The Motherhood Walk of Fame. Shari Low
it would be if I had ever got around to officially changing my name after I got married), Kate, Carol, Sarah and Jess. And we stuck together through thick (Carol flunked O-level cookery), thin (and she makes Posh look like she’s got a high-grade Dairy Milk habit), richer (Sarah married a millionaire), poorer (after she escaped a life of abuse and poverty with her first husband), sickness (Jess once had an affair with politician Basil Asquith, who turned out to be the MP for Very Sick and Perverse Sexual Habits) and health (yoga, panpipes).
Strangely, we didn’t do that normal thing where you lose touch after school, then find each other twenty years later through Friends Reunited, drag your partners along to a reunion party, only for pheromones to fly like pigeons on steroids and the next thing you know you’re throwing your car keys in a bowl and it’s a wife-swapping scandal in the News of the World. Or does that only happen in the Cotswolds?
We all, via jobs, men or missing each other, ended up living in London together for years and although we’re a bit more scattered around now, we’re still pals. We’re kind of like Girls Aloud, only with lower breasts and slight hints of jowls.
In fact, some of us are real family now. Carol, once Scotland’s favourite model and for many years the international face of the Visit Scotland tourism campaign, married my brother Cal, also a model and once the face and bollocks of the Calvin Klein underwear range. What was I thinking when I was in the womb? I was obviously so busy floating around doing frivolous things like developing internal organs that I left all the best-looking genes to my brother. Anyway, they now live in one of the really big expensive houses up on the edge of Richmond Park with their twins in the attic and my other brother Michael in the basement. Michael asked them if they’d mind if he slept over one night. That was four years ago.
Jess lives in France now with partner Keith and her son Josh. I think she went for the peace and quiet. She was a major tabloid story here when her affair with the MP was rumbled and splashed across the Sunday Echo. Lord, do I have any normal friends? Anyway, she then married the journalist who exposed the story, had Josh, discovered her husband was a no-good cheating bastard, left him and met Keith–a lovely builder who adores her. They renovate old properties in a wine region in the South (could be Champagne, Chardonnay, Lambrini…I’m never sure) and keep chickens.
And Sarah? Aw, get ready to say ‘aaaah’ and have your faith in human nature restored. Sarah left school, went straight into a horrendous relationship with a psycho, had two kids, finally fled from Sleeping with the Enemy a year later, met Nick Russo–celebrated restaurant owner and the man I lost my virginity to, although I’m sure the two aren’t connected–fell in love, married him and now they’re in New York overseeing the opening of Nick’s fourteenth restaurant.
Lord, when I read all that back I realised nope, I don’t have any normal pals. Although for the first time in about, well, forever, we were all settled, happy, in good relationships and there wasn’t a drama, dilemma, disaster or devastation in sight.
Nope, all was well with the world. My life was a paragon of peace and tranquillity.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
But sometimes those inexplicable gnawing feelings are more than just your hormones reminding you of their existence. They’re subliminal signals from the Goddess of Womanhood that it’s all about to go the way of the Wonderbra generation–unanimously tits up.
Family Values Magazine
PUTTING THE YUMMY IN MUMMY THIS WEEK…MAKING TIME FOR YOU
Remember, ladies, it’s not just the children who need to be nurtured. What about Mummy and Daddy? Yes, we all get tired, stressed and our priorities change, but it’s essential that you take time for yourself and your relationship. Make sure you get to that weekly Pilates class, think about taking up a new hobby or interest to stimulate your mind and, most importantly, find time to pamper yourself.
Have one afternoon every week that is just for you–how about a manicure, a facial or a cheeky little pedicure to reduce those stress levels and leave you looking gorgeous at the same time? Don’t lose touch with your inner self–take at least fifteen minutes every day for reflection and contemplation. And remember, girls, when you travel the road to contentment, take your cosmetics with you. Colour on those cheeks, gloss on the lips…just a few moments of maintenance every morning will leave you feeling refreshed and ready to face the day.
If you’ve had a particularly hard week, there is nothing like a gentle massage to ease away the memories of those sleepless nights. And for that gorgeous, sensuous treat, ladies, you don’t even need to leave the house. It’s important that we don’t forget our partners, so remember to set aside one night a week and fill it with love and lust. Make a mouth-watering feast, light those candles, turn the music down low and remind each other that desire and parenthood can co-exist in glorious splendour.
The result? Happy parents, happy children, happy home.
I knocked on Kate’s door and then wandered on in without waiting for a reply. It was probably just as well, because her body was tangled in a position that looked like it was a therapeutic pose for someone suffering from acute constipation.
‘Morning, Madonna,’ I greeted her, while switching the ‘off’ button on the CD.
‘Morning, Fag Ash Lil. How’s you?’
I made some kind of yeeeeurghhh sound that I felt conveyed just the level of discontentment.
‘Very articulate,’ she said. ‘You know, with those profound, descriptive abilities you should really be a writer.’
I pulled the CD out of the machine. ‘One more word and the panpipes get it,’ I warned her. I glanced down at the CD pile and shoved the top disc onto the CD player, which just happened to be ‘Ancora’ by Il Divo.
II Divo–an Italian term for which I believe the exact translation is ‘great arse and a fine set of lungs’.
I poured a coffee (decaf), sat down at the kitchen table and put my feet on another chair. Kate didn’t bat an eyelid but I knew the minute I left she’d sponge down both table and chair with Flash antibacterial. Her whole house was spotless. Not in a freaky ‘I’ll stab you to death if you drop crumbs on my angora shag pile’ kind of way. Just in a super-organised, highly efficient, natural earth mother kind of way.
Kate had been mothering all of us since we were kids. When I was six, she refused to play in the snow with me unless I put gloves on. When we were teenagers she used to put condoms in my bag on the way to the pub. When my boys were babies she insisted on disinfecting my kitchen on a weekly basis because she said that I was–and I quote–‘obviously brought up in a lighthouse because I didn’t seem to be capable of getting into corners’.
Her kitchen was a gleaming showroom of wood units, marble worktops, plants, copper pans, pottery things that served no obvious purpose, kids’ paintings and collages made from leaves and wool. In my house the kids’ stuff made the kitchen look cluttered and messy. In this house it looked charming.
Like I said, the laws of womanhood would normally decree that I would have to hate such perfection, but with Kate it was impossible because she was so goddamn humble and lovely. She was gentle. She was beautiful. If your granny knitted the perfect woman it would look like Kate. Even her children liked her. All three of them–Cameron, Zoe and Tallulah. What were the chances of having three children and all of them thinking that you’re great? My earliest memory is of my mother irritating me incessantly by trying to put ribbons in my hair to make me look like a girl when it was plainly obvious to everyone else that I was a boy. Looking back now I can only assume that my willy fell off somewhere during the long journey with Jackie from Beverly Hills.
Kate disentangled her limbs then