I failed dismally in my bid to find a holiday for a fiver. I did however manage to procure some obscenely cheap flights and so am part way through my mission.

I took the older two for an Indian tonight. The man serving said

'Can you just check the pilau - it doesn't smell right to me'

This strikes me as a little odd. If something doesn't smell right, why would you ask your customers to try it first to see if it kills them? I let the children try it first because that is just how generous I am. They survived and short of winning awards for aromatic nirvana - it was okay.

The children have been surviving on a fairly ad hoc food regime; lethargy, illness and stress make for no Nigella and whilst I know that they have eaten, I cannot put my hand on heart and say that it is the best this kitchen can muster. As a result, we are unaccustomed to large quantity and half way through the meal, we all experienced a near death moment. Given the proximity to the local undertakers, this could have been most convenient.

So we had a nice meal, we overate, risked food poisoning and felt fat, bloated and ill on leaving. For this we paid good money. This goes to prove that money does not necessarily make you feel good.

So back to the issue of the holiday. We have flights and nowhere to stay. Every year I tell myself that normal people plan and book these things in advance. I have lost count of the times we have had the car fully loaded and still frantically trawled the Internet for accommodation. I cannot forget the last flying family holiday we had (10 years ago) when it was booked, paid and left us a mere three hours to get to Birmingham airport (the joy of last minute bargains), or the bargain basement holiday to Thailand when I took myself, a baby, a toddler, a friend and her 4 month old on a spontaneous holiday to Malaysia. I lost the childs shoes in last minute packing and he spent his hols in slippers, nothing was booked, nothing planned, a guidebook purchased at Heathrow that did not get read on the plane. This was the best holiday I ever had.

There are some things you can plan for in life, some you cannot. The planned ones have anticipation and expectation attached - all to easily shot down. The last minute unplanned will always be okay because it just will. Sometimes not knowing what is around the corner is far more exhilarating than knowing, and the results are often better

I do wish I had sent the passport applications off earlier.

And 20 mins trying to edit the word fall to fool so that I don't look one. Since I an unable, then I accept that part of being grown up is to admit your mistakes. I admit my mistake although for the large part - that is what most of this blog is about.

Another part of accepting myself is to be honest about faults and bad habits: So here is my dark secret, my bad habit.

When I take a glass from the drainer and the rim is still wet, I use my left breast to dry it. It fits perfectly, one twist and the entire rim is dry. It is also a good way of charting pertness. The day I mistake my breast for my stomach - it will be time for surgery.

Savour that thought should you ever ask for a drink in my house

I have now spent an entire day trying to find a way of taking the children on a plane, storing the dog and some form of bed for the period - all for about five pounds.

It has been a fruitless task and I am now bored.

I may have to buy a large poster of sun, sea and sand, a sunlamp, some cocktail sticks and resort to staying in the living room and trying to fool them. The little ones have never been on a fly somewhere and stay somewhere holiday. This may not be about to change

Swine flu, so named because as you lie in bed sweating through the night you wake up smelling like a pig. Vomit adds to this, as do the piggy eyes.

The teenager had a party last night and a lovelier group of teenagers you would be hard pushed to meet. It did occur to me that having a party when your mother is suffering a pig infection is a little less than thoughtful but everything has a silver lining and mine was that deep down he was concsious of the embarresment that was the garden. Three weeks of arguing about clearing it up and the only thing that was going to get him to do it was when he wanted to do something in it.

However, having a large group of teens in and out of the house until the small hours makes for a dirty floor, filthy sides and general disorder. Having another group cooking fried breakfast the next day makes for a greasy kitchen. Several hours of requesting it cleared got nowhere. Apparently this was unreasonable behaviour on my part since I done nothing myself 'having been in bed all day' By 6pm I booted him out lest I actually wring his neck

Quite right, how dare I be ill. On Weds I spent the night vomiting. On Thursday I woke the teenager and asked for help with the little ones

"Yeah sure" He said - got up, rubbed his eyes and went back to bed.

I am not impressed, I am not proud. He wasn't raised like this and if this is part of being a teenager I am not sure I shall stick around for the other three. I am sure that having your father walk out and no relationship with him must make for some pretty complex emotions but even so, I am not convinced this is a passport for treating others with such disregard. I have had to rally around the men in the family for male role models but all think that their quiet disapproval should suffice. Personally I feel that having lacked a firm male role model for some time, a sledgehammer may be more appropriate.

