Don’t Look Back in Anger – A Review of 2014. My year of lessons – and trying to find love with the “second time around” crowd.

You know how you’re really looking forward to reading your usual newspaper or magazine at the end of the year and then are monumentally disappointed, because it contains nothing more than 52 pages of “An A to Z the Year in a few words and meaningful photos” – and it’s really annoying?

Well, I hope that this post isn’t quite like that, not last because I can never think what to put next to the letter “X”, and let’s face it, as 2014 has hardly been X rated (Going a bit Cosmo on you there and there’s also a risk my parents may read this), so I thought I would look back at my 2014, but do the edited version, so to speak.

So, this post is about looking back. Not reversing, because as some of you will be aware, I’m not terribly good at that and I can’t afford a new car with sensors or a camera.

This year has also been the year of the second time around man – and on that score, 2014 has a lot to answer for.

In a previous incarnation, I used to do family law work. Whilst I was poring over divorce petitions and trying to get all the columns to line up in an affidavit of means (fellow wannabe lawyers will know the heartache this causes), I gave little or no thought to the post-marital love lives after divorce of the clients I dealt with. As it turns out, I should have sought their advice and got some tips (apart from “I didn’t understand that letter you sent me.”)

If one thing has been consistent this year, it’s been the lesson that whilst I still haven’t met anyone who wants to do the decent thing and go out with me for more than a few weeks, much less get on a plane [bonus points if we turn left] and go on the unfathomable “mini break” (immortalized by Bridget Jones, a fictional character whom I used to view with both amusement and pity), I have met a lot of the same sort of men. Ladies, I’m talking “second time around” if you know what I mean. And what an eye opener it has been.

It’s like a tide has turned, gone out and left me washed up on divorcee beach, but without the financial settlement.

Dear readers, if I have one hint for you if you are dating (or trying to date) a recently separated / divorced, or to coin a phrase from Gwyneth, the Queen of Goop – the “consciously uncoupled” man, it’s this –accept that you are in for a LONG wait – a bit like queuing for a train at King’s Cross or Finsbury Park between Christmas and New Year.

Be prepared to be at the back (or at least towards the end) of the priority queue. If you have anything like my luck this year, the pecking order will look something like this:

1) His (amazing) children (Exactly how it should be, before Fathers for Justice send Batman or similar on to my balcony waving a painted bed sheet);
2) His job / career plus business travel everywhere but where you need him to be, which is actually the shortest journey of them all. (I know, I should have got the hint at this point);
3) Pleasing his ex-partner (very commendable if there are children involved, I just don’t need to hear about it);
4) His parent(s);
5) Other issues in his life;
6) You. If you’re lucky.

So, what’s my advice? But he’s The One, I hear you say. Then I would say this: Don’t do what I did and get caught in the friend zone, or even worse, in the “professional adviser” zone, which is like the friend zone, but with the added risk of :

a) Fretting about whether your advice is correct or not and wondering if you could be sued – but hey, at least it gets you 30 minutes on the phone;
b) Wondering how much the same advice would cost him if he actually went and paid for it (Not that I’m bitter…)

I was at a party the other night. I know, it surprised me too, given that it was fancy dress. (Top tip here, just wear something with leopard print on and say you are a “party animal” – works for most women from age 35 plus).

Towards the end of the evening, it struck me that there might be some terrifying line-up of single women all wondering if they might get to have a go at the lucky recently single chaps assembled (albeit dressed as a variety of characters, and I find it’s quite hard to chat up someone dressed as Buzz Lightyear or similar)– I was imagining some sort of dance-off a la Grease when Sandy and Danny are whooping it up to Hand Jive and then they get cruelly split up and Cha-Cha takes the prize.

So, I sloped off into the night with my dignity intact. As my friend Lesley and I agreed once, we may well end up old and lonely, but we would have kept hold of our pride! Which will keep us all warm at night, obviously.

Improve Yourself! (And what to do when caught on camera)

This year, I thought I would swap my nights in of pyjamas (never a onesie, they make me feel claustrophobic), TV and snack food for evenings full of demanding intellectual rigour and research.
In reality, this has turned out to be that I am still watching TV in Holiday Inns with my books in front of me, but that I feel guiltier about it and that I have bought an awful lot of mini post-it notes.

Yes, I am having a mini mid-thirties crisis and so have embarked upon a professional qualification in law via correspondence, for the next two years.

One thing I did not appreciate about the course was that we would be filmed. Not like that – no one would pay to watch me eat cakes in my nightwear, but in a mock Court Room. The best thing to do after you have been filmed addressing an imaginary Judge, is to watch it once and once only. Having seen myself on film, I have learned the following:

• Never wear a pale grey sweater that you thought made you look the embodiment of casual style – which in fact makes you look as if you have two sloths wrestling under it.

• I remain incapable of accepting feedback in silence. I have to agree, interject, and even if I manage not to do this, I utter strange involuntary noises – and not in a sexy way.

My awards for 2014

As we know, no review of the year would be complete without a few awards for standout moments, good and bad. Here are mine – virtually.

Most helpful comment and use of scientific deduction:

“Still single?” [Said by a woman who should know better, thirty seconds after I had seen her for the first time in two years. Who then proceeded to tell me all about her fiancé, the insensitive cow].

“It’s all a lottery, really.” [As above, but after a deep breath in when she realized that I didn’t want to know even more about her amazing soulmate].

Best meal: The Greenhouse, Mayfair, London by a country mile. So good that words almost fail me, apart from to pray that I get to go there again one day and yes, I admit that I looked at the bill [and almost fainted] when my date was away from the table. Quite simply because I could not believe someone had paid that much to take me out and I was completely staggered. Best night ever – and they gave me a cake to take home!

[Not my] Finest hour: Crying in front of a colleague of someone I fancied [who wasn’t there, do keep up] and pretending I wasn’t feeling terribly well at a drinks party. Apart from the tissue stuck underneath under my eyes and my mascara running as I had hiccups, I think I got away with it thanks to low level lighting and of course my amazing wit in such situations.

Oddest decision: Deciding to do some more study on top of a full time job, which involves commuting to the UK, considerable expense, but in the certain knowledge that if I don’t do it now, I never will and I shall detest myself forever. I have come to the conclusion that whereas other people have normal hobbies like walking and sailing (or anything else that sounds good on a dating website), studying appears to be mine. Oh well!

Biggest achievement: Getting to the end of 2014 without having my home repossessed.

Best scaremongering: “Do you have the gene that keeps you single?” I still cannot forgive you for this article or its title, Grazia Magazine. (I know, I’m shocked that it wasn’t from the Daily Mail either).

Best things ever: My sister, my family and my friends. Hands down.

So, what has 2014 taught me? Not as much as it should have, but definitely this:

• You are nothing without your health, your friends and your family.

• Keep going, keep hoping, don’t go to Waitrose when you are hungry and always have a bottle of something chilling in the fridge in case of company.

• When in doubt, order a Bellini.

• And maybe, just maybe, the best is yet to come.

So Happy New Year, don’t snog anyone you shouldn’t at midnight, but don’t lock yourself in the loo and cry either because otherwise crisps may well go to waste (I’ll be eating them) – and keep smiling as much as you can.

See you in 2015 and thank you for putting up with me this year – many wouldn’t.

Feeling festive yet? Me neither.

Alas, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I know this is true, because the John Lewis Christmas advert has come out, I have cried because Monty the Penguin didn’t have anyone to love him (but now he does, in the form of Mabel), and yes, I have downloaded the song as well.

So, it’s usually around this time of year that my thoughts turn to Christmas, not least because I’ve seen all the other adverts suggesting how you can make it “debt free” and also because all the toiletry companies start churning out “hand care kits” ( consisting of some soap you will use and some moisturiser you most probably won’t), in decorative boxes.

Speaking of Monty the Penguin, it would appear that another year is due to pass by without me having met what my late friend Chris would describe as a “life partner’ (we would then collapse laughing and eat some more sweets to console ourselves about this continued absence), – i.e. someone who can put up with me in good times and bad, and even when I’m wearing a novelty sweater with an appliqued Christmas pudding on it.

This time of year always brings out the Richard Curtis films, and fool that I am, I will always watch Bridget Jones’ Diary and Love Actually, because – you just never know, do you? Although in the latter, my heart goes out to Emma Thompson’s character every time she thinks that the gold heart necklace is for her, and she ends up with….a Joni Mitchell CD. (Which I then also downloaded, of course).

Anyway, like the disappearing Ferrero Rocher in the plastic box, the pleasantries are over. Breathe deeply, because I’m going to talk about the C word.

