Nostalgia

Every so often, I get nostalgic. The past week and a half I have been very nostalgic. This didn’t happen all on its own; it was self-inflicted. Last Saturday I was sorting through a shoe box full of cards, photos, letters, all sort of stuff from the not so distant past that was guaranteed to trigger an acute case of nostalgia.

This triggered a monumental bout of introspection which lasted the majority of the weekend. I think one of the reasons we start to get nostalgic is because we start to wonder whether things were better in the past than they are in the present. For example, the photos made me wonder if I have dramatically changed. And, if I have, is this a change for the good or the bad? Obviously the goal with photos is to have not changed a bit.

The cards and letters that I uncovered had messages inside. Some of the message explicitly stated qualities that the sender had seen in me which I didn’t realise I had. This made me wonder if I still have those qualities that people had seen in me or, as I was taken aback by the suggested traits from many moons ago, that I had lost these qualities and wouldn’t be able to regain them.

A trip down memory lane never stops with a few years previously but for me continues on right back to childhood; when I didn’t realise how easy life was when you don’t have to work and fend for yourself in the big bad world.

A lot of my childhood memories involve my brother. My relationship with my brother is one of the longest relationships I have ever had. There is no one else who has known me longer than him. Some of the memories of us make me smile and others laugh. But the memories aren’t always positive.

One of the most memorable times I can recall was when my brother and I were playing cricket in the back garden one summer. We had a rule that if you hit the ball over into any of the next door neighbours’ gardens you were deemed to have scored six runs but you were also out.

This particular day I was intent on making sure that I completely annihilated my brother by clocking up as many runs as possible and then bowling him out very quickly. Very soon I scoring runs left, right and centre but then I made the mistake of smashing the ball over the neighbours’ fence. My brother was ready to take the bat off me because of the rule that we had agreed before. I flatly refused and said I won’t take the six runs but I’ll still be in.

My brother took particular offence to the idea of my refusal to vacate the crease and promptly picked up one of the cricket wickets and threw it in anger at my shin. To this day I can still see the look of utter anger in his face. It was a look that I can only imagine a murder would have on his face moments before a frenzied knife attack on his victim. He was almost foaming at the mouth as he drew back his arm to gain the momentum to throw the wicket at me. From the second he let go, everything became slow motion until the second the piece of wood struck my shin. Pain? I’ve never felt pain like it before or since.

You would think that the competitive nature of our relationship would mean that all sporting activity would be off limits. Not so. We have started playing squash once a week and I have learnt my lesson so I stick to the rules. Not because my competitive streak has faded but because I don’t think a squash racket wrapped around my face would be helpful.

I found out this week that it wasn’t just my brother who was mean to be during childhood. One of my friends declined a hot cross bun from me yesterday, stating that he can’t eat anything with currants in because his younger brother once told him that they were dead bees.

Ok, my brother caused me physical pain but bruises and scratches heal with time. At least he didn’t tell me currants were the corpses of insects. Imagine life without hot cross buns, tea cakes and Eccles cakes. Plus, bread and butter pudding would basically be stale bread with some milk splashed on top of it. It’s enough to make you lose your appetite.

Baz Luhrmann’s song Everyone’s Free to Wear Sunscreen is a favourite of mine. In it is the lyric “Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future”.

I sometimes wish that this song was released while I was growing up rather than in my late-teens; it may have saved me some injuries my brother inflicted on me! (The cricket wicket wasn't an isolated incident - there was the time he pushed me through a window and the time he burst the blisters on my arms on holiday)

Dead bees and cricket wickets aside, I can honestly say without hesitation or reservation, that my link to my past makes me happier than it does sad and long may it continue into the future.

To Text Or Not To Text?

Communication has been revolutionised in many ways, not least by texting. Texting is defined as “the exchange of brief written messages between mobile phones over cellular networks”. It provides a cheap, instantaneous ways of getting and keeping in touch with people. What’s the problem, I hear you cry? Lol. And that stands for lots and lots.

Firstly, written words can be interpreted differently by different people and all at different times. When words are written down all intonation and tone is lost and the reader is free to interpret the words without the sender being on hand to clarify their meaning. Text me the question “What’s wrong?” and, get me on a good day, and you may get a perfectly sane and reasonable answer. However, on a morning when I’ve got out of bed on the wrong side, I may interpret it with an accusatory tone and before you know if I’ll be running off in floods of tears in the opposite direction, complaining that no one understands me.

