I’m not really a hat person. Usually, my mop of hair is enough in itself to keep my head warm. But this winter I was forced by the extreme temperatures to become one, and it wasn’t a comfortable experience. I had to invest in a head-covering that did slightly more on a thermal scale than my manky tresses – but how much of a ‘statement’ was I meant to make? Continue reading…
I hate it when people moan about having colds. Especially the ones who proudly announce (usually from their desk, while eating a sandwich) that ‘it’s actually flu’. Unfortunately, I have in the last couple of days become one of these moaners. I haven’t told anyone it’s flu though. I may be shallow but I’m not a liar. No, I see myself more as a tragic figure much like Beth from Little Women. (Actually, did she not die? Maybe not Beth then…) I long to be found, pale and ghostly in a nightdress, wandering the house in search of my smelling salts, a fan and someone to loosen my bodice. Continue reading…
‘Hardy’. ‘Tough’. ‘Outdoorsy’. If I could have a crisp fiver for every time I’ve been described as one of these… well, I’d be totally skint. Truth is, I’m a southerner. And even now, years after moving north of the border, I am frequently amazed at the fact that I have ended up living somewhere so poxy cold. I am often found standing by radiators, wearing an amount of layers normally seen on an OAP being cautious during a cold snap, and growling about the fact that there is clearly something wrong with the boiler/ thermostat/ world.
And don’t get me started on the beauty issues that go alongside living in the polar regions of the UK. No, actually, do get me started, because this is what today’s product chat is all about. Now, I’m sure that warmer climes come with their own dilemmas too, but frankly, I have very little sympathy for people who only have a bit of heat rash to worry about. So here are my five top tips for looking lovely when you feel like you live in Minsk. And I’m sure you’ll agree, they’re very, very timely. Continue reading…
Getting ready to go out: oh what fun it used to be. That bubbly bath with an even bubblier glass of bubbly (OK, Lambrusco. I was young. And poor)… The hours of outfit decisions (centring around a range of lycra-based items from Next, sadly)… Blow-drying my not-very-compliant hair until it was smooth as Kylie’s (for about 4 minutes before it curled back up again)…
These days it’s more likely to be a swift shower with my head poking out of the curtain to repeatedly shout “DON’T YOU DARE put that down the toilet”. To my toddler, not my husband. Usually.
Continue reading…
Did you know that the world is divided up into twelve sorts of people? Members of each type are all pretty much the same in personality, and they all have good – or bad – luck at around the same time. “Balls”, I hear you cry, a little rudely. And you have a point, although the horoscopes in newspapers and magazines would have us believe just that.
Even though I have always considered myself an open-minded individual, I find it hard to buy into this. And yet when I come into contact with any of the aforementioned publications, whether it’s a discarded Metro on the bus or a copy of Best in the doctor’s waiting room, I pounce on it. Before I’ve even attempted to absorb a tantalising feature on the cost-effective tastiness of ground beef (‘Good Buy Mince’), I’m right there, scouring the Stars page for Virgo. And what does it tell me? That a colleague might prove difficult to work with (correct at any time of year). That Saturn is bothering me (not as much as my husband is). Or that I should take some time to relax (tell that to my insane child-monkey). Continue reading…
I’ve had a long run of hair crushes, starting from a pretty early age. Floella Benjamin was one of the first. I mean, who wouldn’t want loads of lovely beads in their hair and lots of swingy plaits? I was about five, I hasten to add. And the local hairdresser in white-middle-class-home-counties-ville where we lived didn’t, sadly, do a lot of corn-rows, so my dream was never realised. Then came Grange Hill: and Tricia Yates. Who didn’t want that fabulous, flicked-up do? Well, maybe Tucker Jenkins. But I did. And if you could see my curly head-topiary you’d understand why it was so ridiculously out of my reach.
Then came Madonna, in her early and edgy ‘Into The Groove’ era. (I say ‘edgy’: Paul Young probably seemed edgy to me at the time.) She dried her pits under the hand-dryer, she wore bits of old shoe-lace round her wrist – and she HAD CURLY HAIR. I was in love. Until she cut it, bleached it and proved previous curliness to be a perm by never ever being curly again. Traitor. Continue reading…
My dream job (apart from writing Product Placement of course) would be to come up with the names of colours. I’m a big fan of not using ‘green’, ‘yellow’ or ‘brown’, and I’m not even that fussed about ‘emerald’, ‘sunshine’ or ‘earth’. If I’m buying something, whether it’s a skirt, a shower curtain or a set of Tupperware bowls (shut up, I have to these days), I want to choose from shades with names that really speak to me. That skirt would have to be available in ‘celery’ to get me to add it to my virtual basket. I’d rather have my bowls in ‘yolk’. And the shower curtain? I’ll only take it if it comes in ‘ferret’.
Getting out of the door in the morning has never been that easy for me. Years ago, it was because the school I went to insisted we cart about, on a daily basis, an assortment of lacrosse sticks, straw boaters, gym kits and bibles. (I actually went to school in an Enid Blyton novel, as a couple of my readers will verify.)
In what I shall now refer to as The Interim Years, getting out of the house was made even more difficult by the fact that I often woke up in someone else’s. That sounds bad. OK, it was bad. But we were all young once. Which leads me nicely on to the here and now, where leaving in the morning has become a kind of bizarre performance art act involving such scenes as ‘Jewellery Is Eaten By Baby’, ‘Mother Has Poo on Her Face’ and ‘Why The Hell Didn’t I Iron This Last Night?’.
Money. Turns out it doesn’t grow on trees, which is a real bummer. I spent the first half of my life thinking, “When I’m older I’ll be rich and then I’ll be able to…”. Now of course I am older, not rich at all and developing increasingly expensive taste as each year passes. Gone are the days when a Boots 17 lipstick in ‘Pinking Sheer’ was aspirational. It was only a week’s pocket money for god’s sake. The kind of things I now think I need in order to be happy/beautiful/fulfilled would definitely put me on some kind of list. Possibly at my bank, more likely at Scotland Yard. Continue reading…
For some people, the phrase ‘brushing it under the carpet’ is just that, a phrase. For me, however, it is a grim reality, due to the fact that I not only loathe housework, I am absolutely useless at it and have a husband who wouldn’t notice if we were living knee-deep in excrement.
Any short cuts available are used on a regular basis. Visitors are conned into believing I run a tight ship by not being allowed into any more than one room (which I have hastily sprayed with Pledge minutes before their arrival, creating the illusion that I am at least familiar with cleaning products). To give you an idea of the level of my ineptitude, here are three scenarios, all but one of which are true: you have to guess which (a quiz – what larks!). a) I once found three foil-wrapped loaves of garlic bread in a cupboard (placed there before a party as ‘fridge overspill’, which explains it a little). They had been there, I calculated, for around TWO YEARS. Yes, years. b) On another occasion, I found a ball of dust behind the living room door of such proportions that my stepdaughter thought it was a long-lost soft toy. c) I once moved a sofa to reveal a squashed mouse that had taken on the form of one of those tiger rugs with the head still on. Answers on a postcard, please. Continue reading…