As one of my friends mused the other day, “Does anyone actually like Christmas?” To some extent, I can see their point. Apart from Valentine’s Day, I cannot think of another time of year when so much collective stress is caused by so few, to so many. With added tinsel. If you are an adult child, parent of an adult child or a visitor to a friend’s home for Christmas, then this post is for you.

Firstly, I think if you get on well enough with your family to want to spend two solid days with them, eating turkey and sitting around scrabbling through the Quality Street (as well as the obligatory improving family walk and cracking open the Monopoly) then that is fabulous and you must not change it for the world. If however, you get slightly “frayed” by the fervour and Yuletide felicitations (as my friend Rob once described Christmas greetings and jollity), then here are a few hints which may assist.

1) It’s better to win the war on how to cook the perfect roast potatoes than it is to go into battle about how to set the festive table at your parents’ house. Believe me, I have engaged in combat on both counts and if you’re up against a female relative with a glass of mulled wine in her hand, then walk away from the latter but stand firm on the former.

2) Visitors:

a) Be clear about when you are arriving and when you are leaving.

b) Fit in with the family you visit – they are not a circus and cannot entertain you all day, every day.

c) No one ever died from stacking a dishwasher or offering to set a table. Get off your arse and help. I say this because I have lost count of the occasions when I have seen guests not helping out on Christmas day. Whether it’s setting the table, helping peel a few carrots or just topping up drinks, they seem temporarily unable to perform any task, instead preferring to drag their laptops round the house and texting their mates from the table. Often whilst in pyjamas. If you want to do that, there are of course 364 other days of the year in which to please yourself.

d) Your relatives will often delight in discussing, loudly, their embarrassing medical problems and offering detailed descriptions of life according the Daily Mail. Do not retaliate with your own symptoms (imaginary or otherwise), because I can guarantee you now that they will outstrip you every time and if they don’t do that, they won’t listen anyway.

3) Adult children

a) Picture the scene. You are heading home to the parental unit for Christmas and you are grown up and want to prove it, e.g. you want your boyfriend / girlfriend / life partner to share your bed. For some families, this is no problem. For others, however, it is and at the end of the day, it is your parents’ roof for two days. Personally I have never understood why people want to sleep with their partner in their parents’ house. Isn’t it just the ultimate turn off? Really? Unless you get off on the sensation of candlewick and bobbled sheets whilst your family all listen in and the cat tries to get in to join in the fun, I would probably avoid it.

4) Be prepared…for strange things to happen

The other day, despite having no money and not being able to afford to put on my legendary (if I say so myself), Christmas drinks party this year, (gone are the day I used to cheerfully lug that case of Veuve Clicquot to the car and spray twigs white before setting to on the home made canapes), I seriously considered buying six crackers from Joules, one of my favourite brands, for £22.00. Yes, I was honestly going to spend almost £4.00 per item on some cardboard and bangers because I liked the colours. What was I going to do with them, move them around my flat for the month, whilst hissing at visitors: “DON’T TOUCH THEM. THEY ARE FOR DECORATION ONLY.”

I then went to Paperchase, to find the perfect A5 diary for 2015 and also to get a bit misty eyed over the cards in there. As you do. As it happens, the diaries were not quite perfect, but I had such fun caressing them that I bought one card in celebration and seriously considered the 3 for 2 offer on “Happy Holidays’ decorations…(In case you are wondering, this was not a card for my imaginary boyfriend, although yes of course I considered it – there is still time on the Christmas clock, although I admit it is ticking).

NB This is the one time of year when most women (myself included), truly believe that they are able to “rock” a Christmas sweater (see above), a gold “party dress” which they would normally eschew and, to top it all off, some glittery make up. Maybe with a tiara or other “statement jewellery”.

We all know that no good ever came out of a woman over 25 trying to channel Tinkerbell, but I just can’t help it as I daringly brush on the sparkle dust and wait to feel all festive at the office Christmas party. I bet you a White Company “Winter” candle (a close favourite of mine behind “Blanc”), that you too will consider that wrap dress and fur tippet combo to guide you through the festive maze! And I’ll happily raise the stakes to some Jo Malone English Pear & Freesia cologne if you like.

You feel obliged to put up a Christmas Tree and to send cards, although every year you think, should I bother doing this? But then, if I don’t, what if I only get ONE CARD from my mum and dad and anyone who comes round will think I have NO friends?

You will also, I guarantee, consider briefly making your own festive wreath to hang on your front door and charm your guests. Personally, I find that this desire evaporates as soon as I try to bend old coat hangers into acceptable shapes…only to find the holly embedding itself in my hands. Still, I am sure that this un-festive feeling will pass. I’ll let you know when I have enjoyed my WHOLE seasonal Chocolate Orange and gin and tonic, all to myself.

In the meantime, I am of course off to find the perfect Christmas outfit (anything that looks good under an apron which you can easily sponge chocolate coins off). So, please do go easy on the candlewick at your parents before you go and chop up those sprouts and open the fizz at ten in the morning, try not to steal the chocolates from your young relatives advent calendars – and when you watch the opening scenes to Love Actually or Bridget Jones, I defy you not to want a Christmas jumper – or better still, a Monty or Mabel of your very own.

Yuletide felicitations to you all!

Wisdom on Postcards – and Hoping for the Best

Rescue Me
Sometimes, life can be puzzling. Looking back whilst tucking my tiny violin under my chin, it was never part of the plan to be single until I was thirty six (and counting), living alone and with a career change on the go. I thought that by now I would be married, taking time out from my career, yes, but because the ankle biters would have descended on me and I would be simultaneously folding baby Boden and laughing at dinner parties with other couples whilst complimenting the hostess on her lovely home and choice of Farrow & Ball wall colours.

The reality is somewhat different. Unfortunately, Mr Right has not yet appeared in the same jurisdiction as me for more than 24 hours, and I don’t know why, because my Lalique crystal ball smashed during the house move…..And I am getting impatient. There are, after all, only so many books, baths, walks and ready meals you can enjoy by yourself when your friends are all out caressing antiques and eating biscotti (although I HATE biscotti) with their other halves. Ditto sitting outside cafés with a newspaper, or going to the cinema.

So what’s a girl to do? I have a feeling that’s another blog entirely, but if one more person tells me that it will happen when I least expect it or that there is “someone out there for everyone” (cue squeeze of arm), then I might scream, or perhaps better still ask for a pound every time someone else asks if I have “met anyone nice yet”. Believe me, if I had and I could keep him interested for more than a few witty emails, then you would hear the sound of the Red Arrows rushing past in thrilling formation before I descended from the sky in a parachute painted with the words “You can all stop worrying, I HAVE MET SOMEONE AND HE WANTS TO SEE ME AGAIN”. The tariff will rise if the question extends to whether I want children. And anyway, whether I have met anyone nice yet isn’t the point. The million dollar question is “Does he want to see you again – and if so, what’s he doing about it?”

Rescue mission

Of course, the whole rescue mission concept is not without its downfalls. As well as making half of you really hate me, by raising it it has also made me think about how women also feel they need to rescue potential partners for whom, quite frankly, the relationships life boat should just sail on by. In short, it has made me think about what I don’t want anymore and I’m just telling you now so no one else has to spend most of their adult life wondering.

Do not attempt to engage (either in conversation or indeed if a small velvet box with a ring glinting in it) with the following if you want a half decent relationship. Ladies, I have tried and tested the lot (and don’t think my life has been that exciting. If it was, this would be a much more fun blog to write).

NB The thing that all these men have in common is that all your friends knew that they were NO GOOD for you. And, like your mum, they were right. All along.

1. Mr You are Going to Change. Do you recognise any of these lines? “You have such a pretty face, if only you lost a few pounds, you could look amazing”. A man (no, a boy) said these words to me some years ago at university and rather than kicking him in the nuts, I thought he was right! At the time, I certainly was not a heifer. I look back at photos of that time and think how stupid I was in not walking away sooner. Instead, I thought he was right and for about two days, thought I should eat less. But then I got bored and I’ve never been one for eating disorders (The waste!) so I eventually got over him (and myself) and left it there.

2. “Sorry, I’m gay”. No messing with that one, girls. Best to move on and save him for shopping trips.

3. “Make it all better, Mummy”. If there is attention seeking to be done, then at least have the decency to make me laugh whilst you’re doing it. I don’t need to hear about your minor medical mishaps (always dressed up to sound more serious than they are), your constipation, piles or, as you describe it “my contact dermatitis” (ie your arms itch a bit because, God forbid, the cleaner at work has wiped your desk down). So gentlemen, if the most lengthy thing about you if your list of ailments and your tubigrip bandage, pack it in and take some pain killers.

