It's GWAS time again... VOGUE, VOGUE, VOGUE!

For some people the fact that magazines arrive on newsstands a full month before their cover date is a cause for anxiety. After all, life speeds us by fast enough without our glossy's shoving past us too - but I kinda like it.

Reading What's Hot for January when it's only December allows me a few extra weeks to get on top of my wardrobe, and their lists of Things to do give me a heads up so as not to miss out on all that Arts & Entertainment has to offer.

So lets get inspired for 2009, Vogue-style, and check out GWAS!

Holiday role play

Ice skating at the Natural History Museum, singing carols at Miss Six’s school nativity play and spending two full days wrapping other people’s gifts – in branded wrapping paper more expensive than the presents I normally buy… This week I’m playing Mum, Holland Park-style, while the parents travel overseas.

I’ve got the morning schedule down to a fine art: wake, shower and feed myself before Miss Six rises at 6.30am. Get her dressed – in an outfit neatly set out the night before – fed and hair brushed as I coax Masters Twelve and Nine out of their slumbers and into their school uniforms. Make the boys breakfast – force feed them sliced apple – brush Miss Six’s teeth and bundle them all into the car, with just enough time to warm up the engine and pour water on the frozen windscreen. And we’re ready to go!

Now that my little men are officially on term break – Missy finishes tomorrow – I’ve had to plan high-energy activities in order to keep them out of trouble, hence the ice skating. Between this family and the other, I’ve been four times in the past month… I’m now, quite the skater.

Tomorrow I’ll accompany Madame and her classmates to their end of term theatre visit, a pantomime down in Wimbledon. With all the carol singing and the craft – she and I have been making her friends Christmas cards, tied up with string – I’m feeling very Christmassy indeed.

Yes, I know Miss Six throws tantrums daily – she howled for twenty minutes on Tuesday when she realised her Mum had not stayed to watch her walk down the aisle at her school mass, apparently my being there just wasn’t enough – and sure, Master Nine ignores pretty much everything I ask of him, but at the end of the day these cherubs are keeping me young. There’s nothing like mock-sword fighting of an evening to burn a few calories and who could turn down mandatory afternoon visits to Hummingbird's for cupcake sweetness. I just have to get through the next five days of parental absence without letting slip an expletive, crashing the car (as they wrestle in the back seat) or losing one of them mid-transit. Oh the joys of being a nanny.

Party like you want to...

Last Thursday I took my new (nightmare) hairdo out for a test run. It was my old work Christmas dinner and I’d been looking forward to it for ages; but to be honest, I very nearly didn’t make it.

To add insult to injury, a gigantic pimple had taken residence on my eyebrow line – much like a third eye – so my desire to stay indoors was strong. Even my mother gave me a Get Out of Party Free card when I called her for a bit of tea and sympathy, saying, “Oh darling, just don’t go!”

But not wanting to miss out on seeing my old friends and of course, a free night out, I donned one of my sexy new designer – eBay – purchases (a SS 08 number by Nanette Lepore) and emptied almost an entire can of hairspray onto my head. I figured, what-the-hay, 90 per cent of looking good is exuding confidence so I embraced my bob in all its glory and attempted messy-chic. I think I pulled it off.

Contrary to my babysitting kiddies, my workmates had nothing but praise for The Do. Not that I’m going to delude myself into thinking that it’s not as bad as I first thought - believe me, it is – it was nice to realise that with a bit of effort and a tonne of product I just might be able to pass these next few months of ‘growing out’ without too many tears.

The night was fabulous! Given the way that I left their employ – within 20 minutes and unable to say goodbye to most of the crew – everyone made a special effort to make me feel wanted. I received squeals of hello, hugs and kisses and not one but two ‘awards’ in the faux-award ceremony.

One friend’s getting married, another is pregnant and I’ve got plans to catch up with a bunch of the girls for lunch in the coming weeks. It was a great way to kick off the silly season… and I’m so glad I summoned the courage to go.

Out of the mouths of babes

Now I know that few will have sympathy for my current plight, so just listen up and laugh if you want to. My babysitting kidlets all did…

I’ve been hairdresser-shy for about six months now, after a fiasco cut and colour last May for which I paid a staggering £80. Since then I’ve lived in ponytails, waiting patiently for the hideous monstrosity to grow out. That is, until this week.

With my old work’s Christmas dinner looming (yep, I was invited) I really wanted to make a statement and stand out from the crowd. It was the perfect time to shed the ponytail and embrace the bob, so I looked online for the best salons. For perfection, I was prepared to pay!

And then, like all good Google surfers, I came across a ‘deal’. At Gina Conway Notting Hill they were offering a £10 razor haircut by one of their top stylists as he trained other members of staff. It was like the Gods of Saving Pennies were smiling down on me, so I called up and booked in my appointment. But as quickly as my good luck came my good luck skedaddled and the training session was postponed, until further notice. They told me they’d keep my name on the books but couldn’t guarantee when I’d be called back in. So I logged back online – now that I’d been offered a cut for almost nothing, the thought of paying retail seemed preposterous – and came across an ad on Gumtree: Free bob haircut this Wednesday only.

Ah hah… What was this?

This, it turned out was an opportunity to be a training stylists guinea pig and I, stupidly, signed up. I thought I asked the clever questions… How long had he been training? Three years. When did he graduate? “Oh I’ve already completed my college component,” he said. I figured what real damage could he do.

Severe, as it turned out. This guy took ‘slow and steady’ to the enth degree; to cut straight he had to constantly re-water my hair – upon the ever more aggravated advice of his tutor – which left my neck chilled and stiff. He cut higher and higher until inside I started to panic. But then like I so often do in these situations, I started to feel sorry for the guy; I root for the underdog. I mean he has to learn somehow, doesn’t he?

A pile of hair and almost three hours later he dusted me off and thanked me for my patience. I mumbled a, “You’re welcome. Thanks so much.” And made for a quick exit.

Really wanting to just go home and curl up into a ball – on the tube I looked jealously over at a Muslim girl in her hijab – instead I had to make the trek to go pick up Masters Nine and Twelve from school. Ever-considerate Master Nine looked at me quizzically for a moment and then commented that my head looked “weird”, while later that afternoon Miss Six more theatrically pointed and exclaimed, “I hate it.” Thanks chickens, that’s just what I needed.

My more adult friends have struggled to reassure me that the haircut isn’t all that bad but I can see the glint in their eyes and the strain on their faces as they attempt not to break into giggles. My head resembles that of a mushroom. I’m Madeline, mais dans la brune!

Winter Wonderland

London is officially in the Christmas-swing. The lights are up around the city – the West End sparkles but it’s the Carnaby Street snowmen that really steal the show – and people are busy late night shopping to find the perfect something for their family and friends. It’s times like these I miss having my family close by.

And while I certainly didn’t spend five years at university to be a nanny, right now it’s nice to feel included in their families; even if it means I have six extra children to buy presents for!

