I’ve often wondered if we acknowledge everyday “life lessons” purely because we’re sometimes more receptive or if they are presented to us in concentrated batches on occasion to ensure that the message is driven home. Many years ago I saw a chap on Oprah talking about the fact that every incident in our lives has a message for us, it’s simply up to us whether we chose to take it on board or not.

Now many things I’ve watched on Oprah over the years I’ve forgotten and some I’ve desperately tried to put out of my mind in order to be able to face food without feeling nauseous (particularly Tom Cruise describing his love for Katie Holmes whilst jumping up and down on her sofa like a monkey). But this chap always stayed in my mind for some reason. I can’t even tell you his name but his message rang loud and true. Even if an event is uncomfortable it’s purpose is to tell you something.

Take earlier this week, for example. Someone from my past emerged from the murky shadows even nastier and more bitter than I last remembered. The person in question has made an art of blaming everyone else for everything that is wrong with his life and this week I was squarely in his firing line because I appeared to be getting on with my own, it seems.

So what message lay there for me?

Simply this: Some people don’t take responsibility for the mess their lives get into, and sadly when faced with an echo of that truth they go on the attack. They like to circle their prey, taking surreptitious chunks out of them because hurting someone else directs the spotlight away from their own pain. No contrived insult or venomous bile is spared. Not the sort of person you want to wake up next to.

Now, for the record let me state unequivocally that I’ve got a lot of things wrong in my life (that would be “a lot of things” as in “way more than your average Lincolnshire lass”) but my attitude is this: I’m not perfect. I’ve never professed to be perfect and I’ll never be perfect because the word isn’t in my personal glossary. In my case it’s been substituted with the term “unashamedly flawed”. I deal with life by being upfront, brass-necked and honest, and people who attack me for that (covertly or otherwise) only serve to demonstrate to me that I’m on the right path.

If I was going to wax lyrical I’d say that self-deprecation is the armour that’s protected me from attacks such as the one I’ve described above; put quite plainly it’s the old “sticks and stones” scenario.

That said I do perhaps stupidly still aim for perfection and little prompts to get me on track are always welcome. Sometimes however they have the force of a huge dig in the ribs as experienced this very morning; those “little prompts” not quite so welcome.

My little boy’s school is today holding a non-uniform day to raise funds for Sport Relief. Each parent was notified at the beginning of the week that their child could come to school today dressed in sports gear if they kindly placed a donation towards the appeal in the pocket of said clothing.

Could there be a day more exciting on a six year old’s school calendar? Apart from the school trip to The Deep submarium (the only submarium in the whole wide world ..) and the Christmas party, that is? Wearing sports gear for the whole day, in lessons with Miss Flintham and everything?

It’s a short two-letter answer ending in “o”.

The excitement does tend to get marred when you are a six year old with a mother that forgets it’s Sport Relief day though, and who dresses you in school uniform so that when you walk into the school playground you feel about as comfortable as John Terry at a women’s lib rally.

You look up at her and you say “you’re always forgetting things, aren’t you Mummy?”

Mummy at that point feels she could rate this moment in her bottom ten of all time .. and promptly legs it back home to pick up a change of clothes for you.

Being a mother is the best job in the world and it’s also the hardest, because the word “guilt” takes on a whole new scope of meaning when you try to combine any other activity with raising and caring for your child. Any mother who tells you otherwise is either in denial or lying for reasons best known to her.

My maternal ineptitude sucked this morning and it tasted of lemons.

On the flip-side I told my boy at least five times that I loved him between 7.00 and 8.30am and we both skipped to school.

I hope he doesn’t keep me long in detention later. Or drink all the lemonade for that matter.

A ‘Eureka!’ moment probably heralds my ideal start to a day, not due to the fact that I want to be hurled at lightning pace into consciousness from the depths of my sleepy wallow but more often because it is indicative of me finally making sense of the nonsensical. All too often I’ve felt I’m drifting through life, jumping from one emotional ice-flow to the next and never really making any headway but this morning at 3.45a.m. I sat bolt upright in bed and that very word escaped albeit somewhat lazily from my lips.

“Eureka ….!”

This weekend I like many went to see the new Tim Burton blockbuster “Alice in Wonderland” and again like many, I found myself critiquing it’s visual highs and lows as is my tendency in the rather annoying style of a “sudden expert” when the mood takes me. I have opinions, you see, and sometimes .. nay, most of the time people are not interested in those opinions but I enjoy the charade of pretending I know what I’m talking about.

No; the inestimable value which I have to admit was lost on me at the time of watching is how uncannily close to my life the plot line is, was …. and will almost certainly continue to be. As an entree to this far-fetched theory let me open with the fact that Hamish, the ridiculously foppish suitor to Alice in the opening scenes, bore an uncanny resemblance to an ex of mine; apart from the vivid red hair I’d say he was identical in every way to Mr Distant Cynic. With my wide-eyed amazement barely noticeable behind my 3D specs, I breathed a sigh of relief as Alice dashed away in curious search of the white rabbit.

And down the rabbit-hole she fell, to face her various challenges in pursuance of what she knew to be right and just.

