New Year…New Me

Well, Happy New Year lovely people who visit my blog.  It’s a bit late now, isn’t it?  There was that moment in early December, when it was safe to say ‘Happy Christmas’ and now seven weeks later, we’re just about over saying ‘Happy New Year’ at the start of every conversation.

That said, my little one is still on a loop of Christmas carols which she’s been singing since mid-November.  It didn’t help that the middle one got an electric keyboard for her birthday and the very first thing that got played was ‘Away In A Manger’ in burp sound effects.  This has progressed to ‘Deck The Halls’ in creaky door and ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ in farts.  Seven generations of synthesizer technology and that’s the result.

Anyway, officially, we’re into the most depressing weekend of the year, so they say.  The week before payday in January, when everyone is skint and have that tense shouldered wince of  having just read their credit card statements for December.

This is also the week where the new year’s resolutions are largely forgotten or blamed on an alcohol-fuzzy New Year’s Eve’s rush of misplaced conviction. That said, Emlyn made a resolution to go vegetarian for the month of January and so far it’s been easy peasy.  We’ve cooked amazing food from Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall’s Veg book and haven’t missed meat at all (although I do confess to snaffling a bit of the kids’ chicken kievs and carbonara sauce behind his back).  But I have to say, being a vegetarian is much cheaper than I’d realized and I’m eating a lot more healthily.

I think, though, that on the resolution front, boys are much better at sticking to them than girls.  We set ourselves up for failure far too readily.  As usual, I went on my obligatory January diet, reading cover-to-cover a new fad diet book whilst polishing off the last of the Quality Street on the sofa.  It was all with the goal of my photoshoot this week for new author pictures.  I needn’t have bothered.  According to the adorable photographer, Alex James, he can airbrush out wrinkles, bags and double-chins.  Genius.

I’m not one to defend airbrushing, but to be fair, I think writers need it more than most professionals.  We’re shut up for most of the year in our cold, lonely studies and then bam! You get the call and you have to scrub up.  Think about it.  There’s always been models-turned-actress, actress-turned-novelist, but you don’t ever get novelist-turned- model, do you?

So inevitably, there is confusion when you meet real live authors in the flesh.  This happened when I went to a book launch last week of  Louise Voss and Mark Edwards’ ‘Catch Your Death’.  It was a great launch, but full of squinting authors trying to make each other out from our Twitter avatars.

I think someone should produce badges with one’s Twitter Avatar on them.  Maybe there’ll even be a craze in the future of throwing parties for one’s Twitter followers.

Anyway, on that note, I’m pleased to announce that my Twitter name has changed to @joannareesbooks, if anyone is interested.  On account of the fact that I’ve finished the final final copy edit of the newly named, ‘A Twist Of Fate’ which will be out in August under my new official author name of Joanna Rees (which, coincidentally, is my actual name).

And yes, I am embracing Twitter. It’s crazy not to.  Authors have more power than ever to self-publish, but also to promote their books through the web.  The wonderful Ben Hatch goes from strength to strength with his brilliant book, ‘Are We Nearly There Yet’ which he’s successfully self-promoted on Twitter.  And why not?

Louise and Mark are shining examples of how to get a publishing deal with a main stream publisher, after getting ‘Catch Your Death’ to number one on Amazon.  Good for them, I say.

Exciting times for us authors.  It might be the most depressing week of the year, but I reckon 2012 is looking good.

Mummy crush

I love the Autumn.  After months in flip-flops the prospect of the next few in socks and boots is bliss.  Now we’re really into Autumn proper and the freaky Indian Summer has passed, I can now fully embrace jeans and jumpers. I don’t have to shave my legs, or worry about bikini waxing.  In fact, I could grow an all-over winter pelt and no-one would know.

 

People have started moaning about how dark it suddenly gets as the change of the clocks looms on the horizon, but this is always my happiest time of year. Autumn is so romantic.  Slow-cooked stews and buttery baked potatoes. Big thick duvets.  Sunday roasts in the pub by the fire.  Gloves.  Finding fivers and forgotten lipsticks in your winter coat pockets.  What’s not to love?

