Moving on...

Hello, it’s Sylvie here.

Time seems to be flying past us. I’ve normally got my Christmas presents wrapped by now but I haven’t even made a start on the shopping. Clint’s usually sneaking around my bedroom looking in cupboards or under my bed at this time of year!

As you know, my head has been all over shop but me and Joyce are going to Trafford Centre on Saturday, so we should get it all done then. Though, if Joyce had her way, we’d be shopping at Help The Aged in precinct.

I saw that picture she put up of Bob Marley on her blog. She’s a daft apeth, even I know that’s not a roll up. I once found pot in Clint’s room a few year ago, he had those joint cigarettes rolled up in his sock drawer, I lit one and lay on his bed to see what it did.

I put on his Hi-Fi headphones and nodded off until ‘Crazy Horses’ blasted my blooming eardrums and then I burnt a hole in his Baywatch duvet. I put everything back and said nowt but now I know what he’s up to whenever I smell Fabreze on the landing and hear The Osmonds behind closed doors.

When I told Joyce what I’d done, she gave me one of her lectures and said I’ll be in a coffee bar banging bongos before long. I sometimes wonder if I slip into a time warp when I talk to her.

Well, there was a turn up for the book when Ted arrived at the hospital shop. Joyce got stuck under sink while she were hiding from him. She should talk to him but she’s as stubborn as a mule that one. ‘I want closure’, she said. I think she’s been watching too much Jeremy Kyle.

She got quite upset afterwards and I did feel sorry for her. She were all sixes and sevens and her nose was dripping like a tap, so I let her open a packet of Kleenex instead of the cheap ones. She livened up a bit after she had a cup-a-soup and a Viennese Whirl.

Joyce used to envy the way I loved Eric, she said that she never had butterflies with Ted, it were two months into their marriage before he untied her pussy bow.

Me and Eric were never shy in that department, which is what makes everything all the more upsetting. He didn’t want for anything with me, but he still wanted more with someone else.

I know he loved me. He just wasn’t in love with me anymore. Joyce reckons to be ‘in love’ and ‘loving someone’ are two different things. When you love somebody you want to be a part of their life, but when you're in love, you want the other person to be a part of your life.

She does talk a load of mumbo jumbo at times.

All I know, when I’m awake in the small hours, is that I want to feel something other than this.

Clint won’t discuss his dad, it’s like he never existed. Argos Alan said Clint broke his Casio keyboard from banging it so hard in his extension. That’s not like my son at all, He’s so gentle, though he does have big fat hands. Ivy’s are about same size at the moment.

It’s been a busy day at work, always is after weekend. Mainly DIY injuries or a weekend on the ale takes its toll. Young Kelly McIntyre came in for her ante-natal. Her nan normally comes with but she’d had a flare-up and had to sit on her inflatable ring at home.

Kelly showed me and Joyce her scan photo. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. They all like potato heads to me. I never know what it is you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, she has her mother’s eye sockets’.

She said it’s a girl and she plans to call her Destiny. Mind, she’s only fifteen, so I expect she’ll change it when she gets older. I remember when Kelly was a toddler, she’d always break the legs off her dolls. I hope she fares better with the bairn.

Kelly said she’s feeling run down now she’s six moths gone and that she’ll have to stop clubbing soon. Whenever I felt run-down during my pregnancy, I’d put my feet up, have a fag and a Babycham. It worked a treat.

Joyce gets on her moral high horse, as she always does. I don’t know what gets her goat more, Kelly’s tattoos or her being up the duff. She said kids are in too much of a hurry to grow up these days and she blames MFI. It took me a while to realise she meant MTV, dozy mare.

I said to her that nowt’s changed from when I were a young lass, kids today think they invented sex. Though, we had to learn the hard way. There were no do-gooders in dungarees, just back-street abortionists in curlers and a pinny. You had a couple of days in bed, went back to work and kept it buttoned.

I must tell you about Molly Chadwick, you’ll laugh at this,

Ey up, the fire alarm’s gone off. Ethel from cookery class has run in waving her arms about like a demented chimpanzee and screaming for us to scarper. What’s to do?

By heck, there’s thick smoke everywhere! Oh hell.