Rambling Missive with Louise Leigh

My younger child turned 18 the other day, which means I have Completed Parenting. That’s it, done. I’m walking away, dusting my hands off and smiling in satisfaction. Right? Right?

To celebrate, my kid threw a house party and I woke up on my 20th Mother’s Day with my house in chaos and my heart full.

The mess

Last night, Poor Stephen and I went out to the cinema (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, an apt choice for our life stage and a pleasure to check in with a character I’ve known for 25 years). We returned to a party in full flow. The hallway was awash with shoes and bags (what was in the bags? One of the Bens had packed an overnight bag containing 2 litres of cider, headphones and extra strength hairspray.) The kitchen was awash with houmous and the living room had been puked in - my new carpet, now over a year old has been well and truly christened. (They’d done their best to clean it up and taken the poor puker home. I hope his parents don’t hate me.)

In fact, the entire house is sticky. But more importantly it’s full of lovely young people, dancing, chatting, consoling each other in corners (yes that’s a euphemism). Some of them I’ve known for years - we greet each other with hugs. One of them - a young man - says “Thank you so much for making Ted. We love him.” No, you’re crying. I do a bit of dancing, we sing a riotous Happy Birthday over the massive Costco cake, which they demolish in moments. The boy I had appointed Charcuterie Monitor apologises for not getting out the charcuterie. We check everyone’s okay, and then hide in our room until my pissed up baby comes in and grabs me to dance to Hot To Go. The clocks went forward last night, so we agree that when it magically goes from 1am to 2am, everyone who’s going home should leave and suddenly about 4 kids, Stephen and I are sorting cans and bottles and Improving the Kitchen for our future selves.

The Morning After

And so to bed. And so to wake up. And god I love the morning after the party. Yes, there’s an unpleasant smell and I need to get the sofa dry cleaned and - is that apricot vodka? And another patch of sick (outside, thank goodness)? And why is there Anti-Climb Paint on the stair carpet? But each stain and each little patch of sick and each half-empty bottle of apple liqueur in the downstairs loo tells a story of adventure, of friendship, of looking after each other. The anti-climb paint tells of a late night skate session in the Co Op car park. The discarded mascara wand in the upstairs bathroom tells of Nameless Drama. I can’t stop laughing as I speculate, laugh over the cards Ted got from his friends, and remember the morning after my own 40th birthday when I found a deflated inflatable horse in a corner among the wine glasses and cans. It’s so lovely to have this bit of the morning after without the hangover.

The Mother

I also feel, this Mothering Sunday, really connected to my own mother. She is a carrier of the Party Gene. She may even be the originator of it. I remember her dancing to Cotton-Eyed Joe at 5am at my brother’s 21st and then serving eighty bacon rolls at 11am. She had two parties for 35 people on subsequent days this January. The woman is 82 years old (nearly 83). There were 150 people at their golden wedding anniversary party. She threw HUGE parties for us as children. When she was my age, she insisted that she and dad move into two thirds of a literal mansion they rented for 10 years so they could have enormous parties. It was an incredible decade. She’s relentless.

The Party Gene is recessive in me. To be honest, doing stand up scratches a lot of the itch for me. I’m all about the small groups now, but hosting for my kid reminds me this is a thing I have done quite a bit in this house. This has been a House of Parties. Getting the disco lights up, I remember I have hooks specifically for them above the doors in the hall. We get the Party Box down from the loft and see various generations of unfinished paper plates, and those plastic cocktail glasses that used to light up until we washed them up drunk after a doo. So many great memories, and I realise I don’t think a house is alive unless it’s got friends in it. I can see why my mum entertains so tirelessly.

The only thing that would have made this morning better is if there had been more hungover teens hanging around. I adore them. They’re so funny, and they love each other in such a sweet way. But apparently, they all had to go out with their mums today. I hope their parents don’t hate me.

It’s traditional to hate Mondays.

The thing is, I’ve always sort of liked Mondays.

As my friend Other Jane said, (after she vomited into a cup in front of a flasher on the tube) “I do apologise for being so disgusting.”

Nonetheless, even when I had a Proper Job and got the Friday Foolishness and the Sunday Sadness, once Monday morning came along, I was okay. I felt sort of reborn.

Here’s what’s going on: to me, every Monday is basically New Year’s Day.

I haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution in decades. I’ve had too many failures: too many “Daily Diary” habits that fizzled out by the 9th of January, too many plank challenges that didn’t get past day 6. I’ve let myself down, I’ve let you down, I’ve let the whole school down too many times.

But a new week resolution? Do the same thing over and over just five to seven times? That feels achievable.

Every Monday is an opportunity to wash away the grizzly failures of last week and start anew.

Maybe this week, I’ll be efficient! Maybe this is the week I can do admin! Maybe this week I’ll exfoliate my feet!

Maybe this week I’ll do gentle parenting. Maybe this week I’ll floss!

Maybe this week I will eat 30 different plants!

Maybe this week I’ll remember to count to ten before I lose my temper!Maybe this week I’ll be on time!

It’s A New Hope every week.

Look, if you’re thinking “well she sounds unbearable” you’re not wrong.

This Monday, for example, I’m absolutely smashing it on both admin and Getting Things Done. Why I could almost like myself!

Don’t worry, though. By Thursday morning I’ll be back to dicking about on my phone and lolling about the house thinking “I should really go to Tesco…” and then just… not… and we’ll have Freezer Surprise (on toast) for supper again. And I’ll be angry with myself and telling myself off for just not having any willpower and not being determined and being consistent all over again. Until Monday.

I’m experimenting with putting a second story in this whatever it is … let’s see how that goes.

The child who is at Uni decided to play allergy roulette last week. They won in that they’re still alive, but they did have an episode of anaphylaxis. COOL! What this means is now, when they don’t answer their phone the little voice in my head that thinks that something has gone terribly terribly wrong is a little louder than usual.

This doesn’t concern my kid at all, of course. They were always the kind of toddler who “didn’t get lost because I know where I was”, and they’re also the kind of neurodivergent that thinks “I’ll reply properly when I have a minute” then just doesn’t. So now I have to think of increasingly cunning ways to get proof of life out of them. So far, so good. It’s like writing clickbait. Trying to find something that will elicit a response - or even better, start a conversation. “I need to know this for a thing.” or “Do you prefer Crackers Bolognaise or Freezer Surprise on Toast?” or “What’s the name of that person who…?”

So far, I’ve found out more by this method by actually asking intrusive questions like “how are you?” “How did that thing go?” So I’m chalking that up as a win.

If you like this, my darlings, please can you hit LIKE on Substack? It makes all the difference. Thank you!

It’s a lovely and exciting week this week as I am doing a gig with some of my actual comedy heroes: Desirée BLOODY Burch and Sara RUDDY Pascoe on Wednesday, and my solo show Louise Leigh Distracted at the Alma Tavern in Bristol.

There may be the odd ticket left to the Alma Tavern gig, the other one is definitely sold out.

Oh, and I’m going to Sidcup on Friday, which is a new and exciting adventure. Next week, I’m going to the North West of England - or out for karaoke on Thursday.

Have a good one.

Inspired by someone on social media, this week I found myself wondering who I would call if I done a murder, to help me dispose of a body.

It’s the ultimate test of friendship, isn’t it? You show yourself at your most imperfect, and you ask someone to show up, to incriminate themselves in a crime and to handle something messy, possibly smelly and that will also - let’s face it - mean valeting a car or at least running a sponge round the bath.

In this hypothetical situation, the person I murder is a true-blooded wrong’un who deserved to die, and I’ve pulled the trigger or wielded a candlestick/rope/lead piping in defence of my life or my children’s lives or of the feminist cause, or something else honourable. I’m not the type to go around murdering the vulnerable and then ask people to show up for me. I’m just not.

Anyway, I did a run through my friends list and I’m delighted to report, I have a total of - I think - half a dozen people* I would phone in exactly this emergency.

* NG - 100% ride or die. This woman would be my number one pick for a local crime. She probably already has the binbags and cable ties in her car. She once came over to my house in her pyjamas because I phoned her in a panic. I had come home to an open front door and couldn’t find the big kitchen knife. It turned out SHE had hidden it (in the dishwasher - the big knife!) earlier that day, but we kicked our way through the house like we were a SWAT team (in pyjamas) until we knew there wasn’t an intruder on the premises. Actually, I’d probably call her before I do the murder. She would muck in with the whole process.