Last Friday I took one of my kidlets, Miss Twelve, and her friend to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland – pre-opening night VIP tickets, of course. We tried out the ice rink, with each girl taking me round the first few times to get my ice-legs warmed up (who’s looking after who you may ask?), screamed our lungs out on the roller coaster, got lost in the Hall of Mirrors, and enjoyed a 360-degree view of London as we were propelled round on giant swings. We ate giant pretzels, drank hot cocoa from traditional German boot mugs, and devoured more than our fair share of chocolate covered strawberries… I really can’t complain.

Once the park closed up we cabbed it back to their Sloane Square abode, picking up my other Miss Twelve (twins) from her friend’s house on the way, to watch Corrina, Corrina (I can’t believe I was eleven when that first came out) while their parents entertained dinner guests upstairs. I felt just like a big sister, and truly I couldn’t have planned a nicer way to spend a Friday evening.

Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
When: 22 November 2008 -04 January 2009; 10:00-22:00
Where: Hyde Park
Nearest Tube: Hyde Park Corner... Cost: £7.50-£12.50

Strike a pose... Vogue

For those of you, dear readers, who are time-poor as well as cash-poor this holiday season, check out the best (and brilliant!) bits of December's UK Vogue with this, my second review for Girl With A Satchel...

GIRL WITH A SATCHEL... The Assistant makes her first cameo appearance

Okay, I've been a bit busy lately, what with daily Bikram (I finished The Challenge and am hooked on for another 30 days), Beautcamp and then taking care of the kidlets (oops, scraped their car on the school-run yesterday... eek!)... so I apologise for my lack of posts.

But I did scrounge together a few hours at the weekend to review some mags for fellow blogger and kinda my mentor, Ms GWAS. Check it out!

One-unders

At lunchtime yesterday, as the United States was celebrating the victory of America’s first African-American president and Great Britain was preparing for their annual bonfire night – to commemorate the life of the English Roman Catholic revolutionary, Guy Fawkes – a London man threw himself under a train at Liverpool Street station.

Announcements were made over the intercoms of all London Underground lines apologising for the delay to services, as there was a person under a train. These pre-recorded broadcasts are replayed over and over, lacking in emotion and evoking even less from the crowd of passengers inconvenienced by the suicidal person’s final statement; the frequency of such tube announcements resulting in a numbing of society.

Maybe it was because I wasn’t in much of a rush yesterday, but for some reason hearing this news truly made me stop and be thankful for all the ‘good’ I have in my life. Because this guy obviously thought his had hit rock bottom.

Last year in the UK, 194 people killed themselves on the tracks of mass-transit systems, with 50 of those people taking their final leap in the depths of the Underground (this compares with New York’s average of 26 subway suicides each year).* I remember years ago hearing of one of my sister’s friends jumping, a boy she’d known through her school years, he was barely twenty-five.

They call them “one-unders”. And emergency services are on alert each day, ready to clean up the debris, in the interest of an efficient transport system. Apparently the peak hour for tube suicides is 11am – when everyone else is deliberating about what to eat for lunch.

I can’t imagine the horror of feeling that your only option out of the mess and pain of your life is to throw yourself head first into an oncoming train. There can be no more public display of your agony. And then there’s the driver. They get a front row seat as you smash against the windscreen of their train; having your bloody mess of a body etched into their memory long after your ashes are gathering dust. I maintain a belief that suicide is the ultimate selfish act, for it’s those around you – the living – that are forced to deal with all the problems you decided you couldn’t face anymore.

So my heart goes out to the family and friends of yesterday’s jumper. He’s nameless. It seems that with an average of one tube suicide each week the deaths of these people are no longer newsworthy.

Mind, Body, Sweat-it

It’s been well over two years since I’ve worn the label of a Bikram devotee, but yesterday I braced myself for a ‘Return to Form,’ of sorts, and signed up for a 10-day challenge at Bikram’s new Balham Studios.

Easing myself into my first 10am practice, I made sure not to eat any breakfast – lest my half-digested muesli make an unwanted appearance during Trikanasana (Warrior) pose – and arrived early to class so that my body might get used to the 40°C room temperature. It didn’t take long for my mind-memory to click into gear and start internally screaming: “Abort mission, abort mission” but I powered through… not least because the class had yet to even start!

Bikram, or Hot Yoga, is a style of yoga developed in the 1960s by Calcuttan native, Bikram Choudhury. It consists of a series of 26 postures (asanas) that are carried out over 90-minutes in a heated room whilst class members are in silent meditation.

I signed up for my first class about four years ago, while I was still at university. I immediately loved it. Undoubtedly exhausting, Bikram is truly a mind-over-matter endurance sport; and true to form, I became addicted. For more than eighteen-months I practiced between two and three classes a week, partaking in ‘Karma’ Bikram whereby I helped out in the studio and was paid in classes. Then one day I thought, “Enough!” And that was it. I hung up my non-slip mat and didn’t look back.

Until New York.

One of the fabulous people I met while living in NYC was an Aussie jazz singer who had recently taken up The Challenge. She radiated a positive energy and had a body to die for, so once again I took to the studio. Only this time my mind-body-spirit just wasn’t into it. Not even a third of the way through the class I had to pack up mat and towel and escape the oppressive heat. I felt defeated.

So I have to admit that when the flyer came in the mail a few months back to advertise a new studio opening just down the road, I was a little hesitant. If only because I didn’t want to risk being ‘that person’ again, who couldn’t hack the heat!

Luckily my chakras seem to be aligned this time round and I’m pumped about the next eight days. Day One was definitely a challenge but this morning’s class was fantastic. My muscles were strong, my mind focused and the sweat poured out of me in constant streams. To all those who powered through the class with me, “Namasté”

Higher learning

When I was four or five, I would concoct homework for myself – much to the amusement of my parents – because I wanted to be ‘grown up’ like my older sisters. I wanted to learn and wanted to impress. Yes, I was rather annoying.

Down the track when I was being given genuine homework I remember asking my mother for help, saying something like, “All my friends’ parents give them the answers”… My mum, ever a source of encouragement, responded with the old, “If all your friends jump off a bridge” analogy and then stressed the importance of my finding out the answers myself, if I was to ever really learn anything. And I have to say her method worked. Of course sometimes homework was a struggle, but upon its completion I always felt a sense of achievement (or at least relief!).

These days, however, it appears kids are being held less and less accountable for their school work. Now I know that the families I care for are perhaps more affluent than some, but I think that the expected employment of a tutor for kids as young as six is just plain silly. Yep, the schools that my cherubs attend expect their pupils to be meeting regularly with private tutors. There’s even a spot in their homework diary for their tutor’s signature, alongside that of the parents’.

And this is not because the homework being served is super hard or anything; it’s just regular comprehension, maths and science… the sort of work I was given when I went through grade school – only now they expect the kids to use the Internet as their reference point as opposed to dusty old libraries! If you ask me, kids these days have it easier.

So why the tutors? Is it because the parents at these schools are so busy that they don’t have time to oversee their kid’s nightly dues? Or is it simply a status thing?

