Tag Archives: humour

Skirting The Issue

by

I’m stuck in a black opaque tights fashion trap. I wear them pretty much every single day. I don’t own a pair of jeans and I don’t feel comfortable in trousers. In fact, I only wear skirts or dresses and tights. I’m weird.

Black opaque tights are the Volkswagen Golf of the fashion world – fail safe and trustworthy. I’ve begun to dislike my ageing knees but enveloped in 60 denier, all nobbles are covered (Marks and Spencer’s Autograph Velvet Touch 60 denier, since you’re asking – trust me, I’ve tried them all); I can’t even begin to comprehend a future without them.

For a couple of years, I was quite happily cantering around at work, 60 denier-clad shanks on display until… disaster! Someone at work allegedly bent over a child in a strappy top and managed to expose an inappropriate amount of cleavage. This led to a lot of serious talk from the powers-that-be, followed by a new dress code thrust into our hands – ironically, on the very same day I had chosen to showcase my rather short pillar-box red Whistles mini-skirt.

The dress code said: No strappy tops (obvs – see cleavagegate); No leggings; Skirts to just above the knee; Culottes acceptable.

Skirts to just above the knee? CULOTTES?!

One stray boob and we were all paying the price.

I trudged dismally home and peered ruefully into my wardrobe. Of my many skirts, 90 per cent fell into the category of ‘above knee’.

photo-116photo-115

photo-117photo-118

I wasn’t alone. A stealth group had formed at work. Let’s call us the Skirt Crusaders. We had one thing in common: hitched up hemlines and a depleted work wardrobe.

For a few weeks, we all played it safe: trousers and pencil skirts being the order of the day. There wasn’t a flash of thigh in sight – 60 denier or not. I even went as far as purchasing a long maroon circle skirt. The husband said I looked like a member of the Amish community. I toyed with the idea of a pair of culottes but then realised that I’d look like a Victorian school ma’am. The threat of only being able to shop at Long Tall Sally hung over us all like a grey cloud.

2931846668_390d9fc0a7

One Skirt Crusader broke protocol and arrived at work in a thigh-skimming grey number. In my mind, the length of it was okay. But later that day, she was summoned to the big cheese’s office and told that although she had a ‘lovely figure’, she needed to show a little more decorum in her choice of skirts. Can you think of anything more mortifying?

After the hemline hoo-ha had died down, the skirts gradually began to creep back in: an a-line skirt here and pair of leggings there. I began to wear the odd above-knee skirt again but unzipping it slightly at the back to gain a few extra inches. It’s like when you used to roll your skirt up at school – only in reverse. My long legs had become the enemy.

I’ve been on ‘Skirt Watch’ for a while now. The worries of old seem to be diminishing. My fellow Skirt Crusader decided to brave another risqué skirt the other day. I observed it quietly, with a knowing nod of acknowledgement – but later made the following report:

‘Hello Long Limbs. Well, today’s skirt was certainly borderline, with the split at the front flashing the odd extra inch of thigh. It wasn’t quite grey skirt territory but I would describe it as your boldest move yet. However, the length was tempered by the black tights and black pumps, complemented further by the black polo neck. This created a slightly deceiving silhouette. In conclusion, this particular number was passable – just.’

She appreciated my honest feedback.

There’s a new boss at work. Rumours have circulated that he’s already said, ‘I don’t want to be able to see up it or down it’. This might be a myth though.

The black opaques are still going strong.

But, for now, the red Whistles mini-skirt has gone into retirement.

My Mother-In-Law… and the Towel Obsession

by

Rule no 1 of the blog: Never write about the mother-in-law.

Rule no 2: If you are thinking about writing about the mother-in-law, refer to rule no 1.

Rule no 3: If you really are hellbent on writing about the mother-in-law, make it light-hearted and humorous, and on no account mention behaviours that could be deemed obsessive or eccentric…

I think my mother-in-law has developed an obsession with towels.

I’ve been observing her growing abundance of towels for some years now. But it was only on a recent visit to the in-law’s house that the full scale of her towel-hoarding frenzy was revealed.

As I plonked my weekend bag down in the spare room, the mother-in-law said, ‘I’ve left some towels out for you… but if you need any more, there’s plenty in the spare bathroom.’

photo-93

This comment in itself was slightly concerning. There were already four towels on the bed – beautifully matched to the decor. Just how many towels did she think we’d get through in two nights?

