Now when it comes to being good at things (and I mean “Olympic-standard” good) I’ll hold my hand up and admit that I can manage a few “averages”, one or two “slightly better than” and countless “shockingly bads” But there is one thing dear reader that I admit to being earth-shatteringly amazingly good at, and that’s thinking on my feet.

When my back is up against the wall, when all around me are losing their heads, their cool and their dignity .. yours truly will conjure up a little narrated concoction from literally nowhere to diffuse the situation. I am the mistress of restoring the keel to it’s even state, of marrying up the ying to it’s yang and of making sure the ending is a happy one.

Now this could be down to working in sales for so many years, or it could explain why I was so good at penning a good tale at school. Whatever it is, it’s there and it is as sharp as the proverbial razor.

Let me explain .. a few weeks ago I was discussing the sad eventuality that most parents must face at some point, the realisation by ones offspring that Father Christmas isn’t real. The Tooth Fairy is false. Life is actually slightly less colourful than previously thought. And at this point I should add that I have expanded my son’s fairy-tale vision of the world by sending him Christmas and birthday cards “from the Red Arrows”, and Valentines Day cards “from Girls Aloud”.

People have hinted that this is actually an act of cotton-wool covered cruelty. I say they’d be much happier individuals today maybe if they’d had a Valentine card from a celebrity crush or two.

So .. school mummy was explaining how a friend’s little girl had deduced that the Tooth Fairy was no more real than a painless filling. She had found the complete set of her milk teeth in a jar in one of her mum’s bedside drawers. Said mum immediately fessed up, and little girl uncovered the card of life that says “It’s all down hill from now on, kid. Get used to it”

I shot school mummy a look of bemusement .. “You see, if that were me this is what I’d have said … I’d have told her that I’d logged on to ToothFairy.com and ordered the full set to be sent to me now that it was complete. Simple.”

“Oh my god …. that is brilliant ..” came school mummy’s response.

On the way home I concurred that actually yes, it was indeed brilliant and I inwardly patted my creative, quick-witted brilliant little self on the back and wondered how far I could stretch the whole childhood myth thing with my boy. I resolved to come clean with him before he started university. By hook or by crook. Father Christmas would be hanging up his reindeer keys sometime before September 2022.

Now  .. I guess I’d describe this as candy creativity. Sort of sugary pink. Pretty. A bit fluffy and frou-frou.

But there is also the dark bitter chocolate flavour that frankly you don’t want to mess with unless you’re prepared for the potentially bitter aftertaste.

Such as the time some twenty odd years ago when I dated for a few months possibly one of the most popular men in Sheffield, my domicile at the time.

Let me be upfront and say that his popularity was largely due to the fact that he managed one of the places to be seen in at the time, a lively buzzing bar-restaurant frequented by (then) premier league footballers, a few home-grown actors and such like. It was nothing more than that. No. Let me say this man would not have given George Clooney sleepless nights at the prospect of being deposed as the world’s most beautiful man. No.

Anyway, let me retract my bitch-claw and continue.

Being a popular “kinda guy” .. sociable, conversationally adept and very humourous it struck my very impressionable and hugely gullible younger self that he could possibly be shaking a martini for other girls … not just me …

The utter shock of it!! No … he couldn’t possibly ……. could he?

I battled for a couple of weeks with the notion and then one day I announced to my friend and erstwhile fellow sales colleague Liz that I thought he could possibly be pulling more than one pint at a time.

I was pretty sure.

I should stop thinking about it.

I couldn’t.

No.

I wanted to know.

Enter stage left Debs … in her dark … very bitter chocolate flavour of creative genius.

“Liz … I think we should set him up. Let’s call him, you can pretend that you’re the lifestyle editor for the Evening Post and say he’s been nominated as Yorkshire’s most eligible bachelor. The competition will entail a date out on the town with Miss Yorkshire Evening Post but there is one criteria .. he has to be single”

Liz nodded in gleeful agreement. I handed her his number.

And so in her beautifully well-spoken and animated voice Liz recounted with total convincing brilliance the ‘opportunity’ to our willing victim.

“….. but there is just one thing. We do have down here that you’re single but I do just need to clarify that with you … Don’t want any jealous girlfriends in our reception!! HAHAHAHA!! … Oh you are? Oh that’s great … fantastic!! Well … great, we will most definitely be in touch!”