4. The indecisive one. Ladies, you may know how to make a fabulous dinner, look hot, be funny, get on with his mother and friends and mix a great drink, but if you are going out with one of those people who always truly believe there is someone better around the corner, you may have to move on. This is heart-breaking, but so is wasting your entire thirties on someone who is always waiting for Claudia Schiffer to walk into the room and take him away from all this. In other words, he likes you but just can’t commit, a bit like me and signing up to a broadband and phone package for more than 18 months.

5. The one who uses sport to conceal all human emotion. I wasted my time with one of these, once. When we got into double figures – ten WHOLE MONTHS of going out with each other!!!, he became almost breathless with commitment phobia and ended it. Looking back, this was someone who ran marathons, swam all the time and was constantly on his bike, as it were. That’s all lovely, but in the end you have to ask yourself: “ What is he running away from?” The answer is likely to be: “Any form of meaningful relationship with me.”

6. The one who asks you out for dinner then doesn’t call. Yes, sadly these are still around. Just manage my expectations, love. If you don’t want to ask me out again (and believe me there is no obligation to take me to a Thai restaurant for the early bird special so you can save a few quid), then don’t! Just use the time honoured phrase: “It was lovely to meet you”, and then in equally time honoured tradition, exit stage left and lock yourself in the loo to text your mates after the date, like the rest of us do.

Back to the Office…..back to yours

I turn now to numbers 5 and 6, the office crush and the married man. Adding 5 + 6 = fatal. Admit it girls, if there’s someone in the office who makes your heart beat faster (and as my friend Mandy calls it, “tugs your coital rope”), work can actually be a fun place to be.

Offices are funny places. Sometimes, the air conditioning, long hours and staring at your computer screen can really get to you and suddenly (in the manner of Stockholm syndrome when a captive finds themselves oddly drawn to their kidnapper), you may have succumbed to someone who you would never normally look twice at. But, beware. If it’s your boss, they certainly won’t be the one getting their P45 if you go beyond the course of your job description with them. All of a sudden, the forbidden fruit of the boardroom can become a barrel of rotten apples that may leads you to the exit with your things in a document box.

The upside of the office crush is that it gives you a bit more incentive to crack open a new packet of tights and look half decent every day. It could also provide no end of entertainment for your co-workers. Colleagues may admire your sharpened dressing up skills, although they may get a bit sick of seeing the skirt that Andy from Accounts once said he liked you in (and in all probability, out of) on an almost daily basis.

Business trips

So, it’s finally happened – you and your office crush get to go away on a business trip and you’re in a bubble of excitement with a capsule wardrobe (this will include a knock them out dress for the last night party when the stakes are high). Add in a business class flight with its fun goodies AND real cutlery, a bit of sleep deprivation to drinks in the hotel bar and being walked to your hotel room, and there is temptation – if all the men aren’t in a “private” club of course, watching “contemporary dance” and assisting the local economy by stuffing dollar bills into a lucky lady’s red lace underwear set – to have a roll on the 500 Egyptian cotton thread count bedding if you’re staying somewhere decent, or to kick the Premier Inn purple velour runner to the ground with your lusty colleague if you’re not.

Who hasn’t heard about at least one business trip where those pre dinner drinks lead to dinner, then lead to digestifs, with a few life stories being chucked in for good measure, then culminate in a 2.30 am knock on your bedroom door with a “colleague” asking if you have a phone charger / toothpaste / adapter they can borrow. Doubtless this is to facilitate the post bonk phone call home to their wife after you have shown them that room service doesn’t just mean a BLT and chips that cost £25.00.

Wish You Were Here?

Speaking of travel, do I look like I want to sit in seat 58 B? No? Exactly. And sorry but I don’t have the exact change to pay for the “meal deal” cup of tea and chocolate bar of my choice for £3.65. However, I would be fascinated to see the exclusively available on-board perfume coffret and interchangeable necklace and earring set.
Holidays

I heart skiing

I do love a ski holiday, particularly when it doesn’t contain an awful lot of skiing! When I tell people that I went skiing for a week in Chamonix last year, technically this is true. What is also true is that I only ever ski for three hours a day, because life is too short to be cold and miserable, especially when there is a decent Tartiflette on the menu. The one exception to this is on day three, which is generally my best day as by that time I can’t feel my lower legs in my ski boots and I have got used to falling over.

Mini break

Maldives magic and misery

Have you ever been to the Maldives? If you are in any doubt, I can save you the money. Just lock yourself in a sauna for a couple of weeks with a bowl of warm washing up water and make sure you have sex every day to justify the money you have spent on being there. You can then save the other £2,000 you would have spent on fun things.

Good things about the Maldives = the weather, the coconut outside your door that says DO NOT DISTURB (it might as well say “we are busy bonking to get value for money from the four poster bed”), and the astonishing sunsets.

Bad things = other couples (usually all on honeymoon, check out the girls wearing bikini bottoms that say “Mrs Smith/Jones/Whatever” in diamante) and the fact that you just can’t get away from imposed romance. From a towel twisted into the shape of a swan on your bed to the rose petals strewn on the sheets, love is in the air…..and in the Jacuzzi Beach Villa.

At this stage, I should perhaps mention that most JBVs (as they are known to those who have stayed in one), is that they have no back wall on the bathroom. I suddenly realised that this could mean that your other half (how I hate that term) could see you using the loo, not to mention the curious gecko and other tropical creatures who inhabit the Islands.

So, between the risk of being seen using the facilities whilst staring at the hot tub in which you will be honour-bound to do more in later than enjoy the bubbles, to seeing other guests filming the nightly buffet (It really does take all sorts to make a world and admire a carved watermelon), you can understand what is supposed to be the Holiday of a Lifetime can sometimes turn into the Holiday that Feels Like a Lifetime, topped of beautifully when your entire flight back is blighted by a mad man who was drunk when he got on the plane, and shows no sign of stopping.

Speaking of holidays, what would they be without a postcard or two? It seems sad to say it, but I have developed a love of anything that sums up affairs of the heart in a few succinct words and postcards are no exception.

Nothing makes life seem more manageable than a meaningful phrase, so I shall leave you with the 80 pence worth of wisdom I picked up in Cards Galore when last in London (nothing cheers me up more than card shops) – “Take every chance in life, because some things happen only once.” As our mothers would say: “Think on!”

Always the Bridesmaid? Hen Parties, Weddings….and the Gift List Commandments

These are your orders: Invitations and gift lists.

I do love a good wedding and the save the date card and invitation are the equivalent to a decent canapé – a delicious hint of the feast to come. Of course all good things can be ruined by the list of Stalinesque orders that usually accompany most wedding invitations nowadays. Such missives are usually in italic type to make the bad news easier to bear, and if the couple are really organised, they may have created a thoughtful website full of badly spelled asides like “Sandy enjoys playing with her pets and going to the beach. Tommy enjoys drinking lager from the can and playing with himself’.

Be warned, from the time that the super organised “save the date” card arrives, your life will not be your own. Multiply this if you are a bridesmaid. Of course, if you are a bridesmaid then you need a few tips about the hen party…

How to deal with hen parties

Like a Primark sale or a charter flight, hen parties can generally be defined as hell on earth, but with spa treatments and the sauna doubling as the equivalent of Dante’s Inferno. The combination of your mate’s other friendship groups all under one roof or sky, shoehorned into a range of activities THAT YOU ARE ALL GOING TO ENJOY whilst wearing matching T shirts (or pink velour tracksuits if she insists) is a recipe for either bemused detachment or indeed deep breathing and keeping your fists by your sides whilst counting to twenty. If you go to an activity centre, you can also take bets on how long it will be until the “Bride to Be” sash gets caught in her harness and an aerial rescue is performed.

Who needs a raging inferno and the concept of eternity when you are trapped having a bad facial with a stony-faced therapist for company in the name of your friend’s last days of freedom? My own memory of a hen party at a spa in Jersey is jogged here. I made the mistake of laughing in the swimming pool after a friend told a joke. Before long, there was the swish of linen trousers and flip flops and the manageress appeared, asking us to “respect the fact that there were other patrons using the facilities”. By this, I presume she meant the sole woman having her nails done in the charming B & Q type gazebo, whilst I lay in a vibrating “relaxation” pod with a J-cloth around my neck, but I could be wrong!

My personal favourites are hen parties where one girl forgets that she is NOT the bride and it’s time to hand over the princess crown and sash to someone else for the day. I don’t really want to play rounders on the beach, lie in a “thermal pod”, sit in a lukewarm Jacuzzi or go to a shite comedy club, I just want to go out for a meal and have some gin! Balloons and chocolate willies are optional. And please don’t suggest a day of aerial trekking and wall climbing if your friends are more the “do your nails” sort – you only need your character built so many times. More than once is often a waste of time and money.