* JM - I have known this woman since before I was born. She’s the nearest thing I have to a sister. I could call her having not spoken to her for a year, tell her what I’ve done (Who I’ve done in) and she would come running. She’s similarly practical to NG. I checked in with her and she said “only if it’s a clean murder. I’m pretty squeamish actually.” Weird, because I remember her quickly dispatching a very sick rabbit mixymatosis in a field near my house when we were about nine. Still, people can change.

* PE - My most recent recruit to the bestie platoon. She’d probably cook the remains into tasty lasagnes and distribute them to the needy. Actually, that’s gross. She would never, but she’s so good, nobody would believe for an instant that she was in any way involved. The ultimate shield. She would also remember to call a few weeks later (and on anniversaries of the incident) to check how I was getting on.

The second half of the half dozen are all chosen from my core group of school friends. We’ve known each other for 40 years (or more) and we’re collectively the best thing in each others’ lives. Any of us would do it in a pinch for each other, but there are three who stand out for me:

* RRB - 100% would dispose of a body; she even lives near a loch she could chuck it in, fully weighted. She’d do it for any of her friends, to be honest. It wouldn’t even matter who we’d done in, she’d back us to the hilt.

* WH - I’d phone her; she’d scream. I’d scream. We’d scream a bit more. We’d run round Tescos like headless chickens trying to get all the bits we need. We’d scream the entire way through it (and giggle, and gag) but she’d do it.

* EC - A country girl, she’s the type who absolutely would eat her own dog in a crisis. She can handle a shotgun and this wouldn’t be the first mammal she’s disembowelled. The only caveat: I’d have to be very certain that she’d agree with me on my motives for murder.

Some very close friends have had to be ruled out, not because I don’t think they’d be willing, but because (for example), they’d blab. (I’m looking at you, JN, who was almost recruited by MI5/6 and told me about it within the week). Or because - even though they have access to weapons and/or secret places to hide bodies - they’re just too similar to me in levels of chaos. Or because their own annoying bodies don’t let them dig shallow graves/lug cadavers about like they used to.

But what about me? LL - Am I the kind of person who someone else should phone to hide a body? I like to think so. I never remember to cook the lasagne for the needy; I don’t show up consistently. But, look, I’ve got a van; I’m used to driving in the dark; I’m not that squeamish (unless it’s sick, which I hate). Also, crucially, I tend to be almost better in an emergency than in every day life. And I’m loyal to my friends. The only thing is, I will leak like a sieve. The only way I keep a secret is by not really listening in the first place, so I forget the information. I’m unlikely to forget hacking someone up and cramming him into a suitcase, sadly.

So yes, I will help you dispose of a body, because I love you, and I have the tools you need. But you might have to kill me, to help me to keep it a secret. Which leaves you in a difficult position, I guess.

*Women. They’re all women. Of course they are. Men could never. Famously, they can’t handle blood.

BUY TICKETS TO SEE ME IN BRISTOL: I’ve sold out the 8pm show on 6th March, but if you fancy comedy before dinner, come along to the 6pm show at the Alma Tavern. It’s SUCH a fun show. I’m really enjoying doing it at the moment.

I don’t have a lot of Fearsome Dreads. I mean, I have the standard ones: war, famine, apocalpyse, spiders; not knowing how to spell accopalyps; having to stand on a chair in front of a room full of people; the chair I’m standing on being a spinny office chair; someone spinning the chair I’m standing on; an undignified and painful fall off a spinny office chair in front of a room full of people; doing karaoke; not being able to stop doing karaoke. The usuals.

But for most of my Most Fearsome Dreads I take mitigating steps to avoid them. I would never stand on a spinny office chair either in public or private, even if Keith swore blind he’d locked the mechanism and the chair wouldn’t spin. That bastard can still roll, even if it can’t spin. I rarely do karaoke in case I can’t stop doing karaoke and everyone else leaves because actually they would quite like a go at singing Don’t Stop Believing and holding the microphone please.

Like I say, standard stuff. Standard mitigating steps.

I do have a Major Fear around swimming pool changing rooms and pants. So many bad things can happen to pants in a swimming pool changing room.

First and foremost, you could shake your pants loose from the bundle of clothing as you root in your bag and they could fall on the wet changing room floor and become seriously uncomfortable to wear. That’s the big one.

OR: They could fall down the back of the seat in the wet changing room into a puddle that is lurking there alongside a tumbleweed made of other people’s hair, and you could put them on and then realise that not only are they damp, but you’ve also got a sort of merkin of OTHER PEOPLE’S HAIR sticking out of the corner of your gusset.

