Being Me

In a rush this morning, I left home without having had breakfast. But I pass a bakery on my way to work. Today, there was a display of fresh-baked pastries in the window: almond croissants, apricot croissants, pain au chocolat, cinnamon whirls, all with that come-hither look in their eyes, like the pastry equivalents of George Clooney or Johnny Depp (the difference being that I've never been allowed to bite either George or Johnny). I said to myself, 'Fran. Resist. Walk straight on. You know you said you were determined to -' I interrupted myself, saying, 'Not listening. Not listening. Not listening.' And dashed into the shop before I could reply. 'What can I get you?' the shop assistant asked. 'Can you get me a body like Cara Delavigne's?' I said. 'We have none in stock, I'm afraid,' she said. 'In which case, I'll have three of those almond pastries and give up the fight,' I said. Actually, that conversati...

Some universal truths 1. Disturbances to your radio or TV reception only happen at key cliffhanger moments, not in adverts. 2. Only the newest and best china mugs get dropped. The chipped ones hang on for Armageddon. 3. When your friend is 39, you will remember the birthday and send the card in time. When the friend is 40, their birthday will be on a Monday and you will remember on post-free Sunday. 4. When you need three eggs for a cake, you will find two in the box, which is even more annoying than none. 5. Your neighbour will go to Spain for a week, leaving their unadjusted alarm clock due to beep at seven for an hour, the same week you decide on a staycation. Fran's neighbour would regret giving her a key ... 6. If you only need to buy a tin of sweetcorn or one carrot, the queue will be forty-strong. 7. Soup lands on freshly-laundered white shirts. It will always be tomato. 8. You will always be three seconds away from the bus stop when the bus moves off w...

I bought some jars of pickles at our local Leamington Spa Food Festival last week. I felt obliged after I'd tasted all thirty-seven samples. Eventually, I had to stop sampling.  There are only so many 'I-may-buy-this-one' faces one can make and, anyway, the queue behind me stretched back to the M40 and held up traffic. A jam caused by pickle The full-size jars cost as much as it would to go and pick my own mangoes in Malaysia, so I opted for a set of four mini-jars costing a fiver. I bought these flavours: Lime Pickle Beer and Honey Mustard Mango Chutney Spicy Tomato Chutney All I can tell you is that the lime pickle is very tasty and goes well with cold meat. I almost didn't get to find that out, because the lid took ten minutes to prise off and when it did finally come free, it was with such force that I nearly lime-pickled the dining room walls. We've been talking about redecorating, but were thinking more Ivory Cream or Pale Gold t...

I was in Marks and Spencer today at the pay counter. At the next till stood a female customer and her little girl of about four. In clear, carry-across-the-shop-to-the-other-side piping tones, the little girl said, 'Mummy, Mummy. Which bra are you wearing today?' The mother was cool personified. She bent down to the child, whispering, 'It's the green one, darling. Now, sssh.' Then the mother turned to the assistant and said, 'That was a bit embarrassing. Sorry.' 'I was only check ing,' said the child, who sounded most peeved to be shushed. I bet she was thinking, 'Next time, I'll ask about the knickers and see how she likes that .' Of course, being British, every one of us - sales assistants and customers alike - looked straight ahead, searched in our pockets or checked our phones to prove we hadn't heard. That's why I'm writing about it here. That kind of suppression isn't healthy. It reminded me of several inci...

Well, that was odd. At 2.30pm yesterday, I'd just pressed 'Publish' on the blog post about an old article in the Times Educational Supplement . Then, my email pinged. It was the TES. 'We need a light-hearted piece about the One Direction split and how teachers might deal with distraught pupils when term begins. Can you do it?' 'By when?' 'I said. 'By later this afternoon?' Fran was so damn shocked, she went blonde, and pretty.  Anyhow, I managed it. And  here it is   It's not serious journalism. And I'm not responsible for the crazy pictures. But it was fun to write.

One stand-out feature of my summer this year has been something I didn't do, not something I did. I decided not to work as an examiner, marking GCSE English Literature, a job I've done for eight years every June/July, on top of my schoolteaching. I'm not sure I will ever sign up to examine again, even though the hefty cheque was welcome. But, during June, I kept finding myself in the garden with a gin and tonic and a book, or writing for a whole evening, or wandering around the town looking in shop windows, or watching an episode of Flog It, and thinking, 'Why does this feel strange?' Then I'd remember, and a frisson of pure delight hurtled through my veins yelling 'Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!' Looking back today through my past writings for the Times Educational Supplement, I found a copy of a 'diary' piece they published in 2007, my first year as an examiner. It will tell you all you need to know about why I thought it was tim...

I bought one of these a few years back.  It's called a Vanity Magnifying Mirror. So, first, let's deal with the misnomer: you can either have vanity (definition: excessive pride in one's own appearance), or you can have a magnifying mirror. Here's a description of my daily encounter with the magnifying mirror: 1. Stand it on the windowsill in the light. 2. Look into it. 3. Cringe backwards, crying, 'Surely that's the surface of the MOON! Or a shelled battlefield!' The problem is, over the years since I've owned the mirror, I think I've normalised that image of myself so that I think that's what everyone else is seeing. That's the danger of these mirrors. And yet, the reality is this: 1. I don't get up so close to people, staring and almost touching them with my nose, as I do to the mirror. You'll know this is true already, because I am not writing this from a prison cell. 2. People don't have hi...