In the en-suite, there was another pile of colour-coordinated towels neatly stacked.

photo-94

Out of curiosity, I headed to the main bathroom to see the state of play. I flung the large cupboard doors open to reveal…

photo-96

… many, many more spare towels – in every possible colour you can imagine.

It was a petsetaphobic’s worst nightmare (that’s someone with a deep-seated fear of towels btw).

Glancing around, I spotted even more towels, nestling in neat piles.

photo-95

In total, there were 37 spare towels at my disposal.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my mother-in-law collects towels like one might collect stamps or thimbles.

But I’m not sure how you would wean yourself off a fixation with towels. Cut down on the trips to Dunelm Mill? Steer clear of the towel aisle in old Johnny Lewis? Wean oneself off gradually with say the purchase of a large bath sheet, rather than a whole ‘nest’ (incidentally, who ever really wants a ‘nest’ of towels? There’s always at least two towels in there of an indeterminable size – too small to dry one’s body and too big to pass off as a hand towel.)

As far as addictions go, I think my mother-in-law’s love of towels (petsetaphilia?) is pretty harmless.

At my parents’ house, you’re lucky if you get handed a bobbly old towel, which is usually the size of a postage stamp and as stiff as cardboard (owing to the fact that they don’t believe in costly tumble dryers).

So who I am to turn down a fluffy towel or two – or even 37?

Little Lord Fauntelroy… Comes To Stay

by

It’s half-term and my three-year-old nephew Max is coming to stay. Max is the apple of my eye but I still like to think that I’m a firm aunty – able to say ‘no’, when he reaches for a gingerbread man in Caffe Nero.

photo-113

The Husband, on the other hand, is a soft touch, and it took Max all of about two minutes to realise this. It’s no longer, ‘Aunty Katy, can I have a gingerbread man before lunch?‘

Oh no, he heads straight to Uncle Pushover and minutes later, re-appears, grinning like the cat that got the cream – tell-tale crumbs scattered around his mouth.

I left The Husband in charge of getting Max dressed for the morning and he managed to put his shoes on the wrong way round (Max’s shoes that is, not his own – although that isn’t beyond the realms of possibility either).

photo-110

Having Max to stay is a lot of fun. From the minute he wakes up at 6am to the minute he goes to bed, his conversation is one long series of zany questions.

‘Why do dogs have bones in their body?’

‘Can submarines live in reservoirs?’

‘What would happen if Buzz Lightyear went all the way through space and kept on going?’

‘Where do you buy your multi-grain bread from?’

‘Have all the apartments got taps like your kitchen tap?’

He also has a strange condition called Barry Scott Tourette’s – where he is prone to suddenly shouting out ‘Barry Scott’ at random, usually in a public setting. Given my recent dealings with the hate-mailing Barry Scott impersonator, the irony of this does not escape me.

My sister had drilled it into me that Max needed to go to the toilet just before he goes to bed, in order to avoid to any nighttime accidents.

‘Now, you need to go to the toilet before bed,’ I said, having overseen bath-time, pyjama-dressing and teeth-brushing.

‘I’ve tried,’ he said. ‘But nothing would come out.’

‘Can you try again?’ I pleaded, having visions of my pocket-sprung Habitat mattress being stained for ever.

‘Okay, Katy,’ he sighed, with an air of world-weariness.

photo-108

That night, there was a wail at 1am.

‘Aunty Katyyyyyyy!’

Alarmed, I scurried down the corridor. ‘What’s wrong?!’

‘I can’t see Big Ted,’ he said. Big Ted is a big teddy bear that I’ve had since I was 2 years old. He was safely ensconced under the sheets next to Max (you can see his head in the picture).

‘He’s right next to you!’ I said.

Two hours later, and there was another wail. I hared down the corridor like a scullery maid.

‘I’d like some freshly-squeezed orange juice,’ he said.

I didn’t have any oranges and I didn’t have a juicer. I fetched him some water instead.

4am. Another wail. Back down the corridor I went.

‘What is it now?!’ I said.

‘I need my curls flattening,’ said Max, patting his hair.

Curls flattening? Freshly squeezed orange juice? This was like dealing with Little Lord Fauntleroy.