We contemplated actually setting it up .. getting him to drive to Leeds and leaving him and his overblown ego standing outside a trendy restaurant feeling more than vaguely ridiculous. But we decided against it.

Sadly I don’t recall how it actually ended, but end it did of course. But that little ruse was a highlight … along with all the free drinks I wanted in any bar in Sheffield for six months. That was pretty good too.

I suppose this is where creativity can be abused .. or alternatively it can come into it’s own.

Thank goodness the Easter Bunny is real; too many letdowns in one lifetime would be too much to deal with.

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.

Men understanding women, and vice-versa.

Think about it. How long have we debated and cogitated the little nuances together with the huge great chasms that make our genders so infuriatingly different, so intriguing. So exasperating!

When all is said and done I’m a practical kind of girl; if there’s a use for something I’m there waving the flag. It gets the Debsy seal of approval. If there is no use however, then I kind of scratch my head wondering “why?”. Except for ridiculously high, feet-deforming shoes (preferably from Gucci); they’re beautiful and therefore don’t need to be useful.

Which is why I don’t understand the growing trend for our great minds of science to learn how to clone sheep, or maybe create a hybrid pig-cauliflower to eclipse all previous test-tube horrors

No, scientists need to do something useful for the good of all man (and woman)- kind. We need to be able to inhabit the mind of the opposite sex for a week.

Cravings, hormones, mood-swings et al. Give it to us. We’re sick of condescending books that tell us why the objects of our desire act the way they do.

Now I would hazard a guess that there are people of both sexes out there who would balk at the thought, but why not? All those who sit lambasting men or women as “a nightmare” and “certifiable” really need to walk in the accused’s shoes before dishing out such damning critiques.

I discussed this very subject with my pal Rachael earlier today, and I am ashamed to say I came out with the obvious statements like “A week drinking beer, watching sport and viewing inappropriate material on the web … how tough can that be?” But thereby hangs my point; I must think it’s easy being a man, and I’m pretty sure it’s not. So show me!

As for female idiosyncrasies, well I think it’d need be a particular week, not any old week that men experienced, those that is who chose to accept this challenge. Yes, THE week. Those seven little days when you don’t know whether you want to laugh, cry or throw a plate at someone. Those seven days when even the teeny tiniest little task is overwhelming, you could quite easily throw yourself on the floor sobbing and wailing because nobody understands, loves or appreciates you and where’s the chocolate, anyway?

Now as I woman I accept my hormonal fluctuations. I haven’t embraced them exactly, and I’m still longing for the day when what we know as “the menstrual cycle” is replaced by something more civilised like “state-funded massage” (hey, if we can put men on the moon … why not?). But I don’t understand hormones and I fully appreciate how men must throw their hands up in desperation. So step up men … experience the joys that are thrust upon us every four weeks.

Having said all this I fear I’m painting a bleak and dreary picture of what it is to spell your name w-o-m-a-n.

Not at all.

The best things for me? Lipstick, hair and all the things you can do with it (Dannii Minogue is testament to the fact it doesn’t have to be long hair ..), perfume, acting coy, high heels (yes, I know I’ve mentioned them but they are … sensational!) and feeling like you can conquer the world when you’re on top of your game. Being a woman is incredible and you men don’t know what you’re missing.

Similarly you need to sit, analyse and pester all your friends about your love-interest. Yes. Pull every conversation apart that you ever had … put it all back together again and be even more confused than the point at which you started. You need to do that.

And we girls need to take everything, anything and everyone at face value. A friend of mine once said “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, what do you think it is?” He was an idiot. You see girls hate all that black and white stuff, especially when there are so many shades of grey and numerous other palettes out there, but I cannot deny I’d like a piece of the “noir et blanc” action please.

All things considered, I’m far more relaxed these days about this topic, but I wouldn’t mind a trip round the male psyche. I’d like to say I understood why we’re different rather than purely accepted it, and to do that you have to experience it. As I repeatedly tell my son, “you don’t know until you try something”..

Imagine a world where the sexes understood each other. Finally.

Boring, or blissful?

Hmmm.