One thing I am certain of is that it’s having a detrimental effect on the confidence of my little charges. With someone always watching over their work, and generally spoon-feeding answers, my kidlets are missing out on the basics; like learning their own techniques of study.

I spent over an hour last night with Master 8 working on his geography homework – all two questions. The first question: Explain how animals and plants survive in the desert?, was to be answered after reading a simple paragraph on the way desert plants store water and how desert animals therefore get the water they need through the food they eat. Master 8 had no idea how to identify these two points after reading aloud the paragraph – he just shut down, went silent and covered his face with his hands.

When I commented that question two – Measure the outside temperature from a place in the shade and a place in direct sun – would have to be left for another time and asked him how I knew this to be the case, he looked at me blankly. Appalled I read him the question again, slowly… still nothing. I then broke it down for him and said, “What is the question asking us to do?” – Measure the temperature, he said. “In the sun”, I added getting somewhat tetchy. “So how can we measure the sun now? It’s night time!” Ohhhhhhh… He finally got it.

Now I know Master 8 might not be on his way to being the next Einstein but I also know that having a tutor isn’t helping. Master 12 couldn’t even spell ‘sixty’ for me the other day, adamant that it went S-I-X-T-E-Y. I think years of tutoring have actually dumbed these kids down. Trial and error is a good thing and should be how kids learn from day one.

But for now I am but one voice. I just hope these schools wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late.

Finding my feet again

I have experienced more highs and lows in the last month than in any other period of my life. I was made redundant, holidayed in Spain; became a nanny, long-weekended in Paris. And this past week I lived-in with my charges: juggling swimming lessons, mastering the household’s über-chic oven and dishwasher, and even coping with the six-year-old’s bout of diarrhoea (that exploded all over her bed sheets at midnight on Sunday).

Life isn’t meant to be easy.* Who said that again? But the ups and downs I’ve experienced lately truly give me the jitters. Then I recite my favourite mantra: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

To be honest I think I’ve managed quite well. I’ve sorted out further employment, re-jigged my timetable and still wake up at 5am three mornings a week to go to my Pilates class so as not to break routine. The only sign that I’ve suffered somewhat of a mini-breakdown is the turbo powered activity on my eBay account. In the last 30 days I have spent over £950.00. I hear my mother’s cries of horror through the airwaves!

It’s this insane spending that proves to me that while I’ve been putting on a brave face, there have been deeper issues bubbling below the surface. However, I like to think that my session of self-sabotage is over. My wardrobe is certainly full enough – of designer goodies like a new pair of Miu Miu black patent leather stilettos, a stunning Balenciaga blazer, a take-to-my-grave Chanel LBD and a bright green Chloé gown as seen on Kylie Minogue… to name but a few – and my redundancy payment is more than half spent! After all, 'Admission' is the first step in recovery, isn't it?

The problem is that my new lifestyle (read: timetable) allows too many idle hours in the morning – when friends here are at work and friends back home are sleeping – to waste away on the Internet. And the lure of eBay is that goods can be delivered right to your door, at a fraction of their retail value. But enough is enough.

Scrapping the faeces off the little girl’s bed last Sunday made me realize just how much I earn every penny I make and how I need to start saving once again. For so long I lived in London earning practically no money at all; bound and chained to the discount isles of ASDA and Sainsbury’s, apparently doomed to live a life eating tinned spinach and tuna. Then I landed a 'good job', that paid a decent salary (with benefits) and suddenly I could pay off my debt and start to live a little. When even more suddenly that security was pulled from under me I rebelled in the only way I knew how: I spent.

This afternoon I’ll head out to collect my kidlets driving the family’s Mercedes, wait patiently at the school gates side by side with Elle Macpherson (who’s son is in the class below Master 12) and drive the three kids home to their Holland Park abode ready for their 5pm lesson with their tutors…

A good life, yes. An affluent lifestyle, certainly. I just have to remember, that while I look after Money, for the time being I’m only The Help.

Paris, je t’aime!

I love Paris in the springtime. I love Paris in the fall… Hell, I love Paris any old time and my sojourn there this past weekend – with Boyfriend in tow – only further nurtured my devotion.

Admittedly, we got off to a rocky start. Having been all loved up for the past few months we were due a little tiff and unfortunately one crash tackled us as we were finding our way from Gare du Nord to Le Marais… on foot.

Arriving Eurostar-style, as the bells of Notre Dame struck midday, we decided to embrace the glorious sunshine and make our way south sans an adequate map and ladled with two heavy carrier bags. Boyfriend’s initial wonderment and awe at the vibrancy of Europe’s most romantic city (for he was indeed a Paris-virgin) seemed to dissipate with each new crossroads and he began to ‘jokingly’ rib me about my lack of direction: “Haven’t you been here before, baby?”

Feeling just a little underappreciated – after all, I had hooked us up with some stellar accommodation on the super cheap (€ 120 for 2 nights, in the heart of Le Marais!) – I kind of snapped, yelled an expletive and called him by his full name… eek! Unsurprisingly, BF took my momentary crack very badly indeed and proceeded with his own fabulously-honed version of le traitement silencieux!

Thankfully the city of love quickly cast its lusty spell upon us once again and we managed our first hand-in-hand tour through Le Marais, across l'Isle St-Louis, into Le Cite and Notre Dame, and ending our evening with a moonlit walk around the Louvre.

Champagne and red wine and croissants and BF’s favourite, le sandwich de poulet et de fromage, consumed us, as we happily ate our way through Paris. Although we did take the opportunity to burn a few calories on Sunday when we hired bicycles and rode up Rue de Rivoli, along the Champs-Elysées, past the Arc de Triomphe, across to le Place de Trocadéro, down to and all the way up la Tour Eiffel, around l’Hotel des Invalides and into la Musée Rodin.

Not one for art or gardens, BF had to be coaxed into the latter establishment… While I reminisced about the hours spent there last summer with my girlfriend, reading our books as we lazed on sun loungers surrounded by priceless sculptures, BF was disparaging such a blatant waste of space, suggesting a mini-golf course as an alternative (and superior) use for the grounds!

On our final day we woke early to take in more of Saint Germain du Pres, le Jardin des Plantes and its menagerie, have lunch at la Grande Mosquée de Paris and a final stroll through the magnificent Jardin du Luxemburg. Apart from more comments about Paris’ severe lack of golf courses, I do believe BF fell a little in love with Paris and its historic charm. But before heading back to Gare du Nord for our evening train we took the Metro up to Chateau Rouge and climbed the (many) stairs to Basilique du Sacré Cœur. Perhaps my favourite view of Paris, our cliché moment was made complete as we listened to the soulful voice of a busker singing Louis Armstrong’s, What A Wonderful World…

Paris, je t’aime!

All grown up

Without a shadow of a doubt I’ve always known that one day I want to be a mother. Never having younger brothers or sisters, as a child I gravitated towards kids littler than me so I could play act Mary Poppins, make them cupcakes out of sand and leaves and tuck them up for nap time in dusty blankets beside the bottle brush bushes in the school playground – such were the objects at my disposal.