It’s not just words or phrases that can be interpreted in different way than they are intended. Letters can be too, in particular the letter ‘x’. When the end of a text is signed off with an ‘x’ by a member of the opposite sex, things can get complicated. You start to wonder, what does this mean? Does he mean the same thing that you would mean if you had sent it to him? What’s that? He sent you a double ‘x’! It must be love. All of a sudden you are fantasising about your wedding dress, you can hear the wedding march playing in your head and you can see your best friend catching the bouquet. When in actual fact there may be a logical explanation - his thumb may have caught the 9 key before he hit send because he had gloves on.

Then there’s the problem with grammar and spelling. Now I’m not a pureist as such but I text exactly as I write. Full sentences, words written out in long hand, not an apostrophe out of place; this is where the confusion arises. Other people have wantonly abandoned the rules of the English language for the sake of saving nano-seconds. For example, one of my friends and I were going to a birthday party and she told me that she would text me if she couldn’t get a chocolate cake from the shop she was going to so that I could go and buy one as a back up plan. I read the text from her in a hurry and read the word ‘no’ and hurriedly went to the shops to find the elusive cake. We both turn up at the party with identical huge, fattening chocolate cakes. Upon re-reading the text I realised I was in the wrong but my friend’s grammar certainly contributed to our bulging waistlines.

It’s not just spelling and grammar that can go wrong. The main flaw is how instant it is. There’s your mobile, in its lovely pink case, nestled snuggly in your bag, waiting patiently for you to pick it up and use it. In fact, you can use it at anytime, like when you’re on the bus, sat watching TV or are out drinking. Actually, forget that last one. Texting whilst inebriated is not advised. I repeat, not advised. The worst part of the morning after is not the blinding headache and the room still spinning, it’s looking into your sent box and seeing exactly what you sent to whom. Ever had that I can’t believe I drunk- texted him last night? I admit I have once or twice. Okay, it was 116 times at the last count.

Even if you haven’t been drinking, you can still send something to someone that you really didn’t mean them to see it. I mean, who invents something in this day and age that doesn’t have a recall button? My ex was alphabetically next to ‘Mum’ in my contacts – yes this one has danger written all over it. One slip of the thumb and before you know it, you’re fabricating an explanation to your dearest mother about how your brother brought your three-year-old niece round to visit and she must have got into your bag, dextrously removed the cover and managed to send a detailed and graphic description about what happens to naughty boys to her by mistake without anyone noticing at all.

Just when you think that your lie-by-toddler has worked, it falls flat on its face when your mother helpfully reminds you that your brother is currently holidaying in Turkey for a fortnight and he doesn’t have a daughter.

The moral of this particular story is not to date anyone whose name begins with ‘N’, ‘M’ or ‘O’.

So to answer the question: to text or not to text? Perhaps the best advice is to proceed with caution. Be careful who you text and what you text them because you never know what you might end up regretting.

A day in the life of a mortal WAG

I have an interesting theory about WAGs. All we hear in the papers are about the glamorous lifestyles that the wives and girlfriends of sport stars lead which are typified by their apparent lack of responsibility and constant, extravagant shopping trips. Have you noticed that the life of a WAG is only open to a select few?

Being a mere mortal I always thought that WAG stood for 'Widowed and Grieving' where sportsmen were concerned. Whenever I've been out with a bloke who was an amateur sportsman (let's face it all of them like to think they are) I've always ended up feeling like a grieving widow rather than a girlfriend.

When it comes to the weekend they just disappear off and play their sport, probably very badly even though they'll tell you that they were so good that it won't be long before he gets his England call up, and you end up left with nothing in particular to do. Not because you have nothing better to do but because they don't give you any warning about their planned absence for the rest of the weekend. It's not even as if they can keep you amused by handing over thousands of pounds for you to spend on clothing that you're bound to wear only once and then decided that actually you probably won't have another occasion to wear it on.

Then you come to their end of season at the club and one of two things has happens. Either they don't invite you because 'You don't want to talk about fielding positions and get pissed with the lads'. Maybe not but it would make a nice change to be given the option. Or you get invited but the seating plan dictates that you are sitting next to a bottle-blonde, perma-tanned, fellow WAG who comes out with outrageous questions like 'I go on the sunbed for 30 minutes every day. Do you think I'll get skin cancer?' I swear to God that did happen and it was surely a miracle that I didn't choked on my starter.