It’s fair to say that this blog has become more efficient than any therapy I could have entered into. On occasion I’ve had comments within minutes of posting a heartfelt rant that have both supported and challenged me. Without a shadow of doubt airing my views and experiences has been both progressive and comforting at the same time. We all sing from similar hymn sheets it seems … some are a little further ahead than others and some merely prefer a different tempo.

One question has been omnipresent since the conception of “This is how I see it ..” however, and that was … what if my circumstances were to change? What if I met someone who caused me to view relationships in a different light? What if I had to soften the tone, drop the cackling humour and surrender to the fact that I may need to alter the course, rethink the content and consider new material?

When you’ve experienced a succession of bad relationships you soon learn to embrace being single, but for me it wasn’t too difficult given that I’ve been extremely fortunate in other areas of life. Yes, of course a lifelong, happy coupling would have been the icing on the cake but it’s been a good few years since I sobbed into my duvet over that little conundrum.

So .. penning a blog that charted the various hilarious and incredible dating disasters of Debsylee brought a smile to my face and hopefully others to. Being a social soloist was the inevitable consequence but heck, we could all have a good laugh about it.

Now, it’s important I clear up one important fact because I think to date I haven’t ever made reference to what went wrong in my significant relationships prior to this most recent self-imposed period of singledom. So the truth is this .. I was lied to. Every time. And not tiny little white lies .. nasty gut-wrenching black untruths, none of which involved other women (that I know of) but life-altering all the same.

So venturing forth across the wilderness that is emotional solitary confinement I held my ideal of an honest, completely open and true relationship close to my heart. And time after time I felt let down until I started to come to terms with the fact that I may never find that ideal in anyone.

I retired to the sidelines and started penning previous entries, resigning myself to accepting that maybe what I was looking for didn’t exist. I abandoned my search. The game was over in a tournament that I wasn’t sure I wanted to participate in any longer.

Secretly I rather fancied myself as a latter day tragic heroine whose only mistake was that she stuck to rigidly to her ideals. I mused that the weary epic trail across the desolate sands of my solitude would make great reading one day in the form of a best-selling novel.

This was until I met a man who embodies all the ideals I had etched onto my rather principled little raison d’être.

Suddenly I’m struggling for words I can assemble and arrange that do justice to the course of recent events. He is, you see, really rather special.

Rather uncharacteristically I feel I don’t want to become overly verbose on the subject of our relationship which I suppose should be viewed as progress.

My friend Rachael commented today that I should start future posts with “when I was on the [dating] circuit ..”

Well, I can safely say I never thought I’d be penning a post like this … when I was on the circuit.

Do I sound smug? I’m really not; I’m simply enjoying being wrong.

People who know me reasonably well will tell you I’m a forgiving sort of girl … eventually. I do a fairly sound job of mentally analysing life events and coming to rational, fair conclusions when disappointment rides into town.

I also know that it’s exceedingly unlikely that my actions, neuroses and hang-ups alone were responsible for the various failures that have strewn my path when it comes to relationships; that said I don’t mind taking it on the chin when I mess up.

So my approach to relationship spillages, crashes and breakdowns is simple … learn from them and move on. Increasingly I find however that men will say they are “friends” with their ex’s, maybe like it’s a testament and honour to the memory? I really don’t know the answer here because the concept is most definitely alien to me. And here’s why.

It’s not that I’m a cold-blooded and heartless bitch; I may like occasionally to portray that image but the reality is I’m nothing like that. My feeling on this topic is that it’s impossible to have a purely platonic and caring friendship with someone you once had feelings for. Let me give you an example.

It must be at least six months since I finished with Mr Distant Cynic .. or maybe that should be “petered out” with. We had gone in the space of ten months from being keen to indifferent for a whole variety of reasons, needless to say for my part the indifference grew to the extent that one day it dawned on me that I hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks. The spark had well and truly gone out. Thank goodness. What was once a flame was now spent ashes in the grate of another seemingly pointless episode.

At the end of our little sojourn I finally made it to the place on the page that everyone around me had been at for some time; Mr Distant Cynic had capitalised on my loneliness when I relocated last year. He spends much time abroad on business so the set-up we had of me being available for him when he was home was efficient to say the least. Once that penny dropped I found it remarkably easy to make all the necessary emotional realignments at lightning-speed.