In my current post – as nanny – I find myself dishing out Pick’n’Mix as an after school treat, playing ‘Go Fish’ with giant snap cards depicting fairytale characters and putting my Baby Gap-wearing charges to bed covered in cashmere quilts. Decidedly more comfortable than the bottle brush bushes of years ago!

Privileged, these kids are. Baby Gucci, Baby Dolce & Gabbana… and with every conceivable toy and computer game trend at their fingertips, these kids want for nothing. Half the time their mother is in fact home, so it’s my job to simply play with Miss Six. Where I, at her age, would have whiled away hours chit-chatting to myself and my imaginary friends, Miss Six has me – paid help – to tend to her every whim.

I’m not saying I’m a push over. I’ve seen too many episodes of Supernanny to know that not be the way to a child’s heart… but I do find myself wondering just how much discipline the parents are expecting me to enforce.

The other night, Master Eight (the middle child and cheeky as a monkey with ADHD) blatantly refused to do anything I asked. His shower was postponed on three separate occasions, tens minutes here, another compromise there… and come bedtime it was a sheer battle of wills to get him upstairs to brush his teeth. He finally relented only to stomp so loudly passed a sleeping Miss Six’s bedroom that I thought, “Enough is enough,” and, “They’re not paying me enough to put up with this shit.”

Upon his return – toothbrush dangling from his mouth lest he miss another minute of Robin Williams’ latest kid-flick adventure, RV – Master Eight proceeded to ignore my requests for him to finish up his teeth and make his way to bed. He replied with mature retorts like, “Make me” and “As if I care”. Darling little cherub.

Not wanting to be outdone by a munchkin half my size I drew on all I’ve ever learnt from good ol’ Jo Frost, got down to his eye level and told him that his behaviour was, “Unacceptable” (sans her Suppernanny lisp). Stern words, a steady voice and ensuring he felt every inch the child he was I really thought I’d made some progress. And off to bed he went.

The next day I heard that kind and obedient Master Twelve had relayed the evening’s events to Mummy and Daddy. Mrs X apologised and told me how Mr X would be talking to Master Eight that night.

But I just can’t help the feeling that a talk with his Dad isn’t going to help my cause all that much. Kids nowadays are gruelling. Exposed to so much more from such a young age, they really do think themselves older than they are. I also know that Master Eight is testing the boundaries with me and for my rightful place in the hierarchy to be accepted by him I need to make sure he learns to respect me, from me. Threats from his parents will only serve to push him further away. But how to tell them that?

The sad answer is, I don’t. While a parent knows in their heart their child can be a nightmare, they are just as determined to believe the sun rises with each child’s waking breath. So I’ll continue this little interplay with Master Eight, and experience varying struggles with a similarly stubborn Miss Six until the day comes when my services are no longer required.

And pray that my yet-to-be-born chicklets don’t give me half as much grief!

This little (guinea) piggy…

Mid-August, in the spirit of helping my fellow woman – and lured by a significant monetary bonus – I enlisted in a clinical trial for a new contraceptive pill (to test its side effects, not its contraceptive function!).

So over the past month and a half I’ve dutifully dosed myself each morning – ten minutes after breakfast – noting the time in my medical diary; I’ve attended half a dozen outpatient visits, waking up at an ungodly hour to get myself to the clinic before a 7am roll call… and patiently waiting as a rather incompetent medical staff band the other ladies and I together for our regulatory Q &A – How are you feeling today? Have you drunk any alcohol since your last visit? Have you experienced any extreme exposure to sunlight? (I wish!) And last week, I even packed my overnight bag to spend a weekend on the ward to be bled dry over the course of a rather rainy Saturday.

On Friday evening, eighteen ‘healthy’ women (myself included) ranging from twenty to thirty-nine years, handed over our contraband mobile phones and midnight snacks and took our place behind the curtains of a certain university hospital just south of London Victoria. After a tasteless dinner of chicken, rice and water-sodden green beans we prepared for an undoubtedly restless sleep. On Saturday we were woken early, pricked and prodded and fitted with a cannula (a small tube inserted into the vein to aid frequent removal of blood), fed a ‘standard’ breakfast (four slices of white bread and two pieces of cheese), dosed, and then bled every half hour until lunchtime and then every hour after that, to test our body’s reaction to drug. Lovely.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been such an unpleasant experience if I didn’t suffer from ‘dainty and feminine veins’. Quite literally the only thing ‘dainty’ about me, and it has to be my poor old veins! Not sturdy enough to handle the massive needle that has to be inserted in order to place the cannula, the doctor was forced to make a beeline for my left wrist. With the cannula chafing my wrist bone, what followed was a solid twelve hours of severe pain. Each time a blood sample had to be taken my wrist was pulled and the cannula tugged. It seemed that while this vein may have been chunkier than its counterparts, it was just as reticent about letting go of its goods. By eight o’clock that night I was begging for the cannula’s removal. So the last sample for Saturday was taken by syringe, as were the remaining four vials on Sunday morning.


When I first thought about signing up for medical research I have to say I focussed wholeheartedly on the money – three months of pill-taking for £1,860 – the nitty-gritty details of not being able to drink alcohol or take vitamins or medication when sick really didn’t bother me. Even the numerous outpatient visits and overnight stays didn’t sway my resolve. But while interned in the clinic this past weekend, I realised that this is just as much a social experiment as it is a medical one.

Cooping up a bunch of women – otherwise unknown to each other – for 36 hours, allows insight into the human psyche. Who group together to moan about the food? Which ones whinge about their curtains being drawn at 11pm for lights out and 7.30am for their wake-up call? And just how many girls will utter the words, “Just who do they think they are?” when referring to the doctors and nurses that are aiding their earning of nearly £1,900! I thought I complained, but some of those girls needed muzzles.

I can handle the vein-pain and for our next (and final) overnight stay I’ll even fain enjoyment of the bland, carb-filled meals… but next time I won’t be rushing to chat to my fellow inmates. It’ll be all about watching DVDs on my laptop, soaking up some ‘me’ time and keeping my eye on the prize.

Trocks in frocks!

Okay, if you live in London or are planning a visit here before this Saturday you just have to stop off at Sadler's Wells' Peacock Theatre and check out Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

It’s an all-male drag ballet troupe that parodies traditional ballet romances all the while performing exquisite and flawless routines to show off their perfectly sculpted, utterly scrumptious bods!

An ex-colleague and I met up last night in Holborn for a bite at Itsu before making our way to the theatre, not exactly sure about what we were about to witness, but the three-act performance did not disappoint.

Established in the USA in 1974, The Trocks, as they’re affectionately known, were founded by three ballet enthusiasts Peter Anastos, Antony Bassae and Natch Taylor and originally performed late-late shows in off-off Broadway lofts. A positive review in The New Yorker brought them to the world stage… and Autumn finds them in London.

Attention to detail is paramount in the performance, and not just in the dancing. Their costumes are stunning – particularly the malting-Swan in Act Two – and seeing men dancing en pointe is captivating. If only I’d stuck with physical culture as a child maybe I’d be one tenth as graceful as the darling Trocks!