The next afternoon, Max said he wanted a tuna sandwich for lunch. We bought him a tuna sandwich but it wasn’t up to Fauntleroy’s exacting standards. Apparently it had cucumbers in: slimy, green things that his delicate palate just couldn’t contend with.

‘Can’t you just pick them out?’ hissed the husband.

Driving frantically around Leeds, looking for another tuna sandwich (sans cucumber), it slowly dawned on me that far from being the firm but fun aunty, I had lost all control.

Later, I phoned my sister to tell her of Fauntleroy’s demands.

She was flabbergasted.

‘He’s running rings round you,’ she said. ‘You need to GET FIRM.’

His lordship arrives tomorrow and this time I’m determined. There’ll be no flattening of curls in the night; no thoughts of feverishly juicing ripe Valencian oranges in the early hours, and certainly no careful removal of cucumber from Fauntleroy’s dolphin-friendly tuna steak sandwiches.

He’ll be lucky if he gets a bowl of gruel before being parceled off to bed early.

You might wonder how I’m going to resist these angelic blue eyes.

photo-111

But NO-MESS aunty’s back in town. And this time, she’s getting tough.

My Parents… and the Christmas Wish List

by

My phone beeps. It’s a text from the parents: ‘Please can you text us your xmas present lists.’

photo-106

Every October, my mother requests a christmas present list from me. If I don’t comply, she will keep texting every week until I give in and text back: ‘I don’t know – just get me a book!’. It’s stressful trying to come up with gifts they can buy for me.

The Christmas Present List works both ways. The parents are not keen on receiving random presents for birthdays and Christmases – for fear of ‘unwanted tat’ taking over their home. So, every year, they present family members with a wish list, that usually contains a series of strangely-practical gifts.

This was my mother’s recent Christmas present list:

  • Prestige 24cm frying pan. Argos catologue no. 861/7134
  • Egg Poachers: Lakeland catalogue no. 12116
  • Nivea face cream
  • Hand cream (Body Shop)
  • Slippers (leather)

The funniest part of this long-held family tradition is that once you’ve sourced the items off the present list, wrapped them up and popped them under the Christmas tree, my mother pretends that she has no idea what she’s getting at all.

As the presents are passed to her, she shakes the box with a convincingly quizzical expression, before feigning mock shock when she finally unwraps her egg poachers: ‘Egg poachers?! My goodness – just what I wanted!’

Despite the parents’ detailed present list, there’s still the occasional surprise come Christmas Day. Uncle Stephen (my mother’s brother) went ‘off list’ last Christmas and splashed out on one of the strangest gifts for my mother yet: a blood pressure monitor (him and my mother are a little obsessed with their cholesteral and blood pressure).

20130811-171041.jpg 20130811-171204.jpg

No sooner was it unwrapped, than the whole family were strapping it onto their arms, in a strangely competitive game of ‘My blood pressure’s lower than yours’.

For my birthday in August, I was forced to provide my own present list. In the end, I asked the parents to get me an ‘Jawbone UP band’ (for more details on this device see Curse of the Cankles – my mother is completely bamboozled by its purpose), and from the sister, I requested a new hairdryer.

Being an obsessive control freak, it didn’t want just any old hairdryer. I wanted a Parlux Ionic 3200, which I had decided on after several hours of reading reviews. I even sent my sister the Amazon link to make things as easy as possible.

I suppose that if was feeling truly helpful, I could just have purchased the presents myself, cutting them out of the equation altogether, and then just getting my sister and the parents to give me the cold hard cash.

But that would mean I wouldn’t be able to slowly unwrap each present with a well-practised look of pseudo-intrigue on my face, and say, ‘Hmm, I wonder what on earth this could be…’

The Husband…. and the Euromillions Scam

by

The husband left a receipt on the passenger seat of the car.

I idly glanced at it. It was a receipt from the local petrol station and said ‘Euromillions £2.00’.

photo-105

To my knowledge, the husband has never bought a Euromillions ticket in his life, let alone at 7.12am on a Friday morning.

In fact, the man I thought was my husband wouldn’t do that.

I sat and stared at the receipt for a while and thought, ‘My husband is a stranger to me.’

Entering the house, I immediately pounced on the husband.

‘What did you buy from the petrol station at 7.12am on Friday morning?’ I said clutching the receipt to my chest and sounding like Miss Marple, uncovering her spouse’s secret gambling habit.

