What is normal?

I think I've got brain freeze today.

Every day I have tons of "stuff" going through my head, and so I decided a few days ago to write a blog.

Great idea my hubby said. It's a sort of way of keeping a diary, when in normal life you probably wouldn't bother, and as the hope of publishing a best selling novel, becoming a famous presenter or Oscar winning actress dwindles with every year that passes I guess I just have to admit that perhaps it's time for me to do what normal people do. And perhaps one of those normal things is to write those rambling things in a blog..........

Normal though? Well as a doctor once said to me, what's normal for me isn't necessarily normal for everyone else. What I have always had difficulty in knowing is what IS normal for me. I mean, normal people probably don't have five children, run a stage school and still be looking for alternative forms of income because the huge mortgage for the huge house for the huge family still needs paying.

Normal people probably aren't still chasing their youth and youthful ambitions aged forty something (and heading towards the middle of forty something...)

And normal people probably don't spend their life wondering where they are going to be living in ten years time, and what's more, wondering where home is because having never lived in one place for more than 8 years (and we're coming up to 7 1/2 years now in the good old Forest of Dean), I really don't know what it's like to have a normal life and live in one place for most of it!

Meanwhile I went to the dentist today and whilst sitting in the dreaded chair I became aware of a little trickling noise going in to plastic containers. Then I heard " Mum is it ok if we go to the loo?" Not being in a position to speak at the time, I simply put up my thumb as a sign of approval. The dentist (fortunately one with a sense of humour and children) chuckled: "No wonder they need to go to the loo with the amount of water that they have been drinking". I just lay there thinking, "thank God they don't charge for the water." On the way back home, I needed to call in at the post office, whereupon while paying at the counter I heard a scream, "Mum, Quick, I need the loo again......" Quick beseeching look to the shop owner. "Please may she...........?" Clearly afraid that she was about to wet the floor and not relishing the thought of that from a child obviously not quite so young - being 8 - she consented to my pleading look, but not without that slightly withering look that people seem to reserve for times when they wish to remind you that it's probably because you are not quite such a perfect parent as they themselves are/ were/ would be that you have got yourself into the situation that you are in now........................

So much for the brain freeze! Got to go though because daughter number two/ child number three has just come in with a teenage trauma. (Well nearly teenage anyway, she's 12!) I tried to help, but as a clearly useless member of society I was told in no uncertain terms that I was only making matters worse!!!!!!!!!!!!! Better go and make some tea and biscuits and try again..........

Oh well, c'est la vie normale pour moi I guess!