I do not dance like a mum. Much.

My windswept island idyll seems a million miles away now that the Festival is in full swing and Scottish schools have started back.  I was wrenched back to reality with the Edinburgh stage of the 7th birthday party. It involved a clapped out old bus with it’s seats ripped out and dry ice pumping onto the slightly tilting dance floor while 20 girls lined the sides and 5 boys showed their best breakdancing moves.   The dry ice at the back of the throat took me straight back to school discos but then it was the girls who were dancing and the boys who lined the sides.  Thankfully Lady Gaga and Hannah Montana ensured that the girls were peeled from the sides and my attempt to humiliate my daughter by threatening to perform my Girls Aloud dance routine if they didn’t dance completely backfired as they were all keen to do it with me.  To my great shame the DJ announced that I do ‘mum dancing’. I do not.  I certainly don’t dance like my own mother did but it seems that ‘mum dancing’ has moved on every mother in the UK also thinks that putting her hands up in the air and wiggling her hips constitutes a good dance move.  

I moved seamlessly from the disco bus to the opening party for the Book Festival where I desperately tried to convince a friend from New York that publishers in Scotland don’t either

a    wear twinsets and pearls and frequent the Arts Club or

b    wear fleeces and Jesus sandals. 

Having dragged her round the party introducing her to everyone who was under 50 wearing decent clothes I decided that the evening should end at the Club Bar at the Assembly. Pre children the Club Bar was where anyone who was anyone hung out, it was if the Groucho (itself then fairly cutting edge) had decamped to Scotland.  Depressingly when I blagged my way in I didn’t recognise a soul except for my own friends who are now involved in the upper echelons of the Festival.  I couldn’t quite work out if it was because there are no longer any famous people there or because the only famous people I would recognise would be people from CBeebies or High School Musical.

Sleep deprivation this week is entirely self-induced.  I recovered from partying on Saturday only to go to another party at the Book Festival on Sunday, bodyswerved one on Tuesday but am committed to another one on Thursday.  Last night I made a point of going to bed with the children so have had a full 12 hours but am still absolutely exhausted.  I haven’t been taking my iron pills so suspect that may be the cause though when I told a friend and asked them if they were aware of my iron problem their response was ‘yes, you told me your cleaning lady had taken the summer off.’  Crumpled clothes are indeed the source of irritation but not to my knowledge the cause of complete exhaustion and a splitting headache.