‘A coffee?’ said the husband.

I showed him the receipt. We both stared in at it in bemusement.

‘I bought a £2.00 coffee from the machine,’ said the husband. ‘I’ve never bought a Euromillions ticket in my life!’

We pondered this for a few moments.

‘I know what’s happened,’ said the husband. ‘You know that nice Asian man at the petrol station. Well, he’s clearly putting coffees through as Euromillions tickets – and then claiming the ticket for himself. It’s the perfect scam!’

‘He wouldn’t!’ I said, aghast. ‘He’s such a nice man.’

‘He’s a true gent,’ agreed the husband, ‘true gent’ being his catch-all expression for any kind and chivalrous stranger. ‘He’s always so nice to old women too.’

‘I bet he’s nice to old ladies,’ I said, grimly. ‘He’s probably waiting for his moment to PLUNDER their building society accounts.’

‘He probably chose me as a victim because he knows I’m so gormless,’ said the husband, sadly. I didn’t disagree.

Later, the husband announced: ‘Actually, I hope the nice Asian man does win the Euromillions.’

‘But not through illegal means!’ I cried. ‘If you spot him driving past in a Ferrari next week, you’ll know he’s won – but technically that’s someone else’s money. He’s a professional conman!’

‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this,’ said the husband, fishing £2 out of the loose change bowl and scooping up his car keys.

He roared off in the direction of the petrol station.

Barry Scott… and the Hate Mail

by

I received my first-ever blog hate mail yesterday – from a man calling himself Barry Scott.

My first thought was, ‘Isn’t Barry Scott that silly man from the Cillit Bang commercials, with a really loud and annoying voice?’

My second thought – upon closer inspection of his message – was, ‘Uh-oh. Forget the bathroom spray, Barry Scott REALLY hates me.’

Here’s a snippet of what Barry Scott had to say:

I have to say I have never read a more, indulgent, vacuous, self-loving load of nonsense in my life. Boastful of your life, you are without a shadow of a doubt a horrible person. It is wonderful that your problems in life are small for you, but the way you write about them is quite frankly detestable. 

I know of some people who would love their problems to be turning up late to a wedding in London, or their cleaner buying them presents, but the world most people live in, they would never consider that a problem, never mind posting it onto the internet.

I think you seriously need to do some growing up, stop thinking that people are interested in your ‘perfect’ life, and then find some compassion, and learn how to treat people.

I sat in the bath running these words over and over in my mind. Horrible person… detestable… vacuous… Isn’t it funny how one nasty email can plummet you into the blackest of moods?

I didn’t even realise strangers were reading my blog. In fact, the only people I thought read my silly ramblings was my sister and a handful of friends – more out of loyalty than anything else.

I only wrote my blog for a bit of light-hearted fun; a little hobby because I missed writing. Yes, I could write about truly worthy causes such as poverty, war, cancer… but the whole premise of the blog was just daft, everyday trivia that stuck in my head and made me want to put pen to paper.

My blog is supposed to be self-deprecating and firmly tongue-in-cheek. Does Barry Scott genuinely think that my only worries in life revolve around arriving late to weddings, my big feet, puffed-up ankles, and whether a bearded hunk catches my eye at the gym?

And how does Barry Scott define my life as perfect? What is a ‘perfect’ life anyway?

As my thoughts spiralled, I then started thinking, ‘Oh no, if Barry Scott thinks this, what if EVERYONE thinks I am this vacuous beast of a person, who truly thinks that I’m worried that my cleaner keeps buying me presents (which is – obviously – THE most ludicrous first-world problem I could possibly imagine. That was the point!)

In fact, what if Barry Scott is actually someone I know, hiding behind a preposterous pseudonym and a veil of venom?

The husband, bless him, said that you can’t take anyone who calls themselves Barry Scott and peddles shower spray for a living seriously. He didn’t even leave a real email address.

Still, Barry Scott’s message stung. I decided to delete his comments, and cheered up slightly.

Bang… and the dirt was gone. But it did leave a mark behind.

My Cleaner… Won’t Stop Buying Me Presents

by

No-one likes to admit to having a cleaner.

It’s basically tantamount to announcing, ‘I’m far too important to wash and iron my own knickers. I have MINIONS who do that for me.’