So I loafed in bed for the best part of the day and watched Jayne Eire. What a load of romantic tosh. The bit in which the vicar mentioned 'all my worldly goods' I thought particularly poignant. In another flurry of texts between 'It' and I, 'It pointed out that it was still 'his' house. I pondered this since when we married, we had nothing. Interesting wording, I thought. Mine, mine, mine

This got me thinking about the narcissistic approach to life. A was reading somewhere about psychopaths. Having always assumed that Psychopaths were simply cold blooded murderers - I thought I should investigate further. So I read about it, dismiss the murderers and look at the common all garden variety.

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

Umm, interesting. What has really interested me recently is the continued games. 'It' turns up and takes his bike from the front of the house. He Say's nothing. I text to ask if he took it. He texts to say he took it the day before. He didn't because it turns out he was seen. He says he will bring it back. I say don't bother. He brings it back.

A chum once described this kind of interaction as cat and mouse. Lets say that I am the small squeaky one. So there I am reading about Psychopaths

This leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath REALLY get from their victims? It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what thepsychopath is after. We can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer.

Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse before killing and eating it has probably explained to themselves that the cat is just "entertained" by the antics of the mouse and is unable to conceive of the terror and pain being experienced by the mouse, and the cat, therefore, is innocent of any evil intent. The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is nature. Psychopaths don't generally eat their victims.

Yes, in extreme cases the entire cat and mouse dynamic is carried out and cannibalism has a long history wherein it was assumed that certain powers of the victim could be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But in ordinary life, psychopaths and narcissists don't go all the way, so to say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenarios again with different eyes. Now we ask: is it too simplistic to think that the innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse running about and frantically trying to escape? Is there something more to this dynamic than meets the eye? Is there something more than being "entertained" by the antics of the mouse trying to flee? After all, in terms of evolution, why would such behavior be hard-wired into the cat? Is the mouse tastier because of the chemicals of fear that flood his little body? Is a mouse frozen with terror more of a "gourmet" meal?

This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas about psychopaths with a slightly different perspective. One thing we do know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and narcissists report feeling "drained" and confused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health. Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue "love relationships" and "friendships" that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?

We do not know the answer to this question. We observe, we theorize, we speculate and hypothesize. But in the end, only the individual victim can determine what they have lost in the dynamic - and it is often far more than material goods. In a certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul eaters or "Psychophagic."

Conscience seems to depend on the ability to imagine consequences. But most "consequences" relate to pain in some way, and psychopaths really don't understand pain in the emotional sense. They understand frustration of not getting what they want, and to them, that is pain. But the fact seems to be that they act based solely on a sort of Game Theory evaluation of a situation: what will they get out of it, and what will it cost? And these "costs" have nothing to do with being humiliated, causing pain, sabotaging the future, or any of the other possibilities that normal people consider when making a choice. In short, it is almost impossible for normal people to even imagine the inner life of the psychopath.

This leads us to what psychopaths DO have that is truly outstanding: an ability to give their undivided attention to something that interests them intensely.

Manipulation is the key to the psychopath's conquests. Initially, the psychopathwill feign false emotions to create empathy, and many of them study the tricks that can be employed by the empathy technique. Psychopaths are often able to incite pity from people because they seem like "lost souls" as Guggenbuhl-Craig writes. So the pity factor is one reason why victims often fall for these "poor" people.

Now I recognise that this is far more fascinating for me than it is for anyone reading this but since most of my recent outpourings have been a cathartic vomit than an entertaining script - bear wiith me. And fascinating it is since 'It's" nickname was in fact 'Poor It' - so now I search for my part in this drama

Even more amazing is the fact that when psychopaths do get exposed by someone who is not afraid to admit that they have been conned, the psychopathis a master at painting their victims as the "real culprits."

Psychopaths just have what it takes to defraud and bilk others. And even when they are exposed, they can carry on as if nothing has happened, often making their accusers the targets of accusations of being victimized by THEM.

The victims keep asking: "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have fallen for that incredible line of baloney?" And, of course, if they don't ask it of themselves, you can be sure that their friends and associates will ask "How on earth could you have been taken in to that extent?"

The usual answer: "You had to be there" simply does not convey the whole thing. Hare writes:

What makes psychopaths different from all others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.