OR They could fall out of the bundle and fall under the gap between your changing room and the next door changing room and the person in the cubicle next door, instead of just quickly kicking the pants back to you under the gap either keeps them, or worse - much, much, worse - returns them after just a little bit too long.

It’s why the inscription on my gravestone will be “Pants in Pockets, Socks in Shoes” (Or PIPSIS as a friend pointed out to me. LOVE!). Yes, that’s right. I have a System to avoid this Fearsome Dread.

But today the system failed. I went to the lake to swim, then I went to my friend’s gym to swim in slightly different water. At some point ‘twixt lake and gym, I LOST MY PANTS. EMERGENCY! I can’t find my pants.

They are not in my pocket. Or any of the pockets of my bag. Or any of the pockets of my Dryrobe. They’re not even just loose in my car, like the empty wrapper of a Cadbury’s Twirl.

They have fallen by the wayside. MAN DOWN! PANTS DOWN!

They could be in the Lake changing room, or in the gym changing room, but I suspect they are somewhere on the walk from one of those changing rooms to the car, as if they’ve made a bid for freedom and are heading for the exit. Creeping along like a black tencel slug.

But I can’t tell anyone that I have lost my pants, because then there’s a chance that someone will pick them up and shout ARE THESE YOUR PANTS LOUISE??? while waving them in the air, gusset out.

And thank goodness they don’t have a nametape in. Imagine if I had NAMED my pants and then someone found them and turned up with them at the front door because a friend of a friend of a friend of theirs had found my pants trying to escape from the lake and picked them up and they have been passed hand to hand to hand to hand with the words

‘Hey, do you know Louise Leigh. I’ve got her pants.’

‘Are they clean?’

‘No, definitely not.’

‘Well chuck them here I think her neighbour goes to my Pilates class/sings in my choir/has a kid in my kid’s class at school/works with my uncle’s nephew’s piano teacher….’

And so on and so on… until finally there’s a knock at the door and I’m forced to welcome this pair of not-so-little M&S adventurers home from their exciting trip.

Which is all to say, if you have found my pants, please don’t tell me. Spare my blushes. I have already grieved their loss and I am firmly in the “acceptance” phase of that loss, and here to tell you that if one of your most feared things comes true, you can probably survive it.

It’s been time, as the young people say. It’s just the text of my post read out loud by me without stopping. It’s only 3 minutes of your life. I love you goodnight

They call me the Lone Vagina

I’m the only woman on the lineup

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And I’m feeling pretty fed up

Cos the maths just don’t quite add up.

Four comedians on the bill:

Jack and Jack and Jack and Jill

A quarter of the entertainment

Representing half the population.

I’m not sure it’s really cricket.

Girls, yeah sure you booked the tickets,

Set up the Whatsapp, found a sitter -

All while he was on the shitter -

And to thank you for the work you’ve done.

You get a whole 10 minutes of the fun.

“We’ve booked one lady wait and see,

We hope she’s good, she might not be.

She might say period, she might say blood

She might talk about her hairy fud.

I don’t like it, it’s not my life.

Let me tell you 6 reasons why I hate my wife”.

Yes, I am the Lone VaginaAnd there’s really nothing finer

Than a car share home with Rog

Whose hand keeps creeping near your crotch

(And has views aligned with Farage).

Or a meal deal from a garage,

While some cocky young white scrote

“Has some thoughts” and gives you notes.

Look, I’m not a man-maligner

Or a vicious social climber

But to be the Lone Vagina

When you’re not even headliner?

It’s exhausting, it is strange

And it really needs to change!

So I keep going - I persist

I will remain, endure, insist.

Because for every guy or bloke

Who says “women can’t take a joke”

There’s someone sitting in the crowd

Who hears my stuff and laughs out loud

And sees herself in what she hears

And knows I share her hopes and fears,

And feels less lonely, feels less shame

And bothers to write down the name

Of the Lone Vagina.

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It's just me, reading out the newsletter, in case reading isn't your thing for whatever reason. Very much a warts and all reading, because if I had to edit, I wouldn't publish!

A friend once said to me, “you know what I love about you, Louise” [first of all: thank you! I love you too!] She said, “I love that you just don’t give a shit what people think of you!”