If you are the bride or chief bridesmaid, then listen up. You may long for a visit to Euro Disney or New York, to be a pop star for a day or to think of all your friends laughing together over a bottle of Ernest & Julio’s finest. The truth is, if you don’t have £700.00 per person to spend and your friends don’t either, then you may need to re-think dancing with Mickey Mouse in the Parisian suburbs or trying to enjoy the Big Apple in under 48 hours. It’s a sad fact but someone had to say it.

Instead, think what could everyone do that most people would enjoy (employ the principles of utilitarianism – the greatest good for the greatest number – thank you Jeremy Bentham) – and your chosen ladies should enjoy the day. My heart just sinks when I see loads of women weaving disconsolately round city centres in bad t shirts, waving wands and spanking sticks for eight hours straight (often whilst wheeling trolley dolly suitcases, oddly) because one of their number is tripping down the aisle. Many a time in London have I caught sight of a gang of women dragging themselves through Leicester Square, each unwilling to acknowledge the following universal truths:

1) Leicester Square is (still) a hell hole!
2) You can get your portrait done in chalks by a struggling street artist, but it won’t look much like you, especially with that cowboy hat on;
3) There is only so much fun you can have in going round Claire’s Accessories, M & Ms world and then all sitting in Nando’s after a few too many in Yates’s Wine Lodge.
4)To be a brilliant chief bridesmaid you need to be rather like a dictator, a steel fist in a silk glove, with a will of iron and sense of determination that makes Margaret Thatcher look indecisive. Carry a calculator (ideal for sorting out the complex bill in the restaurant when one of your party decided she would only have a starter and nothing to drink), some pain killers and a good sense of humour. And above all, don’t forget the clock work willies to send across the table to the token strait-laced Aunt who always gets invited to these things and carries with her a sense of moral righteousness and indignation at any mention of risqué subjects.

Back to the wedding……the Gift List commandments

My personal favourite is the gift list, usually folded in with the invitation and full of things too expensive for most guests to contemplate. And brides, think about it. How often will you honestly use the 14 piece dinner service that you have asked for? If it’s every day, then go for it and be proud, but if your nearest and dearest have bankrupted themselves for a couple of charger plates that will see less action than the jilted Miss Havisham’s wedding breakfast crockery, then think on.

If you are single, weddings can be manna from heaven or molten lava from hell. If you are a single bridesmaid, multiply those feelings again (and if you hate your dress, think of it as character building and smile when the groom’s mother tells you that you have a lovely outfit you can wear again and again). Beware other predatory males. “Single female wedding guest” also appears to translate to “easy prey in pink polyester” at times. I once sat next to a married life coach who spouted on at me all night about how I had not yet been appreciated by someone special yet …..and proceeded to give me his card. Although when I look back at my outfit (and what I thought was an incredibly chic hairstyle at the time), then I am not surprised. Perhaps I looked as though I needed help!

If your kiddies do make it to the venue, then take them out if they start to holler. It is not charming to hear a two year old “expressing themselves” when it interrupts the vows of your friend, who will already be climbing the walls because her Spanx are cutting off her circulation and her new husband is also getting on her nerves. It’s a church, not a Montessori school reception class.

The dress

I will keep this brief. Your inspiration is Kate Middleton in the State Coach, not Jordan in a pink pumpkin carriage with a mad candy floss whirlwind out of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Wear what suits you. Just because it is your wedding day, it does not mean you will suit a strapless dress. Beautiful boleros were made for just such occasions to hide big British arms (BBAs). Also, just because the dress is the most expensive one in the shop, it does not always mean that it is the loveliest.

Accessories are fab BUT, again, you don’t get more points for raiding the dressing up box. A veil is usually stunning. A veil and tiara can be breathtaking. However, a veil, tiara, fur shrug, hand bag and horse shoe could be taking sartorial matters too far. That said, silver shoes can look spectacular with your dress and can actually be worn again.

Whilst on the silver theme, which bride hasn’t been accosted by a well meaning friend or relative proffering a plastic horse shoe at the crucial moment? This is usually done when you are posing for photos and all you can think of holding on to is your bouquet in one hand and your husband in the other. It is a bridesmaid’s job to hold this token of kindness for as long as her friend asks her to.
Also brides – bear in mind your bridesmaids, please. Unless you have scored in the friendship stakes with a family of identical triplets, they won’t all look the same in the same dress. Ditto make up – unless you all have the same colouring, the makeup artist (and I use that term loosely given the evils I had had wrought upon me in my time) can only do so much.

Wedding make up is an art of great expectations (cheekbones and dewy skin) but potentially grave disappointments in the form of Aunt Sally cheeks and Cruella de Ville lipstick. If you catch sight of yourself and think “Pierrot Clown” it may be best to rethink the slap. Or just do what one of my friends did and sneak off to the bathroom to add lashings of her own mascara.

Should you fake it? Musings on the art of self tan

I think yes to a hint of colour (and aside from magic pants, nothing knocks a dress size off you faster), but no to the cult of the mahogany bride complete with acrylic nails – extra points for diamante tips – and hair extensions.

What not to wear

I go to every wedding with my eyes on stalks about what guests will be wearing – and I don’t just look at the frocks. Ultimately, the lesson is never ever to wear anything that you can imagine on Princess Beatrice or Eugenie, or for that matter, anything that could be mistaken for an outfit choice from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (dance moves not included, alas).

I have made several outfit mistakes over the years, and hindsight is a great friend! I have turned up at more ceremonies than I care to remember with my hair in a chignon and a floral ensemble fighting with the church flowers for space and have later been told by friends that I resemble a (slightly) younger Princess Anne. I have worn what I thought was a fabulously chic fascinator which in fact resembled a dead macaw. I have been the chubby bridesmaid in the oddly coloured dress and I know well the despair that a dyed satin court shoe with matching wrap can bring. If you’re lucky, you will be thrown a satin drawstring bag as well.

As I say though, women aren’t the only offenders against the gods of fashion at weddings and men too must also answer to the fashion police. Why some chaps think it is ok to turn up in a short sleeved shirt (when it’s not on a tropical beach) and no tie or jacket is beyond me, but I also have a sartorial fear of the men who insist on wearing gangster “ice-cream” chic, which would appear to combine some facets of morning dress with gold waistcoats, white shoes and an oddly long walking cane. The jacket will usually have a Nehru collar and you will hear the wearer of this striking item from a long way off, as the knee length jacket will be rubbing against the beige trousers. Eeeeeek.

Out of favour – what to put on the tables and how to plan them

Aside from pink velour bridesmaid tracksuits, some of the biggest mistakes people make at weddings are to do with over-dressing the venue, or as some accurately put it, the “crap in the marquee”. One person’s pink and purple balloon arch is another person’s own personal hell.

In terms of dressing the marquee, “been there, done that ideas ”, includes table quoits, trivia games (if we wanted to play scrabble or hand round a tray of objects to recall then we could have stayed at home), almonds in net bags (these tend to follow you round and have to be dusted after two years when they fade), glitter confetti and, dare I say it, old school table cameras. How many pictures do you want of your friends tits on Table 6?

Whilst on the theme of tables, again you could cringe at these but DO think of table names and table plans. The starting point is keeping people apart who hate each other and work from there. Generally, it’s also better to keep exes apart unless you want a war of words over the speeches, only to find them making up furiously two hours later behind the (posh) portaloos.

(Almost) finally, an anecdote, because if nothing else, these are surely what weddings are best for, apart for believing in the happy ever after. My great friend (whom I shall refer to as “L”) phoned me once, traumatised, after a ceremony and reception she had attended from which she was still reeling in shock. On further questioning, L revealed (haltingly, it must be said) that the wedding had not been a complete success. The bride’s fake tan was on the darker side of mahogany and the harpist was reprimanded as the bride progressed down the aisle for “playing the wrong thing’. And how was the poor DJ to know that there were two versions of “Killing Me Softly” – their first dance song? Unfortunately he chose the faster one….containing expletives.

At last, the cake came into view, heaved manfully across the lawn by two brave waiters. A meringue masterpiece was revealed, complete with beady eyes and chocolate sponge claws. And so, the legend of the Snowy Owl Meringue was born. Still, the piece de resistance arrived post wedding in the form of a round-robin email from the recently spliced couple. “Thanks for all your pressies!” read the missive. It also contained an unbeatable offer to buy a DVD copy of the happy couple’s memorable nuptials for the bargain price of £12.99.

Finally, let me leave you with an image of how to get it ever so slightly wrong at weddings. My theme was “floral and fabulous” but alas the execution of a concept sometimes goes awry and on reflection it is not surprising that the only man I pulled had his face painted on – was made out of wood. But that’s a story for another time.
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Until then, keep throwing the confetti and hang on to your Spanx, because without weddings, what would we have to look forward to?