Heston B takes on Sherry

Monday evening saw me rushing from a day of babysitting – I’m now in charge of the ‘school run’ for a family with three kids under 12 – and taking on the Central line at peak hour to make it to the ever-so-swanky Shoreditch House by 7 o’clock for an interview with award winning chef and culinary alchemist, Heston Blumenthal.

Blumenthal has been working with The Sherry Institute of Spain on his latest scientific-gastronomic experiment… the molecular pairing of wine and food.

Say what? Yes, that’s right, pairing aromas is so last century. The future is in matching molecules. Blumenthal has discovered a group of taste compounds known as diketopiperazines (DKPs) in Sherry – particularly dry ones – that enhance the flavour of ‘umami-rich’ foods.

Umami is the fifth taste sense following bitter, sweet, salty and sour… we lay people may have heard of it in relation to Chinese cooking, but it flavours-rampant in foods like meat, fish, cheese and shitake mushrooms.

Lucky for me it appears great chefs are among the fashionable set who like to start things late, so while my mad dash from Liverpool Street tube got me to the doors around 7.15pm, Blumenthal didn’t make it up to the press room before 8pm.

Utterly personable and incredibly engaging, this owner of Best Restaurant in Britain (two years running), the three Michelin-starred The Fat Duck, walked into the room of awaiting journos much like an excited kid eager to boast about his winning try in the footy grand final. Blumenthal’s passion for his food and research was clearly evident, as was his love of Sherry.

Now my editor was expecting a story on the pairing of white and reds, and while Blumenthal assures me that such combination analysis will be part of the next research phase, Monday night was all about, “your great aunt’s tipple”.

Question time was followed by a lengthy wait as umami-rich canapés were served alongside their perfect Sherry variety. Allegedly all the evening’s culinary concoctions could be replicated at home – sans the beaker, mortar and pestle – but I think the only one I’ll likely be able to muster is Blumenthal’s take on the toasted cheese sandwich: Gruyere melted with cloves and served with an ice-chilled Fino!

Back from the Basque Region

Please excuse my severe lack of blogs of late… You see, two days before our trip to San Sebastian, Spain – the story of which I will recount in the following – I lost my job.

Yep, that darn credit crunch came up and bit the College Hill Company on the bum and forced my services straight past “at risk” and into “redundant”. There were tears (mine) and many an apology on their behalf. They told me I was “fabulous” – I knew that already – and that they were “ever so sorry” to have to let me go, but that my £25K price tag proved too much for their withering budget. So at 17:55 hours last Wednesday, 17 September 2008, I forwarded a few contacts from my work Inbox, recycled a bunch of notes and personal files and powered down my College Hill computer for the last time. That night I emailed two of my old recruiters and by Friday I was interviewing… On Saturday we boarded a plan for Biarritz.

Boyfriend and I have wanted to travel in Spain for a while. On this trip I had wanted to head to Malaga in the South, desperate for some sunshine despite the high ratio of Chavs that frequent Spain’s Mediterranean coastline. Given London’s non-existent summer my ex pat skin was craving warmth and Vitamin D. Boyfriend on the other hand wanted us to make our way northwards to San Sebastian in the Basque region, a city highly acclaimed for its amazing cuisine, notably a huge range of bars serving pinchos and even a healthy array of Michelin starred restaurants.

After asking advice of travellers who had been-there-done-that we decided San Seb was the way to go. So we booked a super cheap flight with Ryan Air into Biarritz (in the south of France) and planned to bus or train our way into Spain.

Our arrival in France was reasonably uneventful, except that the little French I thought I retained in my frontal lobe had seemingly escaped me and I was left to battle on with a few pleasantries and numbers when buying our forwarding tickets.

Apparently it's quite common for travellers to head in to San Seb via Biarritz… although you wouldn’t know it from the information available both online and at either location. Airy-fairy details about interlinking trains and a bus service that runs twice a day was all that was on offer, but we finally arrived at our destination that evening, a mere 11 hours after we’d left our home in London!

We’d booked a self-contained apartment only 200 metres from the Old Town and the city’s surf beach, La Zurriola. It was gorgeous and spacious, the perfect location and Boyfriend set about making us a ¡bienvenido a casa! snack of manchego cheese and chorizo on baguette with sangria – our ingredients purchased from the supermercado downstairs.

San Sebastian was definitely the place to be last weekend, with the 56th San Sebastian International Film Festival being held literally up the road from our unit. The weather was warm – 22 degrees at sunset – and thousands of people were walking the streets lapping up gelato and drinking outside bars and cafes. And we thought we’d missed the busy season!

Come Sunday though the crowds had dies down and while the sun was out it wasn’t scorching. We spent the day strolling the Old Town, had lunch at a gorgeous little seaside café where Boyfriend and I feasted on paella and yet more baguette (note: EVERYTHING is served on bread, with bread or in bread in San Seb!). The water’s edge of the Old Town reminded me of scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean and our Islander-looking waitress had me creating stories of her great, great grandmother’s capture by some Captain Jack-or-Other… the food was fabulous – if not a little salty – and her service fantastic. We moved on to spend an hour or so lazing on La Concha beach and then went home for a bit of a siesta.

Each night we made our way back into the Old Town for pinchos and sangria, and while tasty I have to say I was disappointed in their limited offerings. Every bar – and there were hundreds of them – seemed to be serving the same mix of shredded seafood mixed with mayonnaise on baguette, sausage wrapped in ham on baguette or goats cheese with quince jelly on baguette. I’d envisaged heated terracotta bowls full of salt and pepper calamari and servings of grilled haloumi, fried chorizo and seared artichokes but the reality was more like the cheap canapés you get at large number functions. And lots of bread, to fill you up!

On day two we walked to the other side of the harbour to ride the funicular to the top of Monte Igueldo. At the top is a demi-theme park with a haunted house, dodgem cars and water ride with amazing views of the city, but given our autumn arrival Said-theme Park was closed. So we headed back down that mountain and made our way to San Seb’s other high point Monte Urgull where a statue of Jesus takes pride of place.

Climbing to Jesus really took it out of us, so of course another siesta was required before our evening trip into the Old Town for yet more food and festivities. Our funniest moment occurred in one of the buzzing pinchos bars where when Boyfriend asked the customer in front of him the name of the dish he’d just purchased, the man turned to us and demanded we both take a bite out of his as yet untouched sandwich – and he wouldn’t take no for an answer!

Nothing really caught my eye on the shopping front. Even a last ditch attempt at Zara couldn’t satisfy my retail senses so we ventured back to London with suitcases full of only what we’d set out with – Boyfriend was thrilled.

All in all the holiday was a success. Boyfriend and I got the chance to revitalise our relationship – he taught me to play Gin Rummy and I even beat him a few times – and we came back rested. But both of us agree that San Seb, while lovely, isn’t a place we’ll be rushing back to. Had the weather been warmer and we’d been able to spend more time on the beach or kayaking around the coastline maybe we’d have had more fun, but as it was, the best part was just being away together… Ahhhh, yes, I’m such a romantic!