Now, given that we had spent ten months or so seeing each other on and off (more “off” than “on” towards the end needless to say..) there was a tendency to think we could be “friends”. I believe “staying friends” is taking the finality out of it, a little like a safety cushion to shield you from the blow that it’s all over.

Mr Distant Cynic had boasted on several occasions that he was friends with a number of his ex’s; indeed he once commented that a few of them were now married and that he knew for a fact that the new husbands hated the “arrangement”. I imagine a thoughtful and considerate ex would bow out but no, he found that quite amusing. Can you see where I’m going here?

And so yesterday when after several months of zero communication his message popped up on Skype, I sensed he was on an information gathering exercise. And I was right.

After opening gambit chit-chat he asked “so how are you? How’s business? Family? Is there a new man?”

I deftly answered the first three questions and body-swerved the forth, knowing that he would come back to it again. And he did.

So this time I answered that yes, I had been seeing someone. I also added that it was early days but that he was probably the most genuine and honest person I’d met in long time. Because that was the right and true answer to his pointless probe.

Out of politeness I then asked “and how about you?”

“Yes am seeing someone …” he answered, “unbelievably she’s even busier than I am…. which suits me fine …. she is a very lovely person …”

So all in all, you might say that’s a great result for both of us, which of course it is but I feel that was a conversation we’d have been better off not having for one simple reason … pride.

We all like to think we left an imprint on the minds and hearts of our ex’s, don’t we? Not to the extent that they can’t move on and find happiness elsewhere, but in the moments when their minds drift off for a moment wouldn’t we like them to think “oh … she really was something else” (in the dreamy and wistful sense …)

You see, when I said I was seeing seeing an honest and genuine man, what I really wanted to tag on the end was “he’s the complete opposite of you”. And I’m sure he’d have wanted to come back with “oh bully for you”

And when he told me his new squeeze was a “very lovely person” I desperately wanted to retort “and I wasn’t, I suppose???”

These thoughts and desires are not conducive with leaving wistful imprints .. just a nasty aftertaste.

In truth I think maybe people have all sorts of other reasons for keeping in touch and for “staying friends”. Maybe they are harbouring a deep-rooted hope that it isn’t really over. Perhaps at some point they think “benefits” could be added to the equation. For me it’s quite straightforward; I’ll nod in acknowledgment if I bump into an ex in Tesco but that’s as far as I need to go.

Once you’ve said your goodbyes it’s better to nurture the memories rather than stir up the residual resentment.

After all … they’re called “ex” for a reason.

There is one thing you can be sure binds us together when it comes to relationships …and to be clear I’m talking about all relationships here, not just the intimate ones. And that is this ..we’ve all been disappointed at some point.

That’s not to say that every relationship will let you down, but in the main there will have been a falling short of the mark that caused us to retreat, sob, lick our wounds and sob some more in the worst cases, and to shrug our shoulders in resigned acceptance in less severe instances.

When we invite people into our emotional space we attach hopes to them in terms of their behaviour and consequential outcomes, we hope, will weigh heavily in our favour. The more we like a person, the more hopes we attach. It’s like planting a garden. If it’s of critical importance to you that it blooms to perfection then you’ll tend it regularly, ply it with fertiliser, stand and wait for green shoots to appear. If on the other hand you don’t care one way or the other, you might chuck a few seeds about in homage to whatever BBC2 gardening bonanza caught your eye as you channel-hopped one evening.

Hopes, dreams, aspirations … if you hang on to them for dear life and fail to implement a qualification process that tells you whether they are realistic or not, they become one thing. Expectations.

Some where deep down we might start to conjure pictures of a happy ever-after with someone we just met or else we possibly imagine our child opening his practice in Harley Street thirty years hence as he walks into his new classroom on his first day at school. If you’re really adept at this process you will imagine these things happening before there is a “someone we just met” or before you’ve even taken a positive pregnancy test.

We like to dream, we should all live in hope (despite there sometimes being no apparent reason why that’s a good idea) and aspirations gave birth to the profession that is marketing. Expectations, however, seem to be the root of disappointments and let-downs, dashed and disregarded like insignificant pieces of flotsam and jetsam floating on the cruelly hostile sea of hope.