Working Girl (but not like that) – the joys of office life

I do love office life. Friendship, politics, intrigue, gossip, love amongst the filing cabinets, and that’s just the incoming correspondence.

The hunt for the perfect job

It has taken me a number of years to realise that there is no such thing as the absolutely perfect job –  perhaps not for me anyway.

Still, that doesn’t stop my eternal belief that someone, somewhere must want me to turn up for work every day brandishing my LK Bennett tote bag and installing my high heels collection in a glass walled office in which I am paid to do a bit of light internet shopping, make myself cups of tea and exchange witty comments near the photo copier, which I obviously don’t have to use.

The interview – Yourself, myself and everything in between

Being between jobs, or unemployed, as some people prefer to call it, I have observed a lot in interviews, that’s when I’m not talking 19 to the dozen or trying to enthuse about a job I’m really not sure about.

One of my most hilarious  (hindsight is a wonderful thing) interviews consisted of “competency based” questions rather than a gander through my CV and asking if I had an armed bodyguard in Liberia when I used to do some work trips there. The answer is sadly no, and I got used to seeing disappointment in a person’s eyes as I answered the question truthfully.

Interviewers (frequently women), are so terrified of putting a foot wrong that an entire health warning is usually uttered before they get asking you to recall a time when you showed leadership and teamwork skills. “My name is X and this is my colleague Y. This is a two way process and I am going to write things down and at times I may need to lose eye contact with yourself “[see my hatred of this term in another to be written blog post].

Still, I have to admit that I was as bad as the rest of them. When my eyes weren’t fixed on the sheet on which they took down my answers word for word in a cheap black biro, I was the first to chirp about “key stakeholders” (other de-valued and depressed employees), “cascading information” (putting the newsletters out in electronic and paper format) and working well across all sectors – e.g. asking all the people in accounts and communications if they would like a cup of tea.

I have also learned that each workplace has its own version of business bullshit bingo, or BBB for short. Meetings are a “huddle”. Meeting documents (or memos and agendas in my day) are “huddle packs”. Any small meeting under an hour in duration is an “Espresso seminar”, but I don’t think you actually get a coffee – it’s just someone talking quickly. More on this below. Terrorising fellow colleagues on the office floor before reporting petty misdemeanours is a “Walkabout”, and let’s not forget the heart-warming 360-degree appraisal, more on which later.

My opinion on such things is that if I want to read badly disguised, anonymised criticism of “myself”, then I can always sit in a meeting [breakout] room alone, sniffing a packet of magic markers and dancing round a flip chart.

However, I digress, because as we all know, there are times that it simply isn’t enough to humiliate “yourself” with direct interviews [which always consist of two people so you can’t falsely accuse anyone of fondling you]; sometimes you have to stand in front of the equivalent of the employment firing squad and put your life into the hands of a recruitment consultant.

The perils of the recruitment consultant

Of course, before you actually get a job, you have to find one and in this most of us will turn to the mystery that is the recruitment consultant.

Going to see a recruitment consultant can be rather like going in to the reptile house at your local zoo – it’s a fascinating experience but perhaps one you don’t want to repeat too often, and anything more than a brief visit will make you feel over warm and uncomfortable. One of my friends once described a recruiter’s job as “selling false hope”. On the occasions I have been into London recruitment offices, I have been struck by a number of points:

  • None of the female employees feel able to wear a decent pair of tights;
  • Often, they won’t have read your CV beforehand, other than to look for gaps;
  • If you are female, they will often ask you if you have ever been a PA. Or if you would like to be one. This has happened to me more than once.
  • If you have a law degree, you will be asked to either show interest in (a) being a Company Secretary, or (b), a legal secretary. These are both worthwhile jobs, I would just be useless at both.
  • Of course, you know you have hit the big time when you get asked if you would like to go into “compliance”. Had I wanted to spend my days scanning passports, then I would of course have applied to work for G4S in airport security, because then you get to take pictures of travellers as well and ask them if they are going anywhere nice.
  • The offices themselves  can look like Social Services (same bad, standard issue sofas that don’t match any other furnishing in the room. Ditto sick plant and incongruous lamp). Sometimes these will be accompanied by a crystal award from ten years ago and an Investors in People gravestone-type plinth.
  • Even if you are a former legal professional who is now an event manager, they will try to talk you into taking a job answering the phones in an office “to gain valuable insights into working for a large corporation”.  Again, this happened to me. Can’t you just read about the company on their website?!

First day at the office

Life in overthrown Libya and most offices have a lot in common. At the heart of most of them are one or two rich and misguided dictators disguised in chinos, a checked shirt and unusually bad footwear.

Whilst your male employer may not physically resemble Colonel Gadaffi or indeed his creepy son with the very white teeth, underneath the disguise of the blazer and pimp like shoes, they’re quite similar. I began musing on this theme when my (unpaid) working day in London as an (admittedly elderly) intern was rudely interrupted one day with the fateful words: “someone has left a BOWL in the SINK!” Naturally all eyes darted around the room trying to find the perpetrator of such a savage and inhumane act.

Can you imagine ignoring the taped up sign exhorting people NOT TO DO SUCH THINGS? I was just beginning to imagine the IKEA crockery being dusted for fingerprints when a lesser mortal scuttled to the sink muttering their apologies. So, be warned.

Actually, let’s not recount anyone’s first day in their new job. Unless your new boss or immediate team are a bunch of lovely people with no outward personality defects, it’s going to be an eye opener. What I would love to ask recruitment consultants (But there isn’t a space on the badly photocopied form for this to fill in with the splotchy pen) is: Can you find me a job without a first week? Can I just avoid the horror of it all? The cutting people off on the phone, learning my way around “the System” and asking a stonily quiet roomful of people whose names I don’t know if they would like a hot drink to be met with silence.

Well, almost. It’s either that or complex orders, thick and fast (“Sharon likes her milk in first and two and a half sugars”) – how can you tell the difference???, and the new and exciting information that “Actually there’s a coffee club as NO ONE here drinks INSTANT coffee [but management won’t pay the £2.50 per week for a new packet]”. Make of that what you will! Indeed, a good reason to stay in your current job could be to avoid, forever, the horror of the first week in a new job (and your kindly meant leaving gift from your old place, which is often more insulting than it was meant to be).

For me, the highlight of the office tour is the tuck box, where for forty pence your post lunch food fantasies can come true. Honestly, the things I wouldn’t do for an ageing bag of wheat crunchies at four o clock in the afternoon. With a kit kat straight afterwards.

Other aspects of office life

It’s amazing what people do in an open plan office. My number one fave some time ago now has been the lengthy booking (by a colleague) of a “Relaxing couple’s spa away day” for her and her beloved. A relay of phone calls culminated in a momentous decision: “I’ll go for the mineral scrub and body wrap and my boyfriend (he doesn’t have a name) will have the massage from the 21 year old girl with a happy ending…..”

 The office away day

If you like reaching out, key take aways, circling back and touching base, then the office away day is for you. All you need are a buffet, a ban on alcohol, some flip charts, spirit pens to sniff and you’re there. If you can chuck in the potential for some borderline sexual harassment in the subterraneous corridors of a three star hotel, then even better.

Obviously the best part of any away day is the motivational speaker that they wheel out to re-ignite you at 4.00 pm when you are straining to hear wine bottles being unscrewed in the back room. That’s after you’ve pocketed the mints and very flimsy pen. They could come in handy for gifts.

The motivational speaker will have written a book (of course!) of which your office will have purchased several copies to prop up the photocopier. He or she will usually have a martial arts background – open stance, it’s all in the mind….and a t shirt with a positive slogan on.

The last management guru I saw in action (designer facial hair, check, i-pad, check, man bag, check), looked like he was going to whisk one or even some of the lucky ladies present upstairs for a bit of tantric sex after he had finished his “espresso seminar” (I did not make this term up!) about how scorpions and something else can live together in harmony, in a hole, which summed up office life rather well, I thought. And reminded me of Colonel Gadaffi’s final moments in a drain pipe. He was the sort of man who practiced yoga at 5.00 am, then went for a run, then proclaimed: “Today is a gift!”, before making his own granola.

So, there you have it, today is indeed a gift, it’s just well wrapped up in the huddle pack which you’ll extract your key takeaways from in the espresso seminar, next to the breakout room where you can also collect your P45.  Until next time.

Love, Life and the Universe

As my blog is optimistically subtitled a thirty something’s guide to life, I thought that I would offer up a few insights into the dating minefield this week.  

Hold on to your hats, because we are going through the dating maze.  And, as anyone who has ever visited a maze will know, they’re not always much fun and there aren’t enough directions.

NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL  – Dating

Firstly, I really can’t offer dating advice.  Like golf or playing computer games, I am truly hopeless at it.

Read on, but make sure you have a G & T in your hand. But, don’t slam it on the key board if you see something you don’t like.