London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009... With a splash!

Stuck in the office this week – my heart pines for the catwalks – I thought I’d ask a few journo friends who are taking on Fashion Week, just who is HOT in London!

By general consensus, the week’s Top 5:

Giles Deacon (Tues 19:30 WC1)

Christopher Kane (Tues 15:15 TS/NW1)

Luella (Mon 10:30 W2)

Temperley (Mon 13:00 SW1)

Louise Goldin (Tues 18:30 TS/NW1)

Models at Luella Bartley's show

With Vivienne Westwood showing her Red label (Thurs 19:30 SW5) for the second consecutive season since moving the collection from Paris.

Best show so far: Temperley – Where Mischa Barton, Alice Dellal, Rosamund Pike and Jacquetta Wheeler took front row seats

The Temperley show - from left, Emilia Fox, Laura Bailey, Rosamund Pike, Jacquetta Wheeler, Mischa Barton and Nick Rhodes

Luck be your Turtle... a few days in Marrakech!

I love that when you’re squirted with an animal’s urine you’re mollycoddled into thinking you’ve been sprayed by a lucky star. The reality is you’ve been peed on and you should make your way directly to your nearest washroom. On our final night in Marrakech, my lucky star came in the form of a turtle…

Escaping London’s rainy weekend, Girlfriend and I boarded EasyJet’s 7.40am Sunday flight out of Gatwick, direct to Marrakech. Three hours later we found ourselves in glorious 30-degree heat, attempting to withdraw local currency from the airport ATM.

Totally ill-prepared, we had no guide books and no idea of the currency conversion rate. We took a guess at 1000 dirham being sufficient for a day’s rations and off we set. Hassan, our trusty cabbie bundled us in his dusty Merc (c.1980) and off we spluttered into the pink dessert. Past over-burdened, greying donkeys, dodging whole families piled atop converted dirt bikes and through the gateway of the old fortified city of Le Medina.

I’d found us the gorgeous little Riad Amira for our three night stay, just south of the Saadian Tombs and a fifteen minute walk north to all the shopping in the Souks. And shop we did, on the first day. I snagged three utterly adorable baby kaftan pyjamas for my nieces and nephew (en route now to Aus!), six handblown mint tea glasses and even an authentic tajine for the Boyfriend – although I’ve begged him to hold off on his culinary experimentations for just a little bit as three days straight of slow cooked meats and spices have left me seriously tajined out!

On day two we booked one of Hassan’s ‘best men’ to drive us up to the Atlas Mountains and the apple trees of Imlil. Half way there we were lured by the grandeur of Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot. A location handpicked by Richy’s own mother, its 18 individually designed rooms and 6 Berber Tented suites steal breathtaking views of rich red mountain tops and manicured gardens with a spa and hamman and both indoor and outdoor pools… Once checked-in a guest has absolutely no reason to leave.

Unfortunately, we merely procured an hour or so of their terrace barman’s time, indulging in a few glasses of Verve. Two of the hotel’s head managers personally introduced themselves while we were spoiled with bowls of olives, salted almonds and handcut crisps. When we finally tore ourselves away from the magnificence of it all the prospect of hiking a mountain range seemed very unappealing indeed. Instead we climbed an apple tree, pinched a ripe one and made our way to lunch on yet another tajine.

Not wanting to return to London in anyway vexed, we booked ourselves in for a full body jasmine oil massage at our riad’s sister villa in the city’s new quarter - Villa Amira. Acquiring a few bruises – she really went at it with the kneading – I followed my massage with a good dose of sunlight beside their mosaic tiled pool.

On the evening of our last night, Girlfriend and I braved once again the hectic and smelly alleyways to the main square and dined with a few hundred other tourists on lamb and chicken skewers. Besides a little scare over whether our skewer was in fact chicken or cat (the city is full of stray kittens with very few big cats to be found) I’m proud to say that we successfully chowed our way through all the local cuisine on offer… tentative tourists we were not!

So it was natural that I’d take up a stall owner’s offer to nurse a baby turtle. I just didn’t pick that he’d throw the mumma into the bargain!

Inamo, Soho

Wednesday was a school night, yes, but with the evening temperature a mild 15 degrees Boyfriend and I decided to risk an impromptu outing and headed to Soho for the launch party of Inamo, a high-tec Pan-Asian Restaurant and Bar – the brainchild of Oxford grads, Danny Potter and Noel Hunwick.

Frustrated with waiting for waiters, Potter and Hunwick (physics graduates) teamed up to develop an electro-ordering system using Bluetooth and projection technologies. The result: A 60 cover, interactive dining experience where a table based touch pad allows you choose your own digital table cloth, order from a visual menu projecting actual size images and even print your own cheque! And just to make sure you’re not left in the lurch when it comes time to leave, you can browse the tube map and local taxi booking services while you eat.

Head chef, Anthony Sousa Tam – of Nobu and Hakkasan fame – has created an Asian fusion menu exploding with unique flavours like a ginger and pomegranate reduction, hijiki seaweed, yuzu soy, truffle and spicy chocolate sauce. With over 30 dishes, available in small and large portions, diners are spoiled for choice.

But we were there for the free drinks. Their basement bar – albeit a little cramped – offers an extensive cocktail list, thus inspiring my new signature drink, a Green Tea Bellini (deliciously ripe pear puree topped with chilled green tea and prosecco and served in a champagne flute) while its striking red-light walls and leather poofs create an intimate atmosphere, perfect for a first date or after work drinks with your besties.

Boyfriend and I happily got tippled-pink and are already contemplating our next visit. I’m hungering for Wild Boar rolls with asparagus, enoki mushrooms and moromi miso vinaigrette.

The Hope, Wandsworth

If there has ever been a reason to head southwards of the river, The Hope with its Wandsworth Common locale, funky décor and extensive range of beers on tap (Fruli, Peroni, Staropramen and Deuchars to name a very select few) just might be it. Especially when the sun is shining!

Last Saturday I arranged birthday drinks at this, my local, never once tempting fate by praying for good weather. It’s London after all. Nine out of ten times the heavens are bound to open – gushing rain. It wasn’t until midday I realised - blow me down – that the sun was streaming through a cloudless, bright blue sky.

I pulled out a long-forgotten summer outfit, black vest top and Urban Outfitters Luxe-range tulip skirt (thankfully I’d treated myself to a birthday wax and pedi) and headed for their refurbished beer garden overlooking the Common. Groups of people were picnicking, playing drunken games of ‘backyard cricket’ (thanks to the take-away drinks – in plastic cups – and prepared picnic baskets of food, wine and utensils on offer from the bar) and generally relishing the surprising sunshine.

Back at the pub we feasted on the delights of their gastropub (for half the price!) menu. Their Casterbridge beef burger with bacon and Monteray Jack cheese (£7.90) soaked up the copious amounts of Leffe most of the boys were drinking, while their extensive range of salads tantalised the taste buds of the ‘vodka soda with fresh lime’-drinking girls.