But there’s no better feeling of landing back home from work to a freshly-polished floor, the ironing hanging in the wardrobe, and crisp new sheets on the bed. If I had to choose between getting rid of the cleaner or the husband, it would be a tough call.

I first came across my amazing cleaner Natalia when she advertised in the window of my local hardware store. In fact, the very same window that Dirty Harry has been looking for love. But, unlike Harry, after one visit from Natalia , it was love at first sight.

Natalia isn’t your average cleaner: she sews on buttons, mends the bedding, takes items to the dry cleaners, and runs any errands you need. She’s the most hard-working person I know.

During my Farrow and Ball decorating obsession, her husband offered to come round and help paint with his Polish friend. They only came round to weigh the job up but before you could say ‘Czesc’ (I think that’s hello in Polish) they had whipped off their shirts, grabbed a brush and started furiously painting.

There was none of this messing around with cups of tea every 30 mins, like the Brits. No, they just brought a giant bottle of Coke (Polish equivalent) to swig on the move, and worked for 12 hours flat, without even a break.

There is one small problem with Natalia (and I appreciate this is a horribly middle-class problem, in the face of world poverty and civil war) but the thing is… she keeps buying me presents.

It started last Christmas. I was busy trying to decide whether Natalia would like an actual present or would rather have an extra week’s pay, when she pitched up at the door bearing a selection of random gifts herself.

I was confused. Shouldn’t I be buying her a present – not the other way round?

photo-97

Her first present was some strange marshmallow/ Turkish delight-style sweets along with a bottle of dessert wine, which claimed to be Polish but on further inspection was actually made in Morocco.

photo-98

She also bought me an intriguing bottle of oil called ‘Sahar’, which she told me to slather all over my body after a bath. It smells of mouldy hazelnuts and every now and then I tip a bit in the bath, mainly out of guilt. For all I know, it could be the elixir of youth.

At Easter, a giant basket arrived for me, complete with daffodils, big fluffy chicks, creme eggs, and a ‘Happy Easter’ balloon.

It’s all incredibly sweet – but entirely unnecessary.

After her holiday, more bizarre presents arrived:  some chocolates that I think are Poland’s equivalent of minstrels, and a little wooden box with two ramming deer. You can make them lock horns by moving the wooden lever up and down.

photo-103

photo-104

I keep the box on my desk at work to put my pens in.  Every now and then, a naughty boy in my class passes by and rams the deer together several times.

I’m already wondering what strange array of gifts Natalia’s planning to bestow upon me next.

But, as she said herself, the magic of christmas never ends!

My Mother… Landlady Extraordinaire

by

Regular readers may recall my mother’s role as a student landlady, in which she believes all the tenants are simple (see My Mother… and the Simple Students). She regularly peddles round on her bicycle to impart advice such as, ‘Put the bins out – and don’t forget to lock the back gate!’, and ‘Drinking at this hour? It’s a wonder you ever get any studying done!’.

After the departure of last year’s batch of simpletons, my mother set about her annual summer cleaning of our student house.

But as she hoovered away at the carpet with her trusty ‘little vac’ (the Dyson rendered ‘utterly useless’), she kept feeling holes in the floor of the lounge: holes that my father had been blithely ignoring for the last few years (bringing with it a very literal meaning to brushing them under the carpet).

Finally pulling back the carpet, my mother was alarmed to find large areas of the floorboards has been devoured by a particularly voracious strain of woodworm – a grim discovery that brought about her new saying of the summer, ‘The floorboards were like WEETABIX!’

Woodworm

Rather than immediately consult with a woodworm expert, my 65-year-old mother decided to venture into the bowels of the house herself, squeezing down a tiny hatch she found in the corner of the lounge. On her hands and knees, she managed to crawl, caterpillar-style, the entire length of the underbelly of the property, to inspect the extent of the damage with a torch.

Re-appearing, covered in soot, my mother – the pot-holing pensioner – claimed that no-body over 5ft2 would even make it down there.

My father’s role in this was to investigate a solution. He apparently managed to operate Google and read up on some super-strength woodworm killer, although given the scale of his internet ineptitude (see My Parents… and the World Wide Web), I’m not sure how this was possible.

After weighing the job up at length, the parents decided it probably was time to call in a joiner, who arrived to replace the Weetabix floorboards and told my mother he had replaced part of a joist underneath the house too.