This crazy little thing called love

You don’t have to say you love me…just get in the cab.  This is how one of my friends summed up modern dating.  It still makes me laugh. Does anyone in Britain actually date?  By that I mean in the American way, asking someone out for dinner thirty seconds after they meet them in a bar?  And you date lots of people at once, and have the conversation about “going steady” etc?

This has always mystified me.  As someone who has had problems finding one Mr Right, let alone three Mr “Take me out to dinner followed by an awkward goodbye”, I have never understood dating different people at once.  Can anyone enlighten me?

Love on the High Street

Has anyone else had enough of those TV adverts with two fey people glancing at each other shyly in a public library whilst holding up promising looking books in the manner of a retro style flirtation, or in an “old music shop” set which are ultimately plying the wares of either an online dating site (more on that later) or indeed for a cheap body spray?

It seems we should all be flicking our eyes over our shoulder whilst humming “I like…old movies” as we look coquettishly through the dust covered albums or tomes to find our beloved. Who knows what you could pick up whilst thumbing through a thoughtfully placed copy of “The Principles and Practice of Hairdressing” (This is a true book, it was in my school library in 1990 and taught you how to make decorative flowers out of REAL HAIR).

Whilst I am torn between spraying on the Impulse (the fellas love that cheap white musk smell I hear), and dashing down to my local library on the pretext of collecting some recycling bags, I can’t help feeling that I am in for a grave disappointment.  And it wouldn’t work anyway, because I have never watched “Godfather Three”. (see the irritating ad referred to above).

Online, ontime

If you are single in this day and age, the land of internet dating beckons like a mermaid on the rocks to the galleon of that is the good ship singledom.  You can sail past it a number of times, but there it always is, the murky yet tempting world of online activity.

The land of possibilities that is internet dating is tempered by its limitations – you can both be as witty and funny as you like in messages and post as many action man shots as needed, (Him on skis – check! Him sailing – check! Him leaning against car – check!) but until you actually meet up,  how do things progress?

As with most things in this blog, there is something to be said about the etiquette of online romance.  A quick survey reveals that most women love sites where the girls can use a “flirt” option which I take to be the cyber equivalent of smiling at a man across a crowded dance floor (yes I know it’s not 1950 and no one does that anymore), rather than being the first to send a message.

Is it ridiculous that in these days of equality, we still like the man to make the first virtual move and to be the one to throw down his cards first?   Also based on the two internet weddings I have been to (by this I mean real, actual friends of mine who met online),  both were founded on the fact that he messaged her first. So that’s the extent of my scientific research.  Personally, I think it’s nice to have a splash of old fashioned romance in the sea of online dating.

Broadband Romance

You can’t be single, able to type and living in London  without being a member of an online dating site.  Can you?  I did a straw poll amongst friends who met online and the [instant] message was perseverance.  I gather this is the same message given to women in their tenth hour of labour and also to endurance athletes, or when David Blaine freezes himself in an ice cube.  But don’t give up girls!  Keep at it and pretend you love “meeting for coffee” with a man in a bad shirt who listed all his favourite meals on the website, because obviously you were just dying to know that he enjoys (and can cook!) shepherd’s pie AND pasta bake.

I think that internet dating sites are like any bright and shiny new toy – for a few days it’s all winking, nudging and looking at profiles in a way that normally only the new Boden catalogue can excite you.  I started off with some rules that I have now relaxed  – being an old fashioned girl I found it odd that women could send the first message (!!!) and realised that I would have to get over this, as I was the one losing out by sending psychic waves to Tom from South London with the blue eyes and a fun taste in polo shirts.  Sometimes though, time out is required. After all, your life doesn’t need to be dictated by alert emails that someone who wasn’t brave enough to put a photograph of themselves up has just viewed your profile, but has dismissed you out of hand for the nice looking blonde girl who was kind enough to post a picture of her in her bikini.

As far as I can see, three things get you ahead when internet dating.

  1. The first is a decent picture in which you are smiling (not one in which everyone can see your awful taste in home furnishings.  They aren’t going to send you a wink if they are horror struck by your sitting room border…).
  2. The second are the spelling, grammar and punctuation in your profile.  I can’t tell you how many people find poor grammar a total turn off.  If in doubt, enlist the help of a friend to proof read your profile.  And avoid saying that you “love a good DVD and a bottle of wine”, because so do the other 2,000 people you are competing with on the site, I imagine. Don’t we all?  And isn’t it because we are keeping the DVD industry alive that we are all still by ourselves?
  3. Thirdly:  a sense of humour, both in your profile and also in yourself.

My final two theories about internet dating are that it can be like searching for a needle in a haystack (obvious) but I also ascribe to the sweet shop theory, which is that no matter how many jars of exciting looking candy are on the counter, it is highly likely that if you have always gone for cola bottles and fruit salads, you probably always will.

Although I shouldn’t say this, online dating can also offer free entertainment (ok, for about £60.00 for three months if we’re being picky).  You too can enter into the “I’ve travelled to more places than you” competition, see how many spelling mistakes others can make in writing their profile and watch in amazement as you see paraded before your very eyes (inter alia), men with snakes round their necks, men whose user names are a variant of “Rohypnol” (I am not joking) and those who ask cyber space: “Where are you, beautiful lady?”

It always worries me when people on websites describe themselves as ‘separated’, because in my book this means that “I have just split up with the missus and I’m looking for some shenanigans with an unsuspecting girl who may end up cited in my divorce”.  Of course if you have been separated for a long time then this may be an exception, but avoid like the plague anyone who puts spending a few quid on a dating site subscription over putting the readies toward sorting out their decree absolute.

Supermarket sweep

I think one of the biggest myths out there is that the best place to meet other single people is in the supermarket. I have certainly never had any luck whilst trying to reach the frozen pastry! I do wonder if other people go to Waitrose on a Friday evening because they don’t have a date and they have to kill time until Have I Got News for You so they can cop lascivious glances at Boris Johnson (if it’s a good week)?

Rather than putting our green charity tokens into their boxes after paying for our shopping, I wonder if the John Lewis Partnership would do better to give any single shoppers a badge on their way in and we could all save on our online dating memberships! There would be more to spend on shopping that way and I can just imagine love blooming at the checkout or over the loose olives.  Yes, sales of meals for one and Sauvignon Blanc might stall for a bit, but you take the rough (Ardennes pate) with the smooth (chicken liver). Wouldn’t it be great?

That said, avoid like the plague (true story from the Hampstead Tesco here), men who need to show how good they were at biology GCSE / A level by loudly patronising the staff about seemingly out of date produce.  The one I heard doing this was in an American accent, and he seemed truly thrilled that he felt he was helping those less fortunate than himself: “Ok, like, so these packets have EXPANDED.  That means like, that they have given off gas.  Do you remember your microbiology?” (Honestly). “So, I wouldn’t go putting those back on the shelves”.  Thanks for that, we’re all grateful.  Now, if I could just reach past you for a Falafel, with your permission?

Dinner and a movie?

What I hate about going to the cinema and theatre are other people who enjoy sitting in front of me and communicating with each other throughout the show.

It really is marvellous to have a running commentary when you have paid for an evening of watching a film, rather than wishing that the acrylic mix top worn by the woman in row D would burst into flames.  Ditto checking your i-phone / blackberry throughout. No one is that important, surely?  If you are certain you are, then do the rest of us a favour and get the film on DVD so you can check your phone to your heart’s delight.

A night at the opera

I once heard that Glyndebourne was where “old ball gowns go to die”.  This is most reassuring and I am sure that some of my former frock horrors would be in paradise there.  However, the English summer brings out other operatic events that do not require black tie, which is a good thing I suppose, as my recent experience has been that a tarpaulin with two eye slits cut in it would be more appropriate.

Nowhere is English eccentricity more perfectly acted out than at the opera.  Forget the programme (Nothing you can’t hum along to there between the Flower Duet and O Mio Bambino Caro cross-matched with some La Traviata highlights), because your eyes should be on your fellow audience members for signs of odd behaviour.

Having witnessed and carried wooden garden tables and chairs across lawns, seen crystal glasses being unwrapped and used and sat in near gale force winds being lashed by cold rains before retreating to the portaloos for five minutes of warmth before heading back out for the highlight of the evening, I would not bat an eyelid if the candelabra came out. Next of course, it’s  the tombola prize draw!  Perennial favourites of the night will also include a medley of show tunes from Porgy and Bess, combined with people who say over the picnic: “We’ve just discovered quinoa”, in the same way that they might advise you they had discovered penicillin.

Forget the black tie and taffeta.  Unless either are thermal or waterproof, must have wear for the opera includes your Barbour, a huge umbrella and as many insulating layers under that as you can muster, because you’re going to need them any time after 6.30 pm, and particularly during the picnic interval!

