I live in the UK's second biggest city. I am mid 30's which evidently is in my prime (hilarious I know). It is when Carrie told Aleksandr Petrovsky to get lost and bogged off to Paris in a big dress and fell in love with Big all over again. By rights I should be in Louboutin shoes and quaffing cosmos with my friends in hip and trendy bars. As I type this I am in maternity leggings (my youngest child is 1 1/2) and a vintage Peacocks flowery smock dress. Later I plan to visit one of my closest friends house's tonight for the first catch up we have managed to book in between play dates and rain checks since May. So in the style of Carrie I am going to fulfil a lifelong ambition to type a statement and answer it. Cough, ahem. Here goes...
When did Sex and the City become Mumsy and the City?...
Now imagine I go off and have a really exciting episode where there is lots of shagging and expensive dresses and I am five stone lighter...or the reality of non of that. My friend at work asked if I could do a night out in October for a department curry. Instead of saying "hell yeah will there be sambuca with me poppadoms?" I replied (and instantly hated myself) "Let me check my family calender when I get in". Vom. Bleurgh. How twee. How crap.
The episode where Carrie dressed in New Look, put bunny ears on and danced around a pole.
When did I become so mumsy? When did I lose any vague glamour I once possessed (I used to wear thongs!)? I brought a Marc Jacobs bag when I turned 30. It was a symbol of being grown up and fabulous. I now covet the latest Cath Kidston 'mum' bag which is waterproof and has lots of different pockets to hold the many and varied items I instantly need at hand. I long for a 'jazzy' welly (I have gasped over Hunter ones. Actually. Gasped) and I can't wait for pay day to come to buy new slippers.
Being a Mum is AMAZING but for me? So unglamourous. Yeah, yeah you see those people in the press looking amazing and I suppose we always have one friend who irritatingly pulls it off and manages to at least have clean hair and a bit of concealer on when we meet up (bitch). But. Why am I not Carrie? Why am I not living the high life? Why am I not spending the prime of my life shagging my way around the West Midlands in Chanel? (husband obviously this just a rhetorical question and is not something I want to do before the divorce gets under way).
I tell you why? Because I just ruddy can't. Having a young family makes it nigh on impossible to live the Sex and the City lifestyle unless you have a Magda style nanny (and anyway didn't she lose the plot in the end?). Have you ever tried to look after two toddler with a hangover? Don't, it's horrific. So I am going to make the most of the semi glam moments in my life. Those little snippets that make me forget the nappies and the tantrums. I may light a seasonal overpriced Yankee Candle, or invest in some posh slippers. That's where I get my sh*ts and giggles now. And tonight? In my vintage Peacock dress and battered four seasons ago Uggs, I plan to have a little vino and chat about boys with one of the besties. If we turn the lights down low and ignore the pile of washing in the corner of the room that needs to be ironed? We are in NYC. Just a bit brummier.