Well there are more territorial issues going on in my home than there are in the Middle East…well I know that’s an exaggeration – but I am prone to some exaggeration when it comes to describing my relationship- well not really exaggeration, more exacerbating and explaining the problem is how I would like to describe it.

I believe that as we get older we become much more easily annoyed in a relationship.

Thinks about it, at first when you meet a man/woman, you love their ‘little habits’ …things like…when they snort aloud as they laugh, OR when they talk over you as you make a point OR how the snigger at your inability to cook/vacuum/iron and fold towels.

After 25 years of marriage- these tiny things make you plot his murder daily.

You must remember how you would tell friends that ‘He has this funny wee thing where he cleans out my handbag for me, he throws away bits of paper and makes it all tidy, its really thoughtful of him’

YES I KNOW…as I write that I can hear screams from women all over the globe shouting “He goes into your handbag?”

A woman’s handbag is akin to the Holy Grail, it is where we find sanctuary and safety in a world of madness, its where we keep that last bit of gum, that scribbled phone number of a TV producer, that last tissue, that favourite wee packet of sweets, that dirty mangled tampon (that we will use in emergencies, despite the health issues surrounding it) that voucher for a free coffee that you will never use but reminds you of the time in Barcelona, the crumpled photo of your baby niece, that foreign coin you can never use- but makes you smile when you remember Amsterdam, that un-stickable first class stamp and the free lipstick you got from a magazine that would only look good on a cheap whore….BUT…it is YOURS!

We need this shit in our lives.

My husband recently cleaned out and re-arranged-
1.-My handbag
2- My underwear drawer
3-My kitchen cupboards

I am now baffled as to where my ‘good bra’, ‘favourite cup’ and ‘phone number on the back of bus ticket’ has gone and he now must die.

He sees this as ‘helping’ and I see it as ‘territorial terrorism’ and it must stop or I will hide his
1- Batteries - that - work collection (Ashley uses them on audio stuff and he freaks)
2- Favourite socks that match
3- Beard trimmer with battery that works
4- Favourite black pen
5- Remote control (Which is more prized that the Ring from Lord of the Rings!)
6- The small bag that he hordes all his small change in

I can be a bastard as well and I am better at him in this ‘War of the Roses’ tactic.

So today we fought again and the anniversary is looming, where will we go? What will we do? Will we celebrate or silently seethe?
Watch this space.

How can there be 120 odd socks in my laundry basket?
I know!
That’s way too fucking many odd socks for one family to own. Where did their partners go? Did they divorce each other and jump out of my window? Did they argue as they were rolled up together, like a fiery couple (possibly imitating husband and I) AND just split up…!

Should I start a website showing pictures of my lonely odd socks - advertising for a partner?
Would this solve the world’s problem of odd sock-ness?
Imagine the results…people from around the world could check the socks online in a close up image and start posting single socks around the globe and we could actually match them all up and maybe world peace would be next?

I can’t even begin to imagine where my odd socks went, they must technically be somewhere IN THIS HOUSE…because no one would come home with one sock or go out wearing odd socks…or lets assume I lost one or two on travels…but not fucking 120 ! That’s impossible…

I have checked in Ashley’s room as that is the main focus of our investigation, her room could possibly be hiding Osama himself –under the mass of clothes and strewn paperwork, shoes, make-up, camera equipment and boxes of sentimental shite that she stores. We did a thorough search and we only found five and guess what THEY WERE ODD and MATCHED NONE of the ones we had in the laundry basket!

So there we have it people….lets get together and unite all the socks in the world and bring them back together….or maybe I should start writing my new book and stop finding socks and getting into my other strange hobby of taking pictures of Trainspotters…..I DO…I have 49 pictures of ‘Trainspotters’ standing on cold train stations.

I am A TRAINSPOTTER SPOTTER! How crazy is that? I take photos of them on my phone as I pass through various stations on my travels! It annoys them and they all huddle together and avoid me. A bunch of fat men wearing acrylic and woollen jumpers, holding expensive cameras – getting excited at engines makes me giggle.

None of the Trainspotters are WOMEN…you know why? Because I don’t ANY woman who would give up her weekend to stand on a cold rainy Midlands train station to write down the number of any fucking train or waste time taking pictures of them ! We are too busy counting socks that are odd and taking pictures of them.