I know what you're thinking I'm probably one of those women who complains every time Coronation Street is moved to 10.30pm because of Champions League football and, therefore, carries a bitter resentment towards any man who attempts to keep himself fit and healthy by dabbling in some sporting action once a week. You'd be wrong though. You probably couldn't be further from the truth. I love sport; can't get enough of it. In fact I have been know to participate in the less thrilling sports of cricket and golf. I'm not looking at this from a biased view. But being a WAG isn't what the media portrays it to be for normal women like me.

The annoying thing is that it doesn't even work the other way round. When I'm off playing hockey I know my other half won't be twiddling his thumbs, restless in anticipation of receiving my text informing him of the all-important final score. And don't get me started on the amount of times I've screamed back down the M56, my little Corsa trembling each time I put more pressure on the accelerator, in an attempt see my beloved only to discover that he's buggered off to play darts with the local village idiot at the pub.

My advice would be: never be a WAG. Unless, and this is the one exception, your other half is a bona fide England football international. In this case a significant proportion his £118,000-a-week wage could be donated to your quest to become the most successful female golfer ever by the UK. As the likelihood of this actually happening in the future is nearer to zero than one hundred per cent, I've decided to shelve my WAG dream. Besides it's much more fun being independent and single anyway.

Wax On, Wax (eventually) Off

Before my recent holiday I debated the merits of waxing over shaving. Shaving is pain-free but as waxing lasts longer I decided to ditch the razor blades in favour of a pot of hot wax.

Everyone I know who has ever waxed says how “fabulous it is darling” and there are plenty of adverts to back this up; most of them with annoying models who are positively thrilled at the prospect of being lost in the bathroom on a Thursday evening up to their you-know-whats in wax.

Forgive me then for thinking that my first experience of waxing was bound to be positive.

I read the instructions several times over in an attempt to find out exactly what the catch was. It all seemed far too easy: slap in on, whip it off was the general idea. So that’s what I did. I trowelled on the stuff, because I wanted to make sure that everything came off at once and I didn’t have to re-do odd patches.

And then… I didn’t have the bottle to whip it off! Suddenly I realised that all the females who had told me it’d be okay, all the adverts with the over-smiley girls, those simple bloody instructions were just propaganda. It worked in Nazi Germany and now it had happened all over western civilisation. I knew if I pulled this thing attached to my leg off it was going to hurt like no pain I’ve ever felt before.

For a grief stricken moment, I pondered the implications of just leaving it there. Maybe after a few years it would wear off a bit and I’d be able to go swimming again. That wouldn’t be so bad would it? I only really go swimming on holiday anyway.

Thought number two was to phone a friend. I could have a mate on the other end of the phone coaching me exactly what to do, what to expect. She’d convince me I was a fighter and that together we would become stronger people and get through this. But then who on earth wouldn’t find it laughable that you’ve phoned their mobile to be given waxing training?

Next I thought about calling the emergency services. They deal with bizarre situations every day and the thought had crossed my mind that it was reasonable to class this as an emergency. The only reason I didn’t do this was because I didn’t want to make it into the ‘Top 10 Ridiculous Calls to the Emergency Services in 2007’ in some tacky tabloid. I could almost see it: “A new entry at number 3: Moron from Macclesfield in Hot Wax Fiasco”

There was no other option. I had to bite the bullet (or a wooden cooking spoon to be precise) and just pull it off in the opposite direction to the hair growth, which took me ten minutes to figure out.

It finally came off but not before a searing shot of pain raced through my body. Had I let myself scream out loud I would have either raised the dead, set off all the car alarms in a five mile radius or, quite possibly, both.

The most astounding thing is some salons and beauty parlour have the audacity to advertise to women (and some men) these procedures as ‘treatments’. Surely a ‘treat’ is something pleasurable, like buying a £10 bottle of wine from Oddbins because you’ve had a really crappy week and think that this is the only way you’ll ever cheer yourself up.

I’m sure I've read about some forms of medieval torture are more humane than waxing. That’s why I’ll be sticking to my pain-free razor in the future.

What's in a name?

It seems that as we become more advanced that we want to keep our links with the past. It's only when we reflect on events that have happened in the past that we can begin to understand our own identity. There are so many documentaries and programmes on television these days show people how to discover the links with their past by delving through archives, registers and websites like Genes Reunited to enable us to understand how our family tree has affected the person that we are today.