Now I can’t hold my hands up as a visionary on this subject for I too was practically olympic-standard at imagining the “whole roses around the cottage door” scenario when it came to fledgling relationships. And then after what seemed to be an indeterminable number of gargantuan bitter pills my friend Ullie spelt out my solution in brilliantly simple terms…

“You should never enter any relationship with expectations. They are the seeds of misery. Rid yourself of expectations and you will enjoy the relationship for what it is in real terms, not what you’re willing it to become”

Ullie was unequivocally correct.

Only yesterday I had a vivid reminder of how ignoring this advice can play out when I was targeted with a nasty little message left “anonymously” on Facebook.

Some time ago I became aware that a chap had taken a liking to me, he wasn’t my type in any way shape or form but he could be mildly amusing so we occasionally swapped banter. Every time I reaffirmed the distance between us, he seemed to ramp up his attempts to preen and parade himself in front of me like some prize-winning bull, often in front of his easily amused friends.

It became harder to feign a smile in front of Mr Jack T. Ladd, especially when he proclaimed pearls of wisdom like “You and I are so alike. We both have an air of mystery about us.” Explaining to him that it wasn’t mystery in my case, it was indifference felt like it possibly would have popped his balloon with a force he wasn’t ready for. So I chose to dodge him at every given opportunity, often very unsubtly.

My opinion on events like this is quite straightforward. If you like somebody and you throw out bait several times which they chose to ignore, then they don’t like you. Simple. And when if you’re a man throwing said bait, be in even less doubt. Continuing to puff your chest up that bit more and plunge in once again is only going to ensure that when the realisation sets in that the interest is not mutual, the catastrophe will feel so grave it should make the six o’clock news headlines.

And so Mr J T Ladd went on and on and on. And I backed off and off and off.

And then yesterday evening to my Facebook Honesty Box question “Tell me something you probably wouldn’t say to my face” I got this (anonymous) response ..

“I think you are a coward which i find disappointing. I would never have a problem saying that to your face mind you, just never got the opportunity.”

Now anyone who can’t be bothered to capitalise “I” isn’t worth a huge amount of bother anyway, but that just happens to be a bête noir of mine that I battle with constantly amidst the many grammar and spelling affectations that haunt me.

And, in case you are wondering, I knew this to be Mr Ladd … for one simple reason. He and people like him can’t just let their expectations go because they think everyone is waiting for their next promised installment, so when they sense the game is starting to run away from them they seize on that critical match-winner … the last word, preferably a nasty toxic one.

Building expectations is never advisable, particularly when you have no knowledge of the person you’re constructing them around. Which is why Ullie was spot on with her advice.

But if you really can’t help yourself donning a hard hat and erecting some scaffolding in preparation…. then learn to let them go gracefully.

Or even better … live in the moment and let the rest go hang.

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.

No … living as an adult in my book is recognising life’s lessons for what they are, and not blithely taking the same route, making the same decisions and arriving at the same unsatisfactory conclusions. If it didn’t work out last time the chances are fairly high that it won’t next. Being “grown up about it” means walking away on occasion, taking a risk without being consumed with fear and seeing that the hurtful actions that others display towards you is actually testament to their own inner demons, not yours.

Surprisingly I’ve witnessed some pretty hostile behaviour towards me since my marriage broke down over three years ago, and it still leaves me scratching my head as to why that might be. What makes it even more baffling to my little brain is that it has for the most part come from other women who I’ve come to call (affectionately, you understand …) the bullyhags. Surprising, baffling …. sad and grossly disappointing. You kind of hope your own gender will be batting for you … supporting you through the good times and bad. And generally when times are bad they will support you, but there comes occasion when your day starts to brighten that a few seem intent on spoiling it.

The bullyhags will offer up a few choice sharp and sarcastic words, some deliberate attempts to freeze you out of conversations and relationships and display an underlying inference that moves are afoot to undermine your happiness.

I recall being bullied first time round by the very unrefined Susan Smith when I was thirteen because she’d heard on the grapevine that I had taken a liking to her beau, the even more unrefined Mark Firth. I should point out that I never use real names in this blog unless (I’ve just decided) they have at some point displayed the characteristics of pond life. In this case I deem my decision to name and shame wholly justified.