But there is something else about the speech of psychopaths that is equally puzzling: their frequent use of contradictory and logically inconsistent statements that usually escape detection. Recent research on the language of psychopaths provides us with some important clues to this puzzle, as well as to the uncanny ability psychopaths have to move words - and people- around so easily. […]

Here are some examples:

When asked if he had ever committed a violent offense, a man serving time for theft answered, "No, but I once had to kill someone."

A woman with a staggering record of fraud, deceit, lies, and broken promises concluded a letter to the parole board with, "I've let a lot of people down… One is only as good as her reputation and name. My word is as good as gold."

A man serving a term for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an eyewitness, "He's lying. I wasn't there. I should have blown his fucking head off."

I love this bit. I always assumed it was just the lack of ability to articulate at speed.

So what does all this mean. Nothing really, except that in terms of turning my life into a sitcom - it gets better and more dramatic every day. The fodder for future royalty is huge.

On a sadder note, how must all this seem through the eyes of a child. How do they see life when one day Dad walks out and Mummy and Daddy never exchange a word again. How surreal must that be? How must it be when one day when you are older you realise that Daddies mobile only works when Mummy sends a text saying if signal is bad, she can come over in the car to say goodnight?

On another note - I am going on a date with a total stranger. The only thing I know is his name. In reality - isn't this the only thing you truly ever know?

I have always said that you can only know what real parenting is when you visualise wringing your child by the neck. I am visualising.

This is real parenting.

True parenting is when you do not actually do it.

Crisis. In the space of a mere two hours I have gone through near nervous breakdown to tears, a date and another near nervous breakdown

It started with the mobile phone, that broke. I was trying to make a chocolate mousse at the time and in the midst of trying to download texts from a screen less phone, I turned the cream into butter (twice) and spend 30 dollars on a download that I didn't need. By the time I rescued the dessert and tried with help from my life Guru(Whilst receiving life counselling at the same time as trying o reconfigure the phone) I was in no mood to party. However - a chocolate mousse had been promised and at 10.30pm, clutching an extremely dense chocolate mousse, I arrived.

By this time I had given up caring about the phone. If I die without all my text evidence it won't make my death any more final. My failed promise to deliver the dessert was of more pressing importance and at least this was delivered, albeit long after the food had been digested.

So my first solo venture to a couple like party. The music was the music that it and I shared a love of and it totally threw me. By the time they were redoing "Ever fallen in Love with someone you shouldn't have" I felt more than a little thrown and had to sneak outside for nicotine inhalation in a bid to compose myself. The tracks were indeed , a tad ironic.

By midnight I had inadvertently pulled. Totally unprepared, when a nice man asked for my phone number and enquired as to whether I would like to go for a drink - I was flummoxed. Having no idea what to say, I said

"That would be lovely" and continued with my number, knowing all along that there was no attraction at all and I really did not want to go for a drink.

Now I feel dreadful and want to die of embarrassment. The last thing I expected in my mad dash to deliver a chocolate mousse was to be asked out. Having given it no thought, I had been totally unprepared for being asked for my phone number. In the last few weeks I had been totally prepared for never being asked for my phone number and now I have given it to someone that I don't actually want to go out with. I want to curl up in a ball (after I have changed my number). Having told myself that the Body God was simply not meant to be - I realise how that in fact, it felt like it was meant to be.

I am not sure about all this. I think being single is far easier. I am never going out and I am never, ever answering the phone again

Sometimes it is good to learn from your mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are a series of events and difficult to learn from, such as marriage. I do not consider my marriage a mistake. It happened, I did it and there is nothing I can do to change that - rightly or wrongly it got me where I am.

There are other mistakes that we would benefit from learning from. I would have hoped that 'It' may learn from some of his, but apparently not. It is now over 4 months since the teenager and 'it' had contact. The start of this arose the night 'it' wouldn't let the teenager stay the night and the fact that it became apparent that 'it' would rather stay at the PCS's die a death of tedium house. In an ideal world 'it' would have learnt that putting your son behind your priority of eating homemade fish pie in lights on timer land - was not a good choice. He has not.

This week saw the school leavers ball and his own inimitable style of leaving everything to the last minute, the teenager had no suit. With just 24 hours to go, even he was feeling a little alarmed and had decided on a dawn jaunt to Bristol's finest in a bid to secure the elusive outfit.

Now living in the country has some drawbacks and one is the lack of public transport. An early morning dash to Bristol involves a late night transport to a chum with more suitably placed accommodation. So in a bid to rescue the situation, I had a blinding flash of inspiration.