If you bear in mind that surnames are a direct link to our heritage. Surnames are place names, as in "London", occupations like "Carpenter" and "Cooper", nicknames like "White" probably meaning that he didn't have a suntan or "Brown" which probably meant that he did, or the name of a parent, as in "Williamson", meaning that a descendant was son of a man called William. So from my name you can tell that my family once lived in a small district in Lancashire which no longer exists.

Anyway, all of this is interesting because one of my mates from work has changed his surname after possibly years of constant abuse. Can you guess what his ancestors were renowned for if I told you that his surname was Allcock?

I always think it's amusing (partly because I don't have this problem myself) when people have names that are the complete opposite of what they would suggest. If you heard that someone's surname was small you would probably expect them to be slender and petite. If they then turn up and you're faced with a huge monstrosity of a bloke, I'm guessing it's going to be a bit of a shock. It's ironic that Peter Crouch, Liverpool and England striker, is 6 foot 7ish. Can you imagine a man that tall crouching for more than two seconds? He's knees would surely give way!

It's interesting that we attach so much importance to names when in actual fact they pretty much mean nothing at all. Just as Peter Crouch's name might mislead you about his crouching abilities, my Christian name won't convey anything about me as a person. It doesn't tell you about my physical appearance, personality, morals or achievements. So to think that a name change will alter the manner in which we are treated socially could be said to be naive.

It was Juliet who said in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet "A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet". Being the argumentative type, I beg to differ. If a rose was called a dog shit then you wouldn't want to smell its aroma. Let alone have a bunch of them perched in a vase in your living room with an over-the-top bow wrapped round them. I certainly wouldn't want to brag to everyone that someone had bought me a dozen dog shits for Valentine's Day. I think I'd settle for a box of chocolates and make sure that I go to the gym afterwards to burn off the extra calories.

It's ridiculous when women refuse to take the name of their new husband. Statistics show that between 16 and 20 thousand pounds is spent on a wedding, a ceremony at which a couple gather together friends and family in order to declare their undying love for one another in life and death but not necessarily to the extent that they would change their surname as the ultimate demonstration of it.

It's as if newly-wedded brides are frightened that a name change, while not only being a potential administrative nightmare, will somehow corrode the very essence of their being and will make them unrecognisable to their family and friend.

Though another reason for not being known by their married name might be because when they divorce their pig-head chauvinistic husband ten months down the line they don't have to pay another £80 to get their passport changed back to their maiden name. Or am I being cynical and unromantic again?

The benefits of owning a full length mirror

On Saturday I went out with some friends for a few drinks. Obviously being a group of women, after we had exhausted finding out about the latest gossip that was going on it our lives, the conversation turned to other females in the bar. It is quiet astounding how many other women looked like they’d got dressed in the dark or they’d bought their clothes from a jumble sale. I’m not completely oblivious to fashion; it’s just that I don’t think that PVC open-toed shoes in red when coupled bright red nail polish and a red dress, in an equally garish shade, that’s about two sizes too small is not a good look – think more Lady of the Night than Lady in Red and you’re part way there.

It got me thinking about whether people actually do have full length mirrors at home and, if so then why don’t they use them? It’s interesting that from the shoulders upwards they look ok – not a hair out of place, make-up not looking like a psychotic clown on LSD but looking fairly natural. All the more reason to be curious about what happened to the rest of them?

There should be a proverb that a full length mirror is for life not just for having a quick glance before you go out on a Saturday night. This is my convoluted way of saying that as individuals it’s more important that the perception that we have of ourselves, as an individual, is more valid than how other people see us. Even our close friends are likely to have an agenda as to what things they want to accept about us and the things that they’d rather turn a blind eye to and ignore completely. It’s easy to obscure or manipulate a perception that we have of someone if it doesn’t meet the image that we want to have of that person.

It’s only when we can fully accept all the things that our staring back at us in the mirror and acknowledge and accept the faults and failings in front of us that we can become the people that we want to be and not get too buried by what’s happened to us in the past.

I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. I don’t just have a full length mirror: I have mirrored wardrobes –top to bottom mirrors directly opposite my bed. There is no avoiding what I wake up to every morning. Perhaps sometimes it’s not the best idea to scrutinise every tiny failing that we have (if I did I don't think I'd have the motivation to get out of bed some days) but it does no harm to open our eyes about be more self-aware about who we are.