And so having my polo mints snatched on a daily basis because I had embarked on a crush that was the first of many unsavoury repetitions cast me in the role of the bullyhag’s future victim.

The only good thing about being intimidated in such a manner when you’re a child is that it’s done in a very obvious and visible way. Other children witness it and there can be no doubt as to what’s going on.

As an adult it can be a very different affair. It’s often done subtly, at close quarters and quite viciously. There’s often no warning nor is there an obvious reason why the perpetrator has selected you as their would-be prey. As I said … baffling.

I was a little girl who spent her entire childhood trying desperately to please and impress her father so it comes as a bit of a blow to think that there are people out there quite willing to take you down just because they don’t like the cut of your jib. And for no reason other than that.

Friends have said this is often the work of a jealous mind which always amuses me. Given that some offenders have been in secure relationships with no obvious problems financial or otherwise, I wonder how they think my life feels at 3am in the morning when I have tossed and turned in my bed wondering how my bills were going to get paid and what my future held. And I wonder how they think it feels when I look at my son and worry that I’m letting him down and not giving him the childhood he deserves. But then again, given that the bullyhags are adults I’m sure they take all that into consideration before they launch their subversive venomous attacks.

Put quite simply it appears the bullyhags like to select victims that they deem “getting a bit too big for their boots”, someone who may appear to be making progress and who just needs to be taught a lesson. I guess you only have to acknowledge the column inches in the newspapers given over to tales of woe, tragedy and torment to appreciate that bad news will outsell good any day of the week. We just don’t seem comfortable with the nice stuff. That seems for me to be one of the biggest tragedies of all.

Clearly because I’ve written a whole post dedicated to the bullyhags I’m admitting that I do get affected by it all .. but less so these days simply because I don’t have to wait for the bell to go at four o’clock to make my escape.

Inferiority is a state that’s much easier to fend off when you live your life as an adult.

Was that the bell?

I make no bones about it; internet dating and I are not a match made in heaven. I suspect it’s in no small part due to the fact that I like quick results, so after half a dozen dismal attempts at finding the man who will emotionally complete me via my broadband connection I’ve “logged off” the whole idea. But my conversation with my friend did cause me to realise that my impatience is possibly due to my previous career in sales on the battlefield that is the city of London …

This was a job where strategies were not given an infinite amount of “time to work”. If there was no sign that you were making significant progress after deploying all your heavy artillery then you either a) completely re-thought your strategy or b) scrawled it off your prospect list and started hunting elsewhere.

I really was that girl. I was the one in the Armani suit stood on Waterloo concourse huffing and puffing because the train was ten minutes late. I was the girl sat in the American Bar at the Savoy sipping champagne with my girlfriends on a Wednesday evening just because we could.

I was also the girl that brought in £3.5 million worth of new business for my employer eighteen months before they decided to dispense with my services when I tried to return from maternity leave. So you see, it’s not always glitz and glamour … at least not once you’ve had a child.

The taste for all things designer and bubbly soon left me. Having a baby tends to do that to a woman. Priorities not only move, they get completely re-written. But the one thing I’ve never lost is the understanding that to get someones interest, be it in your product, your ideas or even you, you have to whet their appetite first.

To this end I would suggest anyone writing a profile for a dating website look at it in the same way as writing a sales proposal.

What you’re selling is you of course, but what you want to do is stir enough interest in your audience to motivate them to contact you. Don’t worry that you might be contacted by people you’re not interested in, of course you will, but you need options when it comes to internet dating and plenty of them.

The first thing anyone needs to decide is what type of match are you looking for. In the interests of keeping this post sensibly concise let’s suppose it’s someone like me; someone looking for a relationship but not to be engaged by Christmas and married in the spring. Here are a few pointers you might like to consider …

Photograph- Make sure you include one; not posting one looks suspicious (I’ve already talked about that). And make sure you’re smiling on it; in the main it’s only professionally-taken shots that don’t make unsmiling people look like convicts. Another vital point is make sure you’re properly dressed … a man naked from the waist up spells out P-L-A-Y-E-R only. You may be proud of your gym attendance record but keep it in your back pocket for now.