Ashley my daughter got her exam results today. Now bear in mind that she was sitting her exams for Uni in between performing her Sketch Show at this years Fringe in Edinburgh. Yet today she got A’s and B+ RESULTS!

I am so very proud of her as I knew the pressure she was under. Thank God she has brains! I would be absolutely devastated if it turned out that she ended up with no formal education like me. I always wanted her to have a great start in life, and this way she will.

I was onstage tonight at Jongleurs Comedy club here in Glasgow, it was so lovely, the Glasgow people are amazing. I love them. Though the NO Smoking ban is making us all mental as the cold weather is coming in, as you may recall I have STARTED smoking again….I know its fucked, but I am sorry.
So there we all stand in the cold night air puffing like mad, shivering and filling our lungs with evil smoke.

My dad doesn’t know and he doesn’t read the blog and I am terrified he will find out as his disappointment in me will crush me. Strange isn’t it….how we still crave that approval from our parents, but my dad is amazing and I love him so much and he has never told me to be anything other than who I am. Yet he was so very pleased when I stopped, he called me everyday to tell me how proud he was…..and now I have to stub out a ciggie when he calls me for fear he will hear me puff.

So there we have it…I am a nutter again, smoking till my limbs go numb. I need to get psychiatric help me thinks.

I still have that lump on my cheek, it will not go away. I think I have to maybe go to a voodoo witch to get it removed completely. The antibiotics never seemed to work, they only gave me thrush. Now I have a lumpy face and an itchy vag…wonderful!

I am now on special bifidicus tablets to restore the wipe out of the good bacteria that was flushed out of my system. AArrrhggghhhhh!

I am back on stage this weekend at Glasgow Jongleurs and can’t wait to perform to a nice home crowd. I love comedy and being on stage makes me insanely happy.
Cant say the same about husband, he is terrified to realise that I am home for a few weeks and is planning his escape, he feels like a hostage when I am at home.

Ashley is getting ready to go back to Uni and normality. We had such great fun at the festival together; performing together has been the most wonderful time for me. I will miss her when she goes to Uni. Although she is still at home, she is gone most days and we don’t get to do our favourite thing which is watching daytime telly with the volume turned down and adding our own voice over’s. It is hilarious watching Star Trek and voicing every scene as a gay men’s get-together. Try it…it is fun.

Watching Dr Spock stand there in his tight skin fitting costume saying loudly in a fake American accent to Captain Kirk
“Yes, I do want you to lick my back”
Captain Kirk then turns to the big screen up front and points to a scary totalitarian monster that appears
“He is my ex-boyfriend, he keeps following me throughout the universe, and he wasn’t even a good kisser”

I will miss those funny times and have to try to enrol husband in this game, he hates it and screams at me for ruining his favourite day time watching.

I am a mental patient.
Next week husband and I celebrate 26 years of marriage together, which is usually an excuse for a big fight, if you recall last year, he managed to DELETE my entire address book online by mistake the night before we were due to go away for our 25th Wedding anniversary…….I refused to go away on holiday with him and we spent the night in tears, lets hope this year is better and I am going to be a good girl and not fight.

Well that’s the plan!

I had my last gig in Liverpool last night and went back to the hotel for a good sleep. The hotel is also a recording studio and private club so late at night music blasts constantly straight into my room. Normally that would annoy me, yet the music was awesome and after 15 years of having lived above a bar, it kinda soothed me to sleep no worries. ..
This morning as I was packing to catch a train home ( I was so desperate to get home and see husband and Ashley, I have really missed them) I had that sinking feeling of sitting on a train for ever…then Neil Shackelton called me. Neil is a stand up and was in Liverpool for a family party and was driving home to Glasgow! Did I want a run home? YES!
So I shared the journey home with one of the funniest and loveliest men you could meet, he and his best mate Will made sure I got home safely. WE laughed the whole way in the car as Neil and I reminisced about our days when we were comics together, Neil hasn’t done stand up in a few years and is thinking of getting back into it and he should, he is fucking hilarious.
Neil and I once did a gig way up in the North of Scotland maybe nine years ago. The gig was held in a small working man’s club, it was awful from the start, and the people came out for the night to enjoy the singer who was on before us.