 

And OK, it’s a bit harder getting up, but I adore the bright chilly mornings here on Brighton seafront, when the gold stones sparkle against the purple sea and the beach huts gleam.  I like the mounting excitement in our household about Halloween and bonfire night and kicking up piles of autumn leaves in the park with the kids after school.  And seeing my breath for the first time by the light of a streetlamp, which makes me yearn for my youthful smoking days.

 

And of course, telly.  After months of working like a loon on my new book, when most things cultural have passed me by entirely, I’ve re-surfaced in order to be a consumer of modern popular culture.  But this year, I find myself a little disappointed.

 

Having been in the grip of the tyranny of X-Factor before, this year I can’t bring myself to devote the necessary hours.  Even ironically.  We tried to watch it, but the kids became catatonic with boredom.   The only thing they really liked about it was the Yeo valley boy-band advert, which is genius.  And the voice-over man, who we all try to impersonate.  His breakfast comedy sketch made me laugh.  (See link below)

 

So, the X-Factor is officially pants.  And from the press this week, it’s not just me who thinks so too.  It’s just not the same without Simon, although Gary Barlow is a great replacement.  I did admit to a friend on the phone that I started out with a little bit of a mummy crush on old Gary.  ‘What’s a mummy crush?’ my ear-wigging seven year-old asked.  The big one eyeballed me and then said to her sister.   ‘She’s going to crush him.’  The middle one stared at me, aghast.  ‘You’re actually going to lie down on top of Gary Barlow and squish him?’ Annoying that she thought I was capable of it.  Even more annoying that she told all her friends.

 

Actually, I think Gary works the stubble and nice suit look very well.  Fortunately, I’m married to a man who can do the same.  Emlyn looked particularly gorgeous going off to the Crime Writers Awards at Grosvenor House the other night, where he met the actress who plays Sarah Lund in the brilliant ‘The Killing’.  He’s got his own Daddy crush on Sarah Lund.  Her of the jeans and jumpers.  A bit like me, I like to think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p005fnvm/comedy_selection_the_x_husband/

The Lies of Mothers

Us Mothers…I have to say, we’re terrible liars.  All of us. I remember after my first daughter was born, I was furious with my aunts and my own mum.  ‘You didn’t tell me it would be THAT bad!’ I railed.  ‘Why didn’t you WARN me?’  They shrugged it off and told me that if women shared the actual truth about childbirth, babies would never get born.

And as I’ve got older, I’ve been complicit in this big secret-keeping thing we all do.  How often have I stood around admiring the bump of a heavily pregnant first-time mother and found myself saying in a soothing voice,  ‘You’ll be fine.  Once you’re in the zone, it’ll fly by.’  Lies.  Lies. Lies.  You’ll feel like you’ve been in a motorway pile-up.

Or with a new mother. ‘It gets easier.’  Hmmm…no. It doesn’t.  Not for months.  Not until you’ve experienced the ravages of sleep-deprivation that they reserve for hardened soldiers in the torture scenes of 18-rated movies.

I thought the childbirth and new mother complicity thing were the only ones we mothers do.  But oh no, no, no.  There’s another one.  A big one.  One that I didn’t find out about until Monday, when my eldest daughter went off on her Year Six camp to Dorset.

And Bam!  Out of the blue.  There it was. Something I was totally unprepared for.  Because nobody had told me that watching my baby going away for the first time would make me feel that level of blind panic.  And just plain, outright heartbreak.

I managed to just about hold it together waving her off.  But as the doors closed, I watched my little girl’s face crumple on the other side of the tinted coach window and my heart felt like it was being torn out and stamped on the patch of grass that the school-run dogs wee on.

Some of the other mothers went for a group support breakfast. Another one said in a choked voice, ‘well, that’s it.  Only seven more years and they really will be gone for good.’

I couldn’t even reply, too busy staggering to the car in order to wail in privacy.