I wonder how many of us have likened ourselves to Alice? To the girl whose stubborn inquisitiveness was so strong that she would knock back anything marked “drink me” just to get her to the next stage? I’ve already referred to my own challenges as emotional ice-flows but maybe I would have enjoyed the process more had I taken on the mantle of adventurer much in the way that she does.

And the well-know and documented characters .. how many of them bear a resemblance along with the newly-added Hamish to people I have known?

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum I could cast several times over, from both my current life production and previous versions to boot.

I’ve known too many Red Queens, not nearly enough Mad Hatters and only one or two White Queens. However the truth is, dear reader, that I could easily cast myself in all three roles. Not just the  one .. it needs to be the full set.

My occasionally sarcastic and bitingly cruel tongue is indicative of the Red one and whilst I strive to imbibe those around me with White gracious perfection day-to-day, I have to admit the former comes with far more ease than I’ve ever been entirely comfortable with. My personal favourite will always be the Mad Hatter. Johnny Depp described his character as “A mood ring, his emotions are very close to the surface”. Oh yes. The mood ring.

This story for me is about the preservation of hopes, dreams and aspirations. Finishing off the Jabberwocky who belittles in an attempt to get me to sit to heel seems to have become an everyday occurrence. He takes on many guises of course; some are classically obvious and some are closer to home. From yawning boredom to laughing disdain and from unreasonable demands to insensitive expectations, it’s good to keep your sword to hand.

And so in an attempt to reconnect with the here and now I’m going to drink from the cup of my imaginative restoration (let’s just give it the working title of “tea” for now ..) and reassure myself that nobody should be left with their dreams in tatters simply because they chose to take on the Jabberwocky.

Only the currency of self-belief will purchase a ticket to see your hopes come alive.

My book will be written.

Given the latter day fashion for making five and ten year life plans I should hold my hand up and admit to dismissing the whole idea as a load of pointless tosh. In my experience whenever I’ve “planned” to achieve anything life has tossed me a curve ball which has necessitated a total rethink of what I’m about.

However the one thing I do with irritating regularity is to look at where I am and decide it’s a long way off where I’d hoped to be. Which is rather laughable given my admission that I hadn’t “planned” to be anywhere. If I haven’t given thought to what I want to achieve, how do I know I’ve not managed it?

Of course, the answer is quite simple. I’m restless, ergo I can’t be where I’d hoped I’d be even if I had sat down and written a five year plan that undoubtedly would have had my Tesco shopping list scrawled on the back at some point ultimately ending up in the bottom of a shopping bag. Couple that with the fact that I like to adopt an intuitive approach to decision-making and you might see why the wood that is my future can’t be identified for all the trees in its way. If I had written a five year plan you can bet your aspirational values I’d have been scoring it through a fortnight later and re-writing it.

You see … I’m a “live for today” and “by the seat of your pants” kind of girl. I rely too much on what “feels” right. I know what I should do, but my edict is that life is too short so it’s better to wait and see what the universe has to offer before you start determining which route you’re going to travel which may in some far fetched instances necessitate constructing your own motorway (that’s a euphemism for “starting a pension”)

I am by nature a restless soul. If we had met on a cruise liner at in the 1930s almost certainly I would have been the sad woman with the haunted look in her eyes who was seen regularly pacing up and down the deck at 3am in the morning. My mother used to regularly despair of me as a teenager proclaiming with much consistency “the problem with you Deborah is that you’re never happy …”

I understand what my mum was alluding to, but she wasn’t strictly correct. I was happy, indeed I am happy … but I am always looking to break the monotony that everyday life can hold with the occasional stimulating episode (I am talking, of course, of stimulation of the mental type)

It was some eighteen months ago that I packed up all my worldly possessions and bundled them along with my son into a vehicle marked “destination Lincoln (city of my birth)”.

The first few weeks were fine, the novelty remained fresh for some time that my parents were just around the corner. I was back in the bosom of my family. It felt nice, warm and reassuring.

After a few months however I started to crave the dynamic edge that the south-east had frequently volunteered amidst all its stress-laden duplicity. Say what you like, but there is more “happening” at any one time in London than any other city or town in the UK in terms of ideas, creativity, opportunity and vision. There’s also an equal amount of not-so-great attributes, but they have quickly faded from my memory.

Lincoln on the other hand may not display quite the same ebullient verve but it’s where I was born and it is where a goodly part of my family still live. It is full of landmarks, buildings and family memories that in an instant transport me back to being a little girl. And when you’ve been emotionally dehydrated and miles from home, the succour that can bring should never be underestimated.

Only this morning inadvertently I played one of my Grandma’s favourite tracks, The Hungry Years by Neil Sedaka, and I found myself crying for her for the first time since we lost her five years ago. You see, my Grandma was probably the kindest woman I ever met. As her first grandchild she doted on me, I was and will always be “her Debbie”. She only ever looked at me with pride and a smile on her face.

Lincoln is the place where many people I love are, spiritually and physically. It may not be the most exciting and cutting edge of locations I could choose to settle in but it’s home.

And yet I feel I’ve returned back to my birthplace and that now it’s whispering “I raised you .. you were never meant to come back … you were meant to fly away on to something else”.

But just like the dutiful and doting parent I’ve come to regard it as, Lincoln is sticking with me for now.

I may still be thirty miles south of satisfactory but I’m edging closer to knowing where I need to be.