Throwing down your favour – the age of courtly love is over

My friend Rob has provided a much needed dose of reality by advising me to remove my conical hat with the wispy veil from my head and to chuck it back to the good old days from whence it came, because times had changed and I was going to have to accept that.

When the going gets tough – beware the time waster

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, like something hot that you are told not to touch because it will hurt, cads and bounders are utterly irresistible to most girls at some point in their lives and act like iron filings to a magnet.

We all know the answer, and both burned fingers and a broken heart sting like crazy and hurt for ages after the event.  But like moths to a flame, we carry on chucking ourselves at the bright light bulb.  Ow! Ow! Ow!

My own “light bulb moment” came after a year of unrequited love for a man I shall call The Leprechaun, not least because I hope he is living under a four leaf clover by now.  We emailed every day.  We were both single. Lovely meals were had, gifts exchanged and text messages pinged over several months.  I thought that Cupid’s arrows had at last found their way to my door and was as smug as a rat, when he took me out for an [express] lunch and announced a) He had news! B) He had a girlfriend! C) They had been together for months! D) Her Name was (Iwas so enraged by this point that I don’t remember this bit) E) THE CLINCHER – Would I like to meet her at a party on Friday?  And I sat there thinking – WTF????? (Not to mention why did I spend money on a new dress).

Why had I not seen this coming? After many tears (Ok, mild hysteria in the loos of a Chancery Lane pub as a friend comforted me with reviving spirits), I realised, too late, that I had been cast as the “good friend”. Aha.

There are two kinds of women that most girls hate being.  The first kind are the sort who men sleep with and then ditch. Enough said. The second kind is being the one that men tell about it and then seek your advice!!!! Yes sweetie, take a bow, because you’re the good female friend.

If I may play my tiny violin, it is far worse to be the woman who is taken out for dinner, and confided in about the man’s love life and to have to listen to their woes about accidentally sleeping with their flat mate YET AGAIN.  Ladies, this is a warning.  Do not be this girl – life is too short, as I found out the hard way. Leave him to it.

Of course I cannot guarantee against chance sightings when your heart will beat faster and you stomach will jolt, but just follow my brave example and flatten yourself against a wall. This can be difficult when you are both in the same sandwich shop….  He (and the feeling!) will soon pass and you can focus on which soup you would prefer. Most of life’s problems can be resolved by a drink and a bag of kettle chips whilst watching DVD boxed sets during heartbreak weekend. Friends are optional at these times – licking your wounds can be a solitary business.

Two clicks and a night out – the lessons of dating

But, (never start a sentence with “but”), however bad the stormy oceans of romance may be, just think, it could be worse, we could all be stuck watching Black Swan after Titanic, whilst being held hostage on one of those cruise liners with a climbing wall during a noro virus outbreak. I’ll leave you with that thought.  Until next time!

 

It’s not you, it’s me – does anyone really like Valentine’s Day?

I am afraid that this post reveals some of my “not so hidden shallows“, as the saying goes. Ah, how I love 14th February! As most single people will probably agree, the best thing about Valentine’s Day must be the day after.  I am not quite sure when Valentine’s Day became a date to dread, but for some reason I do get into a state about it. Every year.

And yet, I always hope that this will be the year that a boyfriend and / or “secret admirer” will do the decent thing and a) exist and b) visit my office with a large bunch of flowers.  Nothing too over stated you understand; just something significant enough for me to worry about how I will get them home.

The only thing worse than February 14th in the office is February 14th on the Tube journey home as you eye up other people’s bouquets. Or is that just me? (Once in The City I saw one girl make ingenious use of a document box with her law firm’s name on, so great was the weight of blooms that she had to carry to her hot date that evening).

A short history of love

In times past, I had a covert understanding with my late friend Chris, who would see to it that I not only received a fabulous bunch of my favourite yellow roses, but he would also make sure that they were wrapped in enough cellophane to ensure that you heard them before you saw them. The flowers would be accompanied by a card from a “secret admirer” and would get me through what would otherwise be the most miserable day of the year – bar the day before payday every January.

Whilst at school, me and my friend Justin would send each other a card to ease the pain, an arrangement that worked brilliantly until the day he actually got himself a girlfriend and sent me a card from Clinton’s (!) with the 99 pence price tag still on it (!!) containing the memorable message: “To a brilliant friend. From Justin” (!!!).  In biro.

I don’t have enough exclamation points to describe this heinous crime against friendship. I do recall kicking the offending item around our kitchen as my mother remarked I had very high expectations and that it was the thought that counted… I also recall screeching that I couldn’t show the card to anyone at school (which was the whole point of receiving a Valentine’s card in those days) and that was that. On reflection, I think I had probably spent longer in sticking the stamp on the card that I would choose carefully for him each year than he had in the execution of the whole process.

Table for two?

Still, the advent of February got me thinking that this can also be a rather miserable time of year to be part of a couple.  Imagine  feeling that you have to go out for an £80.00 meal that by rights should cost £40.00… and also having to pretend you enjoy sharing a pudding (served in a heart shaped ramekin, naturally) whilst being surrounded by a selection of angry looking and silent couples who have vowed to “give it one more chance” this year.

Which brings me back to…..first dates

I do love it when well meaning friends set people up and long may it continue.  (I have  a 100 % track record in matchmaking). And I am always thinking of who would go with who else I know. When it comes to introducing two people who you think would be great together, always mean it when you say you will introduce them and always help where you can.

Sometimes, it can go wrong and in that case, cut it short, gulp your Pimm’s (On one occasion I was also tempted to eat the fruit in the glass with my bare hands) and leg it as politely as you can. Warning signs are too much mystery:  “I’m writing a book at the moment but I can’t tell you what it’s about”.  Oh, how fascinating.  Thank you for that.

After the terrible date I refer to above, I received a text from the man in question holding forth that “One day you will be a beautiful shining light in some man’s life, but not in mine”.  Naturally I was both relieved and fascinated to hear this, especially when it woke me up in the middle of the night.  If it doesn’t work out, I think there are better things to do than waste even a penny on replying a message like this.

I decided that I would sooner spend every Saturday night for the next six months by myself than risk one more evening with someone like him.  And that line was very funny.  In hindsight. So far, those solo Saturdays are going well, ladies!

Can we just be friends?

Personally, I think that the dating minefield could be avoided if someone, somewhere had the foresight to open a new kind of bar.  Called “I just want to be friends”, this hostelry would be for those indecisive men to take their confused female friends to in the hope of giving them the message that they are never going to be those sort of friends.  It may sound harsh, but how many of us have got ten years to waste being Emma in One Day before going under a lorry? (That was a beautiful book and marvellous film by the way, but I rather fear it may have given some of us  more false hope).

Back to the pub, where only soft drinks or single measures would be served under a glaring and unflattering light.  In order to stop girls from having great expectations about the potential excitement of being walked home that night, the place would shut at 9.00pm with separate exits for men and women.

It’s the sort of place that would have been ideal for one man I rather liked the look of to take me for a drink – even now his email suggesting “Why don’t we pencil in something for the week after next….” brings back fond memories.   I am also thinking up a chain of restaurants for couples to break up in.  Before you do the deed, menus with set options would be provided: “Set Menu A – It’s Not You It’s Me, or Set Menu B, I Just Don’t Think I’m Ready for A Relationship Right Now”.  Sound good? Separate bills, obviously!

But after all that, I do live in hope of having someone to spend money on in the sea of pink and red cards in Paperchase next year, not least because it’s one of my favourite shops. So, I am leaving you with a lovely picture from an exhibition about Love that I saw at the National Gallery some years ago.  Because there are 364 other days of the year and, at the end of the day, what we all want is a happy ending, and not just on February 14th.

Image

No gin. No carbs. One month. Musings on the Paleo Challenge

“Basically, grains are the devil”, says Joe.

Joe is one of the two red and black clad HIIT Fitness trainers who have kindly agreed to join forces and fundraise with Durrell and help us take on the Paleo Challenge, or to “eat as nature intended” for 28 days, if you’ve seen our posters.

Durrell will also benefit from 40% of the joining fees from the Challenge, which is really generous.

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and I was about to find out exactly what this entailed.

It was on a dark day in November last year that our Marketing Manger, Kelly, persuaded me to join her on the Challenge.  If I recall, I had some oatcakes to celebrate my decision, because it was so much healthier than the KitKat I really wanted.

Flushed with triumph from thinking up the astonishing “Do it for you. Do it for Durrell” call to action also emblazoned on the poster, I agreed (in a room full of witnesses) to take it on.  So, this is a blog about the Challenge – if I get through it, that is!