Written profile- Keep it relatively brief, two paragraphs only. Remember this exercise is only about getting people interested in you, they don’t need to know every last detail at this point. Mention any avid and passionate interests you have (that aren’t related to sex) and never, ever, ever mention your ex. Ever. Make sure your spelling and punctuation are correct … trust me, a thinking woman’s crumpet does not start off “well where i start im new to this my mates say i look great for my age i luv a good laff and im looking for that special laydee ….” You get the picture I’m sure.

Follow-up- When people contact you either initiate conversation with them or politely tell them “no thanks”. Don’t ever ignore them. The world is too small these days to risk gaining a reputation for being ignorant for the sake of not typing a quick message.

So, I’m sure there are those of you out there who are thinking “so if she’s so red hot at this, how come she’s single?”

The answer is this … you don’t always have to believe in the product to be able to sell it. You just have to get the buyer salivating at the thought of it.

Job done.

Women of my generation talk about all manner of personal detail quite openly amongst each other. We talk about it seriously on occasion, in the manner that you might discuss a post-mortem report (maybe not the best analogy but you get my drift) and at other times we will venture into jocular territory.

A common misconception amongst men however has to be that we discuss “quality” issues …. like a panel of judges as men are paraded in front of us. That’s not the case. Well … to be perfectly honest it can happen, but only in my experience where the man in question is little more than a fantasy figure. Take Johnny Depp for instance. I will get as bawdy and raucous as a rum-soaked sailor if there’s a magazine piece featuring the gorgeous Mr D in the same vicinity as my girlfriends and I. This I have to say is totally unfair to a man with a face to melt most red-blooded women in an instant as he is obviously hugely talented to boot … but heck, I don’t suppose he lays awake at night worrying about it.

Now it comes as no surprise to anyone that women “like to talk” … John Gray has made a fortune from explaining in his “Men are from Mars …” books the opposing behaviour a man will display when faced with emotional pressure. Women now know that it’s perfectly normal for a man to “cave”, i.e. disappear into a puff of silence, when he feels that he may be getting out of his depth in a relationship or when he starts to experience the gear shift from “casual” to “serious”.

We girls of course will huddle around several bottles of wine, play some Amy Winehouse in the background and dissect and analyse the why’s and wherefore’s to explain the latest example of puzzling male behaviour. The fact is that we will come to our own conclusion if you fail to provide us with one. Talking is what women do. We share, we offload and we (occasionally) rationalise.

And the greatest discovery of my recent years is to find girlfriends that I can tell anything to. My darling Mum often thinks that seeing me on a daily basis will provide her with everything there is to know about me. Not so.

My girls Natalie and Sharon are in possession of the full Debsy facts . They know if and why I’ll do something, and they know the outcome often before the thought has even entered my head. We have consumed wine into the early hours and laughed until one of us needed to be placed into the recovery position. And what is the subject of our favorite topic? Well contrary to popular male opinion we very rarely discuss male “performance”. It’s a common misnomer that women mark men out of ten in that regard. We don’t.

What we do in practice is provide a support system for each other. We girls need that. And only another girl truly knows how bad it can get at times.

There have been a few episodes over the last few years when I’ve needed to be emotionally held up, when I’ve felt my legs couldn’t carry me anymore. A true girlfriend doesn’t need to hear the full detailed explanation; she gets it straight away.

What women will do when they get together is to help strengthen the weakest in the brood … whoever it happens to be at that time. We may talk of a man’s role in the whole process and if he’s at fault then yes, some sticking of needles in effigies may take place. It helps us feel better to cast the wrongdoer in the role of the villain, to put him on trial and consequentially to hang, draw and quarter his reputation by the third bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Men have told me that they discuss football, cars and women when they get together, but I suspect the discussion on women is based largely on bravado and speculation than much else.

And yet all cannot be lost …. I’m sat listening to an old track by the Doobie Brothers, written by Michael McDonald and Patrick Henderson and the lyrics are …

“Darlin, I know
I’m just another head on your pillow
If only just tonight, girl
Let me hear you lie just a little
Tell me I’m the only man
That you ever really loved
Honey take me back
Deep in my memory
A time when it was all very right
So very nice….”

So guys, if you can put it to music and sing it, what’s wrong with talking about it?