Friendly wait staff exude laid-back cool while still managing efficient service… to be honest, I felt like I was back in a pub in Sydney. I thank my lucky stars that The Hope is only a hop, skip and a jump away from our place… all the better crawl home afterwards.

The Hope
1 Bellevue Road, London SW17 7EG
tel: 020 8672 8717
closest station: Wandsworth Common

Birthday Bulges

1 x large Double Chocolate Fudge cake, Sainsbury's £5.49 (purchased for Boyfriend and I to celebrate my special day; ate one slice and licked the plate of the remnants of icing)
4 x Green & Blacks’ Organic Dark Chocolate Flapjack biscuits, gift (devoured throughout the course of today)
1 x Raspberry Bake, Costa Café, gift (still wrapped up… the mere scent of sticky-sweet cake is giving me a headache)
1 x Chocolate Cupcake, Waitrose Patisserie, gift (all boxed-up… if I ignore it, maybe it will disappear!)

I feel bloated and sluggish and another year older – when exactly did birthdays lose their zing?

Waking to the sound of my two-year-old niece singing down the phone line, her own rendition of “Happy Birthday” complete with a “Pip, pip, hooray!” definitely put a smile on my face. And the steady stream of phone calls, Facebook messages from friends and birthday salutations from colleagues have each added to today’s general feeling of ‘specialness’… but really, is that it?

I remember when birthdays were the be-all-and-end-all. Parties would be planned, invites sent out, special outfits bought and innumerable lists written and rewritten to ensure parents and friends would buy exactly the right thing. But for me parties stopped at age twelve (when I developed an irrational fear that none of my invitees would show up!) and my teenage years saw ‘special outfits’ being purchased every other week for general nights out. Birthdays slowly became redundant.

The one thing I can rely on my birthday for is glutinous excess. Friends ‘treating' me to cakes and chocolates, drinks and dinners so The Day itself is spread over the course of a week. My jeans get noticeably tighter, my wallet lighter (I can’t let friends pay for everything, after all) and ultimately I start to feel every bit a year older.

Next week I’m going to detox. Not diet, just cleanse. Lots of green tea and vegetables and definitely no sweets!

Happy Birthday to Me...

Living A Lie

I am living a lie. Far from Living Out London the past few months have seen me living out work, the gym and… my couch. Following a week day of rush, rush, rushing, I collapse on my couch and open my laptop. Not to write (the shame!) or do anything constructive, but to ‘Facebook’ friends (they’ve taken Scrabulous away… I’m gutted) and scan eBay for the latest deals on Louboutins… I’m officially wasting away My London Life and it’s time to admit it.

The first six months of living in the UK saw me out and about most nights of the week, with at least two social gatherings each day at the weekend. Now I’m lucky to catch up with even one friend late on a Sunday afternoon and then rush home to watch Midsomer Murders at 8pm. I’m a sad and lonely specimen of an Aussie expat, and I’m sorry.

Sorry for my lack of London-antics to entertain committed readers and sorry for neglecting friends I once made such an effort to see. But I vow to make a change.

This Thursday will see me turn twenty-five. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m experiencing a quarter-life crisis, I am definitely struggling with motivation. I find myself in a job that simply pays the bills - a glorified secretary begrudging my colleagues when they ask me to book a cab, courier this, scan that – holding on to slim pickings of freelance work and everyday wishing I was back working on a magazine.

And then I tell myself that this is just for a year, to make some cash, and that when I return to Sydney I’ll be straight back into the Land of Gloss. I tell myself that all writing is about experience and living and working overseas is a feat in itself. I tell myself this as I sit on the couch dipping gingernut cookies into my mug of PG Tips.

The bank holiday weekend just past hosted both the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Clapham Common’s SW4 and Get Loaded in the Park – I attended 0 out of 3. Okay, so I started going out very young – at fifteen using my sister’s ID – but seriously, has my time for partying really come to an end? My girlfriend of twenty-eight went to SW4, with her thirty-year-old sister in tow, and yet I was quite happy passing up on last minute tickets in favour of my beloved sofa.

No more.

Thursday I’m off to engagement drinks, Friday it’s dinner with the Boyfriend, drinks with friends Saturday afternoon and a girly sleepover come Sunday. Who knows, I might even stay up past midnight…

Ready, steady go!

Designer Vagina

I’m not the type of girl to shy away from talking about my punani. I’ve always been comfortable baring all, be it for a wax or smear test, because the way I see it I’ve nothing to hide. Little did I know that not all girls feel this way… and little did I know how different we all look down there.

On Sunday night my girlfriend begged and pleaded for me to watch Channel 4’s advertised TV-special The Perfect Vagina, a documentary presented by Welsh elfin-minx Lisa Rogers that focussed on Britain and America’s growing trend for ‘designer vaginas’. NHS stats show that vaginal cosmetic surgery or labiplasty, has doubled in the UK over the past five years with the private sector seeing a 300 per cent increase in these elective surgeries. The fashion (or madness) is being driven by commercial and media pressure that has broadened women’s insecurities from our boobs, bums, tums and faces and turned us against our insides as well.

Rogers follows the stories of five women ranging from nineteen to thirty-eight years, who have all considered some form of labiplasty and even one young Muslim girl desperate to undergo surgery to restore her hymen for fear of disgracing her family on her impending wedding night. To a modern, Western world her distress seems unwarranted and her suggestion that her parents would kill her and then themselves should they find out she is no longer a virgin seem archaic. But Rogers questions the benefit of our so-called ‘liberation’ if at the other extreme Western women are chopping off their flaps for fear they’re too big!

Not for the faint-hearted, graphic images of surgery on Rosie – a stunning twenty-one-year-old whose years of being bullied by her girlfriends and even her sister had kept her from having relationships with boys – showed her labia being snipped, sewn and later gushing blood (apparently this is normal as the body heals). Suddenly my biggest dilemma, “Hollywood or Brazilian?” seemed totally superficial… These girls are trimming their skin and all so their vaginas look like the ones in men’s mags and porn films, which resemble prepubescent girls and have likely been digitally retouched.

I remember when I was eighteen I went to see The Vagina Monologues an off-Broadway, Obie Award-winning play written by Eve Ensler and performed by a varied threesome of celebrity monologists. Based on true stories chronicled by Ensler as she travelled the world in search of ‘The Vagina’ each monologue expresses different experiences of a woman’s Mary. Be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm or simply as a physical aspect of the female body. Ensler empowers the vagina as the ultimate embodiment of individuality. And halfway through the play as we in the audience were calling out the variety of names for our punanis I truly did feel empowered. Me and my vagina could take on anything!

So maybe that’s why I’ve not squirmed or run away when faced with being naked in gym changerooms or going all-the-way with a boy – because I believe in the beauty of my own froufrou. Or maybe it’s because I think mine not too dissimilar to the ones I’ve glimpsed in the pages of Playboy.

To be honest, some of the coochies filmed certainly looked very different to those I’ve seen among family and friends. But is a bit of extra skin really as disconcerting to the average male as these girls seem to think? For some men, sadly yes. But mostly Rogers found that guys were shocked to think women worried about it that much. While the amount of hair down there was a point of concern, most men answered that they were happy when they were granted access at all!

