Being Me

Dear Santa Thanks so much for the streaming cold, tickly throat and stuffed-up head and for delivering them all early so that I get to enjoy them throughout the entire Christmas period. Your thoughtfulness is touching. Fran Dear Fran I assure you that I did not deliver you the streaming cold, tickly throat and stuffed-up head. I bear you no ill-will, despite the caustic letter I received from you early this year about last Christmas's presents and how disappointed you were that I could not source the recipe books you wanted. Santa Dear Santa I am sorry if I over-reacted. But I was looking forward to receiving my copies of 'One-Cal Cakes' and 'Eat Like a Piggy: Look Like a Supermodel'. Fran Dear Fran I understand you are a Dickens fan. Have you read 'Great Expectations'? I have a spare copy I could deliver, if you wish. Santa Dear Santa How would the world's children react if they knew you had such a sarcastic edge to your t...

My husband sent his flute in for repair a couple of weeks ago and has been waiting for the shop to call. Just now, while I was watching TV, the phone rang in the hall and I went to pick it up. A man's voice said, 'It's the music shop. Can I speak to Mr Hill, please?' I don't know why, but I said 'Speaking.'  I swear the menopause gives women a form of Tourette's. 'Oh,' he said, clearly surprised that Mr Hill had a woman's voice, especially as, in the shop two weeks ago, he'd had a deep bass voice, substantial facial hair, and was wearing a flat cap. I wasn't sure how to backtrack. 'One second,' I said, and stepped into the kitchen where my husband was making bread. 'It's the music shop for you,' I said, thrusting the phone at him, keen to escape the embarrassing situation and get back to watching Homes under the Hammer. 'They'll have to hang on,' my husband said, making no attempt to keep...

I broke a tooth the day before we travelled to the Lyme Regis holiday I posted about last Saturday. It was one of the big molars, right at the back, and already had a filling. And it wasn't just a crack - a large section of the tooth had snapped off and disappeared down my gullet masquerading as one of the cashew nuts I was guzzling indiscriminately at the time. So I feared the tooth was doomed. But I haven't had an extraction since my childhood. I wasn't sure what to expect. I decided to push my luck and see the dentist about it when we got back. Therefore, on holiday, I ate carefully. (That's the first time I've ever used that sentence.) 'Oh, heck,' said Anna, my dentist, this morning when I turned up for my appointment. This was after she'd looked in my mouth at the broken tooth, I hasten to add - not a negative reaction as soon as I poked my head around her surgery door. She apologised after saying 'Oh, heck.' 'That's no...

I've been in Dorset for the week on holiday. Here's a flavour. Mint choc chip. Joke! I mean, here's a flavour of the holiday. In pictures and captions. You know by now not to expect pictures of fields or beaches or sunsets from my holiday pics, don't you? The saddest way to advertise a vacancy. I almost applied, I felt so sorry for them. So unfortunate, to get it right in the small writing and then bugger it up in the big writing. Outside the RNLI shop in Lyme Regis - a dog made of wellies. That's just genius. The worst case of misquotation ever. To be funeral directors was their destiny. We were on the top deck of a double decker bus, hurtling down 1 in 8 slopes. Skiing is so last year.  Two approaches to decorating one's beach hut. And, finally, you know that scene at the beginning of 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' in which Meryl Streep stands on the end of the Cobb in L...

I have something to share with you. No, it's not cake, so you can put your hopeful face away ;) No, it's not biscuits. No, it's not cheesecake. No, it's not sherry trifle. No, it's not a bag of chips. It's NOT food. Honestly, does no one feed you lot? Keep thinking .... No, it's NOT a lottery win. More's the pity. No, it's not a wise thought. I mean, since when ....? No, what I have to share is a bit of recent news. As you know, I am a very modest, self-effacing individual, so I will say it quietly .... I am going to be a Proper Published Author!!  Yes, it's true. Someone has actually agreed to take something I've written and turn it into a Thing One Can Put on a Shelf. (After reading it, of course.) As you know, this will be my second book. The first one, 'Being Miss', I published myself on Kindle and in paperback. If you've read it, I hope you enjoyed it :) So, the details ab...

Have you seen the recent TV programmes and news items about young children being taken into care homes to cheer up the residents? What a fabulous idea. I wish my gran had had the benefit of this before she died last year. She loved the regular visits of the therapy dogs - great slobbery Labradors she loved to stroke and pat. She'd have relished visits from singing toddlers. On the couple of occasions I took in my grandchildren to see her, she grinned from ear to ear, round her head, and back again.  I wrote a poem about it.  Care Most stretched afternoons we are sat (don’t judge my grammar erroneous because I mean someone sits us) in front of Flog It, Homes under the Hammer, and, particularly cruel for those of us with months, not years, Countdown. Tepid tea is served from a trolley forgotten in a corridor while Elsie Brown is rescued, trembling, from the lift. A woman with a headmistress bark speeds us through Bingo and crosswords as though...

I had my first pedicure recently. I went with my daughter-in-law as I'd bought her a salon voucher for her birthday and she said it would be more fun if we went together. I wasn't sure about it. I'm not fussed about being pampered and handled. For instance, I'm in and out of hairdressers as quick as I can be. If I can get away with a dry trim and just enough time to say hello, goodbye and 'You want HOW much?' I will. I'm not at my happiest sitting in front of a mirror, gawping at my own image for an hour. It distorts my perspective of myself. It's like when you write out the same sentence many times, as if doing lines at school. Write it once: 'I must not run in school corridors.' It looks normal the first time. By the time you've written it fifty times, the words seem surreal, unfamiliar. 'Are they real words? Is corridors really spelled that way?' In the same way, if I stare at my own face for longer than necessary, what start...