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.

It’s quite astonishing the truths you can uncover when you’ve lived as an adult for a few years. Of course living as an adult doesn’t always equate to your age; my son for example oft displays more maturity in one word than I can eek out of my whole being.

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?