny weeny portion of bangers and mash and bought their daisy chain for their kids to wear in their hair.   I got chatting with a man who sold kitchen knives (hammer stahl absolutely superb..could cut through anything) and another who had a VW campervan that sold crepes and ice cream and worked in edit in TV during the winter with Jamie, and extremely well spoken guys who sold funky bbq type contraptions that folded up and had been CEOs of advertising companies in their 30s and were now re living their, erm, 30s in their 40s. Or they thought they were.

I have no wish to be 20 something again. It was full of neurosis and fear and meeting the real 20 somethings I realized nothing had changed, no matter how educated or well travelled they became, they still had the same hang ups and a few we, bless us, had given them in the process.  The 30 somethings are totally self absorbed, puritanical and well, boring, and the 40 somethings who want to be 20 somethings are neurotic and fearful or 30 something puritanical and boring.  

I like being 40 something nearly 50 something.   I don't have a clue how this age is supposed to act as I don't know anyone who admits to or wants to be this age, so I'm just getting on with it and enjoying it.

SUMMER LOVE-IN - return to hippydom

I deleted this blog and yet 14 people looked at it. Wow, hope for not long.