The thought that there are girls as young at fourteen seeking surgery disturbs me. This Channel 4 documentary, that began as, “a wander through the wacky world of genital plastic surgery,” became a personal and passionate quest for Rogers to encourage women to love the skin they’re in…

So ladies… do you love your lips?

Babies on the brain

I have a confession to make. I can't keep mum when it comes to babies. Be it the excitement or simply my desire to feel 'part' of the occasion, I don't know... but I've been the outer of a fair few pregnancies in my time and I'm keen to reform. First step: Admission.

The first and second times I truly didn't mean to. What I thought was common knowledge, just happened not to be. The third time, I lay the blame with Boyfriend. In his typical fashion of zoning out to 65 per cent of our conversation he missed the part about my sister's first pregnancy being hush, hush... at only eight weeks she was playing it safe. Within a week, every man, woman and (even in utero) baby knew she was up the duff.

Fast-forward two years - two nieces and a nephew - later, and it appears I've done it again.

About a month ago two things happened: my eldest sister found out she was pregnant with baby number three (in as many years!) and my cousin got engaged. Said-cousin's brother Facebook-ed me exclaiming about "all the exciting things happening back in Sydney" by which I immediately assumed he was referring to the Ring... and the Baby. Before I could compute the information properly and realise that Big Sis was unlikely to be at the announcement stage - again, at only eight weeks - I'd acknowledged my excitement for both Cousin and Sister, hit 'send' and thereby outed yet another baby.

As it turns out both my sisters are pregnant, due only a day apart. Middle Sis quite rightly kept this information from me until she was ready for her first scan and will likely keep her baby's sex tightly under wraps, if indeed she finds out. Not because she doesn't love me... they both do, I'm sure... but because they know my weakness. When it comes to babies, my brain goes to mush.

Flowers and Friendship

On Wednesday I met a friend at The Commercial Tavern in Shoreditch – a funky little establishment just up from Spitalfield’s Markets with baby blue and fairy painted shutters, papier-mâchéd walls (celebrating old covers of Interview magazine) and an eclectic mix of floral-printed, wooden chairs and tables and a chaise lounge for good measure! My cider was flat, and warm, but the company was great. Mag-friend bought me roses.

Just because, she wanted to.

I think, with the exception of flower days back in high school, I could count the number of times I have received flowers on one hand. This is by no means a woe-is-me statement, I hold myself largely responsible. For some reason – unbeknownst even to myself – I feel the need to tell my boyfriends that I don’t like flowers… But, the truth is, I’m sure I really do.

When I left Bazaar my editor handed over a bunch of flowers (that she’d been given by some-designer-or-another) as a ‘thank you’ for my nine months of hard labour… also because she was to be away that weekend and didn’t fancy arriving home to rotting vegetation. They were lovely, and likely expensive, but I couldn’t get out of my head that I wasn’t their intended.

Fast-forward, a week after starting my new job, the recruitment company sent to my office a gorgeous bunch of chrysanthemums and lilies to congratulate me on my first week. And to be brutally honest, it felt great to be singled out. To be seen to be special. Unfortunately, that day coincided with the weekend I was moving apartment, so said-flowers were accidentally left at Boyfriend’s old flat. They didn’t even get the chance to wilt.

But Wednesday’s roses were all mine and there’d be no leaving them at the bar, passing on to a friend or letting Boyfriend ‘accidentally’ throw them out with the garbage. I cradled them all the way home, carefully trimmed their drying ends, pruned their leaves and placed them in the nicest vase we had – a mucky glass one with a chipped lip! Then I set them upon our window sill, with ample sunlight and the view of our garden behind. Picture perfect.

Mag-friend’s Marks & Spencer baby pink roses, bought on a whim and sprinkled with kindness made not only my day, but my week.

I’ll have to let Boyfriend know about my change of heart!

Epilate-me

While I have always Waxed Lyrical about my favourite waxing hotspots, the past month of London’s intermittent sunshine has forced me bring back the (Lady) Bic… The result? Stubbly, horrid legs.

So last week, following rave reviews from my ex-flatmate – the girl, not the guy! – I found myself on Amazon purchasing the Epilady Legend.


According to their publicity I was about to experience ‘the ultimate’ and most thorough hair removal. At full speed, the Legend’s 40 tweezer discs, creates 32,000 tweezes per minute!

Apprehensive at first, I plugged in my Legend and gingerly glided the gyrating tweezers-head along my now masculine-looking legs. Ouch, freakin’ ouch! I’ve been a waxer for years but truly, madly deeply, it doesn’t come close to the sustained pinching that you get with epilating. If I shut my eyes the pain and the buzz would make me swear that far from undergoing hair removal, I was actually the next victim of Miami Ink! But, it worked.

Out of ten, I give the Legend a sturdy eight. It may take the better side of an hour to complete a full-leg treatment, but sure enough three days later, my legs are still silky smooth.

It’s limitation – the bikini area. Because I’ll be damned if I’m letting those little pinchers near my nether region!

Take me on a trip...

The best thing about earning pounds is being able to save (spend) them. At the moment I’m saving to pay off (a wee bit of) debt, buy a new (designer) handbag for my birthday – only 28 more sleeps! – and (finally) go on a few holidays. First stop Marrakech.

In the second week of September a girlfriend and I are taking advantage of a Lastminute.com deal and heading to the ‘Red City’. Like Patsy and Edina before us - think Ab Fabs’ Morocco episode circa 1994 – we’ll set up camp in a Riad, inhale our hookahs and bathe in the North African sun.

October will see Boyfriend and I spend a weekend in Paris. He’s une vierge de Paris so I’m very excited about showing him all my favourite places. I’ve even managed to score the same (tiny yet beautiful) whitewashed studio apartment where girlfriend and I spent two sun-filled weeks last August… Deep in the heart of Le Marais we’ll enjoy the treats of the Old Jewish Quarter, sip aperitifs at the cafes along Rue de Rivoli and hire bicycles to get us to – and from – all the tourist hotspots.

Before long Christmas will be upon us and we’ll be enjoying a week with my parentals in Portorosa, on the Italian border of Slovenia. Even though temperatures will likely be sub-zero the four of us will bundle ourselves into dad’s hire car and drive 298 miles to spend three nights in Dubrovnik… Why? Because I want us to.

And just yesterday, an overly excited phone call to Miss Daisy (remember Ode to Daisy) sparked an idea for a week-long girl’s escape to Majorca in early February…



But the biggest and best plan is Boyfriend and my 29-day trip from Istanbul to Cairo. Leaving on Valentines Day we will brave yet another group holiday – so far we’ve survived a month’s camping in Canada and a two week road trip from New York to Miami – through Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. We’ll wander the ruins of ancient cities, devour questionable delicacies and bargain our way through bustling bazaars. May the camels not be too stinky and the terrorists take leave…

It’s such a wondrous feeling to have money again!