The singer was ‘sixty-something’ year old man who had jet black dyed hair the same ebony matt black you normally paint onto tyres to make them look shiny and fresh- his face was covered in fake tan that never actually reached his deep wrinkles and this left brown flashed stripes down his sagging face. He resembled an old tawny zebra!
His bright metallic red shirt was open to the waist revealing a thick silver curly chest and nestling there was a disgustingly large gold necklace in the shape of a lion….I am not joking….it was a LION made of gold.
His tight hip hugging white synthetic trousers were so flared they almost covered the gold plastic shoes that peeped just out of the bottom, like gilded tongues that flashed when he walked. When he came into the back room to say hello, Neil and I could not even begin to make eye contact for fear we would laugh up a kidney.
I watched the man glide around the main room with the confidence of a constantly elected President, his people cheered as he picked up his guitar, the place was electric when he plucked the guitar and his voice resonated throughout the small community room as he burst into the worst hammy version ‘Jailhouse rock’ that I have ever heard in my life.
I swear I thought I was taking part in a spoof movie; surely these were a cruel people that egged on the crazy pensioner who couldn’t sing?

Neil and I just sat there in impending horror, if these people loved him they were going to fucking hate us, which was all I could think.

As we sat at the side of the dance floor watching this trippy scene as the locals got up to dance. The people there were dressed like something from the 1960’s, I know this sounds like a unfavourable lazy stereotype but there is no other way I can explain this.
There were a group of women to our left all wearing the thickest traditional Fair Aisle woollen jumpers in the brightest colours, it was very cold outside I grant you but all that small gathering of women were wearing clothes that were too small, the sweaters were pulled snugly over rolls of fat and barrel chested breasts…they all looked like Buddha’s in sheep’s clothing.
Then to the other extreme, there were a small clutch of younger women to our right wearing the cheapest version of the latest styles, gaudy red nylon tops with plastic glittery straps or yellow polyester shirts on top of the biggest jeans I have ever saw stretched over the fattest asses I have ever seen.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not the thinnest of women, I am over weight but under no circumstances would I wear jeans if I got to that size…now way EVER! That amount of fabric could house nine people at Glastonbury under a marquee.

The strange thing was- the women who were slim looked underweight and sick!
They were either extremely fat or dangerously skinny…were we about to perform at The TITTY TWISTER from the film From Dusk Till Dawn?

The few men that were there were exactly the same! A whole bunch of fat, brightly dressed farmers with ruddy cheeks or thin dying- looking pasty men.

And still the aged rocker sang on…..
Then it was time for us to get on stage, I have to say it was the hardest gig I have ever done, people stared as I told funny stories….tales that became un-funny as each word left my mouth, each punchline faltered and died as it left my lips, like saggy balloons on the brink of deflation falling from my tongue…even my breath felt empty as I tried to suck air in standing on that wooden floored room.
I walked off to the sound of my own feet, clumpy hollow noises followed me….the fat/skinny people looked relieved but not unperturbed that we failed, it was as if they expected such an occasion, before I could even reach the end of the room, the scary shiny old man struck up his rendition of “Beyond The Sea” and the whole place burst back into life. I was merely an interruption in their fun pack pensioner loving cabaret.

Neil and I sat together after being paid for the worst service in the world. Just then one of the fat woolly women came over and asked him to dance….Neil looked horrified but she stood there demanding he danced with her. She smelled of sweat and cheap beer.
I looked at her and said “I am sorry but he wouldn’t be able to hear the song because the sound of your cloven hooves on the wooden floor would drown out the music”

At that we ran out of the place, started the car and drove off out into the coldest night in the remotest part of Scotland. Black roads, no lights, gravel paths and Oasis blasting out of the sound system as owls and other night birds flew past the long strobe of the headlights. We laughed like mad clowns, with a mixture of fear and bewilderment until we reached civilisation or at least a motorway that we recognised.

We finally stopped somewhere outside Fort William, we got out of the car and looked up. The thing I remember so vividly about that night was the sky….honestly it was awesome, with no city light pollution and the clear conditions, there was every star and constellation known to us, just hanging there sparkling above us like a dark carpet sprinkled with glitter, the night air was so fresh and we lay on the car bonnet with our backs warm from the engine and gasped at the stars.
We agreed that we might never become great comics, but we both knew we would never be ancient cabaret singers dressed in shiny satin and that somehow made us feel ok.

Neil and I talked again about that night today and we laughed all over again, both of us spluttering and giggling, feeling shameful for slagging the wee awful singer who in actual fact did entertain those people better than we could ever have hoped.

So I am finally home, sitting in my own house on my own sofa and happy.