I’m finally at a time in my life where I’m comfortable with the reflection of the person I see in the mirror. No it’s not perfect but then I don’t think I’d ever want to be. If people criticise me they’re more than welcome because I’m fortunate enough to see the big picture and it’s all thanks to my full length mirrors.

My problem with Lions

Whoever said that 'running away from your problems never solved anything' obviously hadn't been chased by a lion. If a lion was after you running away would be the best chances of survival.

It's ironic that I personify my problems as a lion, in which case I think it means that I'm totally justified in darting to the nearest exit whenever my problems are looming on the horizon. I imagine that most people carry around their emotional baggage in a compact suitcase on wheels which conveniently rolls around behind them in an orderly fashion, flight attendant style.

Imagine what it's like for me having a lion dropping in unannounced just as I think that all my problems are finally resolved and I'm beginning to make progress. I'm not sure if you're aware of the difference between a suitcase on wheels and a lion suffice to say that a lion doesn't follow closely behind your heels in an orderly fashion. Instead lions will bide their time until they're ready to pounce on your heels and bring the whole of lot of you crashing to the ground with an almighty crash when you least expect it. In fact I've noticed that Leo (that's the name I've given to my lion in an attempt to make him more personable; a bit like people calling a spider that they've found in the bath Cecil so that it somehow makes their phobia less significant) constantly stalks me and just when I think about starting to do okay, he attacks me without warning.

It's like the time when I'd been out on a few dates with this cute guy I met in a local wine bar. We were chatting away quite happily and for once he was a man with something intelligent to say for himself and, as he was a corporate lawyer, I'm guessing that he wasn't short of a few bob. Then Leo makes his entrance. There was me thinking that it was a personal call, you know just dropping by because he hadn't seen me for a while and was wondering how I was doing when he doesn't ask me how I am at all but starts reminding me about the last guy I dated. More specifically how it ended with the last one, how miserable I felt and how none of my friends could get me to come out of the house for six weeks unless it was to go to work or stock up on comfort food.

So what did I do? I made my excuses there on the spot and left. Leaving a lovely, decent bloke completely and utterly confused as to the reasons behind my out-of-character actions.

I've been thinking recently that this has to stop. I'm rapidly approaching 29, all my friends are getting married or buying houses with partners and I've had a longer-lasting and more meaningful relationship with the knickers I'm wearing at the moment that I have done with any man I've ever dated.

This leaves me with two options: I could invest in a new pair of running shoes. Or I can stop running and tame the lion because, let's face it, if circuses can tame real lions from the wilds of Africa then surely I should have no problem taming an imaginary, personification of my problems in the figure of a large cat.

I know what you think I should do but I've seen a pair of running shoes in the sale in a lovely shade of pink so I think I'm going to take my chances and try and out run the bastard.

Take Two!

2010 taught me a lot a things; one of the most important being that you shouldn’t sit around waiting for things to happen. You should go out and seize opportunities whenever and wherever you can.

I first published the following in another blog on Friday 15th June 2007.

Everyone has to start somewhere!
First things first: I've decided to start a blog in order to re-ignite my passion for writing. Every famous writer says that the best way to get better at writing is to do it every day and practice your craft. I am so undisciplined when it comes to writing: I have half finished stories and ideas written down on so many scraps of paper and notebooks that the time has finally come to take action.

Now this is the bit that you're not going to believe - this hasn't been a decision I've made on my own. For the past month or so, but unquestionably over the past few days, I have been getting signs from the cosmos that writing is what I need to be doing! All sounds like a load of mumbo-jumbo doesn't it? Well that's what I thought until virtually everything has been telling me to stop dreaming about what might happen and get doing something to see what will happen!!

People have told me that my life is a bit of a soap opera and as people tune into soap operas every day of the week I've decided to write about my life. Everything from the bizarre to the mundane to just the things that interest me and catch my eye in the news. I hope you enjoy and are gripped in anticipation of my next thrilling installment.

What happens if you're not? Well just remember that everyone has to start somewhere!


So, after a long detour, lasting four years, I arrive back exactly where I started. This time I bring renewed energy, vigor and general enthusiasm for life and the world.

Maybe it’s too profound to say the cosmos is telling me to write, as I am sure that Mystic Meg has been wrong on more than one occasion, but I enjoy writing and I want others to enjoy my writing too.

So I echo my sentiments from four years ago, everyone has to start somewhere, even if it is for the second time.