"Don't worry" say I, "Your father has a dinner suit and you are a similar size, we can ask him"

"What about shoes" asks the teenager

"No problem" I declare smug in my problem solving ability "You can wear his wedding shoes"

"He won't want to lend them to me" says the teenager, or words there about

"Don't be ridiculous, he won't mind at all" say I confidently

So I text It and ask if I can scoot over and collect. He texts back saying he is out and can drop them off in the morning. I text back saying I need them tonight to save the teenager staying in town. He texts back that he can drop them off in the morning. I text back to say that if he gets it tonight then he won't need to go to town tonight. He texts back to say that he can drop them off into town in the morning. I text back to say that he only needs to stay in town if the suit does not fit. He texts back.... and so on.

By this point it is abundantly clear that he is not going home that night and it is by then very obvious to both the Teenager and I where he is and that yet again, he is not going to put anyone elses needs above his own. Any Dad would have said to his PCS "I am going to have to go and do something for my son, I will be back in 40 minutes" but not this one. More importantly, he would have shown his son that he was prepared to put him before anyone else. Sadly, he showed his son that he was not going to. Sadder still was that his son predicted it.

So the teenager stays in town for an early rise to Bristol clutching a collection of £10 notes. By lunch time he hasn't called and I am getting a little stressed. By 2pm he has a shirt and a hat. By 2.30pm he has a hat, having lost the shirt. By 2.45 he has two shirts and two jackets, a hat and a pair of trousers - all mismatching, no shoes and 15 minutes to get to Bradford on Avon.

By 3.15 I am still waiting. By 3.30pm I am requested to find a white tie and a pair of shoes. I find neither but do find an Armani suit for £20 in the charity shop. By the time he gets off the train at 5pm, I have been waiting 2 hours and between us we have a healthy selection of outfits. We also only have 45 minutes to get home, eat and for him to be back in town at the 'get dressed together whilst parents drink' event.

I stop on the way to borrow a pair of shoes.

"Could you look after the little ones for a while" I ask the lender of shoes. When she says yes, I decide to push a little further

"Could you give them a bath" I ask. Standing there with two small children covered head to foot in mud and chocolate, clutching a pair of pyjamas, I am not sure she felt able to say no.

So we get to the party, the boys change - all the Mums and Dads drink sparkling stuff and the boys all parade in their finest. All except mine who has forgotten his shirt and is sporting a Nike number. A mad dash back to the village, small clean ones collected and teenager changed into shirt.

It arrives in the midst of collections to finally drop off middle childs lunch money. He has ignored my point that since the teenager still eats at lunch time, he still needs money. Teenager
clearly annoyed.

Still, he left a really nice note to say that he acknowledges that he failed to make any comment or wish luck in regards to his GCSE's, that he did notice the monumental point of him finishing school and hoped he had a fantastic time at his leavers ball. Actually, I made all that up - he made no comment. I bet on reading this that you were surprised that he would do that. No need, he didn't.

So the teenager finally leaves, courtesy of a neighbour on a heavily mirror clad lambaretta, looking very suave and grown up. After the very stressful 24hrs trying to sort out outfit, transport and ticket - I am £100 lighter and have a migraine. I then vomit.

By the morning I have a full blown migraine. Getting small children to school whilst trying to retain the contents of your stomach is no easy task and nor is completing a weekly session of physiotherapy

"You look like Victoria Beckham with those glasses" Say's the medic "I feel more like your personal trainer than your physio"

I give him the option; I can wear the glasses and look like VB or I can take them off and vomit on your Adidas, I tell him

"Victoria Beckham is working for me" he replies

I get home and find a letter from 'It's solicitors, informing me that their client 'it" has instructed them to contact me and they are pleased that we have decided to use mediation to resolve issues with our marital breakdown. It goes one to point out that 'It' has not instructed them to act further at this stage. This letter is not good for my migraine. For weeks he has refused to respond to any of my emails, for months he has refused to discuss money. As for the not acting further bit, am I to expect a divorce paper listing refusal to dress like his mother and make fish pie as a justifiable cause of marital breakdown?

The whole point in mediation was that we tried to approach the issues yourselves in a conciliatory manner. I try to think of any good reason why you would pay a solicitor to write you a letter when your wife had already said that dependant on your openness, she would go to mediation. I see none. Using a solicitor instead of simply replying to an email with 'Okay, I will arrange it' is indeed a hostile move.

Never go to war with someone that can contain their anger. Angry people make mistakes. Calm ones do not.