 Lesson 1:       Dieting is like any change; most people will make excuses and try to avoid it.  This includes me.

I have never dieted apart from once in 2010 when I went to the renowned Mayr Clinic near Innsbruck for five nights of exercise, “special drops” (rather calming as it turns out), walking “like a stork” in freezing knee-high water after breakfast, drinking Epsom salts, blood analysis and, most importantly, 1,000 calories per day to eat.  No carbs, no dairy, no alcohol.  On my first day, I wept and thought about going home.  What was I doing stuck in the mountains with no one for company apart from a few books? Then three magic words were uttered:  “Just try it” – and I’m glad I did.

I admit that despite smuggling in three Kinder Bueno bars (bought at Heathrow along with some tea bags swiped from the Austrian Airways Lounge and brewed with the help of the giant urns full of boiling water in the hotel corridors meant for your hot water bottle), I stuck to the regime and when I returned, everyone was surprised at how different I looked.

And so they should have done, because it cost the price of a week’s skiing, and was in some ways about as enjoyable (I’m not a terribly keen skier). But yes, I would go back – if I could afford it.

So, back to Paleo, the more simple option, not least because it doesn’t involve flying to Austria or freezing water.   On 4th January, Joe and Grant trekked up to Durrell and explained to 12 brave souls the Paleo Challenge principles, and I prepared myself to go food shopping, without going anywhere near the snack or drinks aisles for a change.

At the end of the upbeat meeting, Grant produced the tools of their trade, a set of scales (which also calculate your body fat levels) and a tape measure.  I removed my boots, which must weigh about two stone, surely, and instructed Grant in a faintly hysterical voice NOT, under any circumstances, to tell me what I weighed.  Or what my hips and waist measured. Or indeed my height, because for years I’ve believed that I am a shade over five feet tall, and it’s good enough for me.

I had more than enough on my Paleo plate without obsessing about what I really weighed, and besides  – it’s always good to maintain an air of mystery. I didn’t think Grant should have to measure my chest though, as (a) the tape measure didn’t look long enough and (b) I didn’t want to scar him for life.

My twin sister helped me brave the aisles at the supermarket and we set forth on my mission of food shopping that didn’t involve a trolley full of tonic water, sauvignon blanc and crisps.  Otherwise known as “a balanced diet” if you are single.

It’s strange how much panic I was thrown into by just putting different items in a trolley, and if Lou hadn’t been there to tell me to man up, I probably would have cracked and bought pasta and some pies.  I do love pies.

Soon I was whizzing round with the aid of the downloaded plan on my Kindle, with a slight first world crisis taking place when I couldn’t find peppers or butternut squash.  The shop took a bit longer than usual, but not so long that the yellow “reduced” stickers were being put out as we approached the tills.   Green token in hand (I always give mine to the charity with the fewest counters), I loaded up the food and promptly forgot about The Challenge.

Lesson 2: Be honest.

Like most things in life, I decided to start the plan on Monday.  I had already lost points, because my pumpkin flatbread with bacon turned into bacon sandwiches, tea with milk and my afternoon snack where I could “graze the fridge” was some Ferrero Rocher left over from Christmas, followed by a Last Supper of belly pork, mashed potato and vegetables.

So not all bad, but then I forgot to mention the gin and tonic I drank, as well as the roasted nuts I ate as well.  Isn’t it boring when someone talks about what they have eaten?  (Unless it’s a Chocolate Orange, which is different.  I can eat a whole one in one siting – much like a snake digesting a whole chicken.)

When I signed up, I thought I might as well go the whole hog and so it was that I found myself seeking out my ancient gym gear and some lovely trainers that I bought for £80 about three years ago. Shortly after their purchase, I gave up my then running experiment, because my I-pod ear buds kept falling out and I was convinced that I couldn’t move at more than 5 MPH without “Hungry Eyes” or similar on at full blast.

Tomorrow it’s time to see Joe and Grant for a half hour workout at 7.15 am.  This seemed more likely than the 6.00am option.

Lesson 3: No excuses

Given that I can cross the road to the gym from my flat, there are no excuses.

None.  Until this time I had thought of gyms as similar to nightclubs   – not somewhere I wished to frequent after my thirtieth birthday.  Turns out I was wrong on that front, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be ripping up the dance floor at Mimosa any time soon.  Not in my gym gear, anyway.

So, I’ve bought (most) of the food, assembled my gym kit and in the ultimate act of commitment, I have borrowed a blender.  I’ll be making my lunch in the evenings next, and laying out my clothes.  Actually…it turns out I have done that, too!

 Pre Week 1 tips:

  1. Clear out your food cupboards of all junk food, carbs and throw them out.  If you don’t, you will be face down in a carton of Crunchy Nut cornflakes before you can say “Gluten” when you have a weak moment or two.
  2. Hide all your gin, wine and fizz and pour any dregs of Sauvignon Blanc or similar you may have in the fridge away so you don’t neck it on Day 1 in a fit of desperation. If you can’t have gin, you won’t (if you are anything like me), have the crisps either.
  3. Stock up on the Tupperware.  You’ll need it.
  4. Accept that your social life as you know it will suffer this month.

 Lesson 4:       It appears that Paleo changes you, even on Day 1. 

I have to get my expected 7.5 hours of nightly sleep now, but I’ll keep you posted.  As we say in the marketing attic, Do it for you. Do it for Durrell!

 Week 1

Oh. My. God.  My first work out was not a success. The highlight was getting to the gym on time.  The low point was being unable to run 1 km, and when my running machine turned itself off after 400 metres, (Hurrah!) I stuck up for unfit women everywhere by announcing to our instructor Dan that I too was jumping off – and promptly lurched, gasping, back into the studio for a bit of a sulk. I was also terrible at sit ups, star jumps, burpees and press ups as well.

Week 1 passed in a blur of muscle pain, four early starts for the HIIT classes and  an exciting mix and match outfit combinations for them! I also think that the staff at the St. Helier branch of Waitrose thought I had a bit of a thing about the store, as I was never out of the place and spending an awful lot of time caressing jars of coconut oil.

By Friday of Week 1, I sobbed briefly in the exercise studio as my classmates all pounded their way to victory on the treadmills outside.   Dan the instructor was kindness itself (always strange how you cry more when someone is nice to you!) when I wheezed on (I love having asthma….) about being frustrated by not being able to do what everyone else apparently could.   But here’s the thing, it does get better – you just have to load up on inhalers beforehand – and not give up.

Week 2 – Wednesday 15th January

 Lesson 5 – You will relapse

I am a bit bored of the Paleo food, not least because I have raging PMT and I have never noticed or admitted before how much I usually reach for the sugar. I haven’t had cheese, bread, crisps or gin and actually it hasn’t been too awful.  That said, I would do most things for a Chocolate Orange at this point.

On Sunday, I crack and have a slice of carrot cake when out with a friend and I almost lick the plate clean.  On Monday, I admit this to Grant, who asks me how the diet is going.  In a fit of honesty (perhaps inspired by the early start and the fact I am lying on the floor trying to do sit-ups at the time), I confess my sins.  “Why?” asks a bemused Grant.  “I’m not going into it”, I snap.  I flop back down on my mat.

 Lesson 6: You will learn to like new things. Even tofu.

Happily, yet another trip to Waitrose results in a discovery of Bounce Bliss Energy Balls on the Gluten Free shelves, which I had ignored previously.  Whilst these may sound like something one could buy at the back of Ann Summers (I am told….), they are in fact the closest to biscuits you will get on the Paleo Challenge and they will stop you going crackers in times of hunger at 4.00pm when you would normally reach for the custard creams or similar.

I still have no idea what I weigh, but I feel better and people are saying I am looking slimmer – not sure if this is down to the diet or exercise, or both, but my asthma has also really improved.

Week 3 – Wednesday 22nd January 2014

Lesson 7 – Your enthusiasm can flag

Monday is tough and feels like I am back at week 1 with the exercise today, but it’s ok. I am emotionally drained, but I blame this on the wedding fayre that I had to attend at the weekend, where all around were tiny cupcakes for sampling, which I couldn’t eat.  Combined with the constant chant of: “Are you getting married?”  I almost snap and stick my head in the chocolate fountain being demonstrated.

I am still spending a fortune in Waitrose, I am black and blue after a couple of unfortunate incidents with a kettlebell and I find that I am enjoying being up earlier than usual and that whatever else happens in my day, at least I have done some exercise and that’s a good start.

 Lesson 8 – You can do it.

I’ll write more on this at the end of the challenge, but if a 35 year old asthmatic who loves starchy foods, gin and lie-ins (not always in that order) can do it, so can you.  Thank you Joe, Grant and Dan for all your encouragement and not letting me give up.   We will see what the final weigh-in brings!

Final installment to follow soon.

Sarah