Not content with just taking his word for it, my mother then ventured back down the hatch and slithered underneath the house – torch poised – to see if he really had replaced a joist. Luckily for him, he had.

This September brought with it a new batch of students and further parental eccentricity. I told my mother that I had organised for two Polish girls to move in and she was to meet them at the house on Friday.

My father began making noises about collecting them in person from Liverpool airport. He said it wouldn’t be any trouble. But, in the end, they settled for a ‘meet and greet’ service at Preston train station, and a personal taxi service to the student house. Contracts duly signed, normal landlords would probably wish them well and be on their way.

But not the parents. Oh no… their concierge service continued. When I phoned my mother to ask how it had gone, she said that they had pretty much spent the whole day with the Polish girls.

Apparently, they drove them to the University library and actually waited in the car for them while they registered. The girls were then ‘terribly hungry’ – hadn’t eaten for 17 hours, in fact. Ever the hostess, my mother toyed with the idea of taking them back to their house for dinner but instead she settled for dropping them off at Aldi to do some food shopping. She thought they’d feel at home in Aldi, she said, because of its continental connections.

In the midst of this madness, my father – the chauffeur – had produced one of his infamous maps with a highlighted route and instructions on how to get from the house to the University on foot.

They left the Polish girls happily ensconced back at the house, munching on an Aldi pizza and watching X-Box (I think she meant X-Factor).

At the end of this tale, I asked my mother what the Polish girls were like.

‘One of them seems quite sharp,’ she said. ‘Pidgin English – but definitely all there.

‘But the other one is terribly feeble. She barely spoke.’

I just knew what was coming next.

‘In fact, she seemed a bit… simple.’

The Hunk at the Gym

by

After listening to Lipo Liza‘s woeful tales of extreme fat removal and dodging the advances of omnipresent Big Grey Man, it seemed only fair that I should finally get a new gym ‘buddy’ who was a bit easier on the eye.

My latest gym friend is a bit of a hunk – a young hunk, in fact – but with a beard. Yep, a beard. Not that weird goaty thing that Brad Pitt grew; I’m thinking more of a bristly Ben Affleck in the film Argo.

photo-87

You know when you catch someone’s eye several times by accident or suddenly clock that you’ve been vacantly staring at them for some time? That’s what happened with The Bearded One last month. I was on a cross trainer directly opposite him and realised I had been staring in his general direction for quite a while, as my legs peddled away.

I then started to think, ‘Oh no, MAYBE he thinks I’m staring at him because I fancy him. Which I don’t of course (having only eyes for the husband). Except now, I’m acting like I DO fancy him.’

My friend Andrea and I have a name for this: it’s called Toy Soldier Syndrome (the name is a long story). It’s basically where you become convinced that someone THINKS that you fancy them so you start acting flustered and coquettish around them – even though you definitely DO NOT fancy them at all (kind of a weird self-fulfilling prophecy).

After a few minutes, I stole a quick glance back at The Bearded One to ascertain the state of play. As soon as my eyes rested on his, he smiled straight back at me!

I went bright red.

The Bearded One then dismounted from his bike and, despite there being many available cross-trainers, he curiously stepped onto the one right next to me! I was so flustered that I hastily fled the cross-trainer completely, cheeks flaming. This silly non-event was made worse by the fact that the husband was obliviously lifting weights, just several metres away.

The following week, I whipped into Marks and Spencers at my usual gallop and was just striding purposefully towards a Super Whole Food Salad, when a voice said in my ear, ‘You won’t need a cross trainer to work that off!

Cripes… it was him. Bearded and besuited.

‘I’m on a healthy kick,’ I squeaked, immediately going a nice shade of beetroot. ‘I’m going on holiday tomorrow.’

‘Me too!’ he exclaimed, a youthful glint in his eye. ‘I’m going to Ibiza. My girlfriend’s parents have a boat there.’

Ah, a girlfriend. Phew.

‘I’m going to Croatia with my husband,’ I said, sounding like a prim housewife. And immediately thinking, ‘Oh no, he probably now thinks I’m some desperate old housewife with a crush on him.’

‘See you at the gym,’ he said.

‘Defo,’ I squeaked.

I scurried off to join the queue, scooping up a pack of Percy Pig sweets on the way.