Gone.  For a week.  No communication.  The longest time I have ever spent away from her.  Ever.

Of course, as a novel writer, I write about heartbreak all the time.  Weeping, the clutching of pillows, looking at photos in the middle of the night all with a tear-jerk imaginary soundtrack are my standard fare.  Emotional bread and butter.  Those kind of moments pay the mortgage.

But this week, they’re very real.   Because not since Whitney Huston was number one in the charts have I ever been remotely like this.  I’m like a heartbroken teenager.  I can’t really eat (which is not actually such a bad thing, but just a bit alarming for me).  I can’t sleep (which is just plain odd.  I always sleep).  And yesterday, I even broke down in Waitrose on the poor guitar teacher, a childless twenty-something, who innocently asked me in the queue how my eldest – his pupil – was getting on, and I totally lost it. The poor guy.  He didn’t know what to do.  And I couldn’t stop crying, even though I was mortally embarrassed and the cashiers were making eyes at each other.

So there we are.  Another one of those mothering moments, where I’ve discovered that we all are complicit in not telling each other a fundamental truth:  That saying goodbye to your child is worse than anything else you’ll ever feel.

Friends rang me up and sympathized and Mum was very supportive.  They’ve all been through it.  They just hadn’t told me.  Stoicism.  That’s what we all have.  The unbelievable capacity of a mother to bear pain.

And I feel terrible, because I know that so many worse things happen in the world.  And I want my darling girl to grow up and live her own life.  But that doesn’t alter the fact that I’m still an emotional wreck, even though I know that by time the coach got out of Brighton, she’d probably found all the sweets I’d hidden for her and was having a wail of a time.  And I also know that when she comes back, once again I’ll be complicit in the mothering lies.  Because when she asks me whether I was OK without her, I know I won’t tell her the truth.

 

 

Why our phones stop us making real friends

The chances are that you’re reading this right now on your phone.  But if not, then when was the last time you checked your phone for messages? An hour ago? Five minutes?  Or has it been in your hand practically all day?

I know!  Me too.  It’s a shocker.  When did we all become so addicted?  So much so, that The Sunday Times mag in its list of things going up and down (my essential reading) names a Facation as a holiday when your spouse forgets to leave their Blackberry at home.  In other words, no kind of a holiday at all.

When did checking your phone all the time suddenly become socially acceptable? When did it become necessary to share everything about your life with everyone? When did it become OK to text and talk at the same time?  Because that’s rapidly morphed into the even ruder habit of tweeting a conversation whilst it’s still going on. So rude!

It seems to me that, increasingly, we are all connecting far more with cyberspace rather than the real world going on around us.  But Facebook Friends and your Twitter Followers don’t count as real life human encounters.

Last night, we went to a comedy gig in the Komedia in Brighton.  It was a showcase for comedians who had done a stand-up course.  For each of them, it was their first time on stage.  As the brilliant compere said, it was not only a baptism of fire, but so ridiculous that their first gig was in the packed Komedia – one of the best comedy clubs in the country – when the next time they go on, they’ll be in a skanky pub in East London where three people show up.  But it was a great evening.

There were two intervals, so plenty of time for the audience to mingle, chat, discuss who goofed and who was great.  In the old days, your partner would go to the bar to get you a lager and you’d sit a bit bored and strike up a conversation with the people next to you.  It was called social interaction and meeting new people.  It was the prelude to how you make real friends in the real world.

But that’s a thing of the past, it seems.  Because as I looked around, EVERYONE was on their bloody phones.  So I joined in and tweeted that I was at the comedy gig.  And then I felt like a twit.

But it got me thinking, because earlier this week, I went to the park with the kids after school and all the Mums were on their phones, paying not a jot of attention to their offspring – which doesn’t bother me particularly – but they weren’t talking to each other either.  Their body language said, ‘I’m far too important and busy texting and emailing other important people on my phone, so don’t approach.’  Fine on a train, but a bit sad in a park.