Lovely - but so wrong. I’m extremely interested in what other people think of me. Too interested if anything. The main thing they seem to think of me, is that I’m zany, wacky, a little bit mad. And, leaving aside the fact those terms are now often seen as pretty ableist, I just can’t see it.

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In my head, I’m perfectly standard, thank you.

But… I do talk to myself. And that’s famously the first sign of madness. I’m doing it now.

That’s not a passive aggressive moan about having a small number subscribers. I’m not saying that “doing this feels like I’m talking to myself”. Far from it. Some of you have been very kind indeed about whatever this is.

It’s just that as I am reading this out loud into a microphone [did you know I podcast this for anyone who can’t be bothered to read it?] it feels pretty normal. If I wasn’t recording it, I’d still be saying it out loud. If I wasn’t reading it aloud while writing it down, I’d still be saying it out loud.

There’s a bit of online discourse, at the moment, about how we experience our internal worlds. People asking each other to what degree they envisage things in their mind’s eye - and how much or little internal dialogue we have. Well, I have dialogue. It’s just not internal.

I have always talked to myself, and I always will.

As I say, when caught doing it in public, “well at least I listen to me”.

I wish I had the reaction speed - and time - to reply with a quote from the majestic Helen Broderick in the movie Swing Time, who says “I always talk to myself -- you see, I am my own grandmother and I have to keep the old girl interested”. God, I love Helen Broderick. So dry. So funny.

I have various categories of self-chat:

* practice for difficult conversations I’m definitely going to have.

* practice for difficult conversations I may eventually get to have

* practice for difficult conversations I know I’m never going to have

* re-doing difficult conversations I’ve definitely had

* re-doing difficult conversations I almost had

* re-doing simple conversations someone made difficult

* remembering things

* suddenly remembering I’ve forgotten things

* interviews

Number 9 is my personal favourite. I’ve been doing it since I was very small: walking home from primary school pretending to be on Wogan. What was I telling Sir Terry Wogan and millions of UK viewers? What stories did I think would hold up alongside those of real life guests David Bowie, Madonna and Anne Bancroft? Just, like, which were my favourite trees on the walk home, who was my best friend, why I like these socks. Important stuff like that.

Even now, sometimes when I’m listening to a podcast in the car, and I feel I have something to add to a conversation, I’ll join in to the extent that I have to switch off the podcast so the other people on the podcast will shut up and actually listen to my story. And I’ve definitely practised what I’d say about three of the songs I’ve chosen for my Desert Island Discs.

I think probably all of these types of chat are kind of like waking dreams. I’m sifting through the stuff in my brain, sorting the glitter from the dried lentils, like contestants once had to do on The Great Egg Race. Oh hang on - quick diversion, to explain The Great Egg Race. It was a science show, I suppose, from the 80s, presented by a bald professor in a bow tie and glasses called Professor Heinz Wolf (his Desert Island Discs is just brilliant, by the way). Anyway, in the show, nerdy types, engineers etc had to make machines, often out of household objects, designed to perform specific tasks. And I vividly remember one where they had to make a machine that would sort out a great big pile of mixed, different sized small objects which I am sure contained both dried lentils and glitter, into their various different subcategories. Am I explaining that well? Anyway, there was a lot of faffing with sieves.

But that’s what I’m doing when I talk to myself. Sifting through the piles of stuff in my brain, trying to organise them. And I know I’m not alone. Sometimes I catch other people doing it: Gesticulating angrily - that’s often a category 1 or 2 (practising for difficult conversations that are likely to happen), or just stopping still in the street saying “Bugger! Lemons!” before turning round and heading back to the Co-op. I also know I’m not alone because in the days before smart phones, my friend Emily and I used to discuss talking to ourselves and how we could disguise it by using a dictaphone. Or even something that looks a bit like a dictaphone. You can talk to yourself as much as you like, if you’re holding that in front of your mouth. As long as you remember to say “note to self” first, you’re golden. And also, I know I’m not alone, because of pets.

Pets are like Emily and my fake dictaphone. They’re the perfect cover for talking to yourself. Because you can’t be mad when there’s a dog, cat or even a gecko who’s listening to what you’re saying, can you?

Side note: I think I met a dog called Jennifer this week. Not Jen, not Jenny, Jennifer.

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Episode two featuring fluffs and low effort, low fi. Yes, it’s bad. Deliberately so. Look, though. Less than 8 minutes of your life.

LOVE YOU!