I have a fairly serious problem with Percy Pig and Haribos. About twice a week, I purchase a pack at a petrol station or supermarket – and then gluttonously tip the whole lot into my mouth – in one go. I probably need to see a therapist – shortly followed by a dentist.

tumblr_mb6jnuq7Zr1rogxwbo1_500

I dashed to the car, clambered behind the wheel and before you could say ‘Super Whole Food Salad’, I had rammed the whole pack of Percy Pigs straight into my mouth – just in time for The Bearded One to be passing by.

He smiled at me through the car window in a slightly bemused manner and gave a departing wave. I attempted to smile back but my cheeks were bulging like a giant gerbil.

‘Oh great,’ I thought, ‘I just told The Bearded One that I was on a health kick and then he just saw me gorging on a bag of Percy Pig sweets in a most uncivilised manner.’

I vowed to have a month off from the gym.

Seen But Not Heard

by

My friend’s wedding in London has left me completely speechless: Not speechless in the ‘awestruck’ sense (although it was a ruddy good do); I mean speechless in the ‘I’ve completely lost my voice and can only communicate through exaggerated hand gestures’ kind of way.

The day had begun like all wedding days do for the husband and I: immensely stressed and late as ever. The husband spent the morning haring around the city centre on an ill-advised and futile mission to seek out some tan-coloured shoes to go with his new suit, while I was anxiously checking my watch every five minutes as my hair was laboriously blow-dried into a Betty Draper bob.

Flustered and out of breath, we both convened at the train station, only to find that the 10.45 to London had been cancelled. We never mean to be late to weddings but circumstances always seem to conspire against us.

After much stress, involving further rail-related delays, attempting to get dressed in a poky train toilet cubicle (note: avoid at all costs), and a convoluted taxi ride through the back streets of Marylebone, we miraculously managed to arrive at the venue five minutes ahead of the bride – a record for us. (At the last wedding we attended, we missed the ceremony altogether and had to lurk in the bar before merging seamlessly with the exiting guests and enthuse convincingly about what a beautiful ceremony it had been).

But as soon as I opened my mouth at the reception and released a hoarse ‘hello’, my friend Ellie said, ‘Oh my God Palms, What’s wrong with your voice? You sound like Marge Simpson!’

She was right. I spent the rest of the reception croaking my way through conversations, while people visibly recoiled, hoping not to catch my laryngeal lurgy.

By 4pm, my Marge Simpson rasp had been reduced to an inaudible whisper. The people on either side of me at the wedding breakfast table had long since grown tired of having a one-sided conversation with a mute – and ceased communication completely.

I attempted to converse with a friend’s husband opposite me but midway through my miming act (I think I was attempting to explain my preference for stilton cheese over brie using lots of thumbs up – dull by anyone’s standards), his eyes glazed over and he simply turned around and struck up a conversation with someone else.

That left only the husband, who was forced to carry on my tiresome game of charades through marital obligation rather than any genuine desire. I tried to mouth, ‘How’s your chicken?’, while flapping my arms in what I thought was a good impression of a chicken. The husband looked baffled. After three attempts, I ended up typing ‘How’s your chicken?’ on my phone and passing it to him. He peered at my message curiously and then said, ‘Good’. It seemed like an awful lot of effort for a one-word reply.

photo-89

By evening, I had become nothing but a silent witness to the continuing celebrations. All I could do was smile like a simpleton, while making over-the-top throat-slitting motions and shrugging in a slightly demented manner if anyone ventured near me.

My friend Al, never one to pull any punches, summed my predicament up as this: ‘You’re the muted old woman who gets plonked in the corner. No-one wants to speak to you. You’ve basically become… irrelevant.’

Thanks Al.

It had been a brilliant day but by 10pm, I was too poorly and weary to continue. I signalled to the bar manager whether he might be able to order a taxi for me (luckily, there’s a universal signal for telephone – it involves holding your hand to your ear and arranging your fingers like a receiver).

But before I could say ‘Marcel Marceau’ – let alone goodbye to anyone – he had hailed a black cab with one click of his fingers and bundled the husband and I out of the fire exit and into the pouring rain (probably relieved to see the back of me, after I kept requesting mugs of hot water for my Lemsip).

Tucked up in bed back at the hotel and sipping my tenth Lemsip of the day, I was unable to utter a single syllable.

The husband, meanwhile, had never looked so happy.