I’m no better.  Checking my phone is a terrible habit.  One that infuriates my husband, especially since he knows as well as I do that it’s highly unlikely that anyone very important is contacting me for an immediate decision on anything, any time soon.  So why am I ignoring the people I love to read emails from a printing company tempting me to bulk order office calendars, or check updates from Twitter saying that another procrastinating writer is following me back?

What worries me most in all of this is that kids, seeing their parents glued to their iPhones, want a piece of the action too.  We went to a barbecue the other day, where three ten-year-olds were slouching on chairs glued to their father’s iPhones, while the football nets, skittles and garden Jenga that had been set up for them remained untouched.  When questioned, they literally grunted like cavemen.

And now my eldest daughter wants an iTouch for her birthday, but I can’t help feeling that if I get her one, I’ll loose my sunny, chatty girl to an all-consuming little black screen.

In the meantime, I’m trying to wean myself off my own sordid Blackberry addiction.  Especially when I’m working.  I reached out for it just now, but instead went into the garden to smell a rose.  I urge you to do the same.

Come back Limahl, all is forgiven

Where do you stand on singing in public?  I ask, because this week has been somewhat blighted by the builders doing up the house at the back of our garden.  They’ve been on the roof bellowing along to “this is Heart” on the radio.  I guess it wouldn’t have got my goat if a. they could sing in tune, or b. I wasn’t at a crucial bit of my book and trying to write serious action to the strains of off-key JLS.

I can’t bring myself to say anything because I’m too British and I don’t want to draw attention to myself at the snooty lady novelist at number 44.  I’ve heard how they take the piss out of each other in the morning.  I couldn’t cope if they applied that to me.  Also, they’ll be working there for months, by the looks of things – certainly as long as it’s going to take to finish TORN.  But it is a bit annoying that in this glorious weather, I can’t open my study door.

Besides, I think singing in public should be encouraged – in the right context.  We don’t do half as much singing these days as we used to as kids.  Emlyn (who has a great voice himself) hates singing in public in any form.  Come Christmas when I insist on a family get together round the piano for carols, he immediately turns into a public school boy and skulks around mumbling ‘this is so embarrassing’.  For who?  There’s only us in the house.  (Just between you and me, I was secretly quite relieved when he wasn’t here for the royal wedding and I got the chance to belt out Jerusalem to my heart’s content.)

Maybe it’s a boy/girl thing.  Boys will sing at the football or rugby, but only with other men as back-up.  I know for a fact that all the husbands have dropped out of the Karaoke party my mate Sarz has planned in the swanky Little Voice in Brighton.  What can be so unbearable about listening to ‘I will survive’?  Personally, I can’t wait.

Fortunately, however, my husband does join me in my devotion to Eurovision.  I’ve watched it nearly every year since my childhood.  And apart from the loss of old Tel doing the commentary, it hasn’t really changed that much.  Despite their attempts to Glee-it-up and to give us slick tourist board images of the countries involved, it still somehow manages to give us a direct insight into the tastes and aspirations of normal people in far flung corners of Europe.  Oh, and…er…Israel.

Like a giant-sized popcorn that you can’t stop yourself eating until its finished, the hugely long format is addictive.   It’s the crazy costumes, the jaw-dropping staging and props, the sheer amount of times I’m dumbfounded that they could have conceived of such a song, or selected the singer, or even that the singer failed to go on a diet for their big moment.   But even at its worst it still has its own mercurial charm and a secret code that even Lord Webber couldn’t crack.

Last night’s second semi-final was Eurovision gold, although it was annoying that we couldn’t vote, as they thought we’d all be too biased towards Jedwood, who continue to model themselves as Thing One and Thing Two from the Cat In The Hat, as far as I can see.  I hate to say it, but in comparison to the rest, they came across as quite slick.

In all of this, it does occur to me that we might be missing a trick.  Perhaps there should be a work placement scheme for failed TV show singers to get into the building profession.  All those nearly-rans from Pop Idol and X factor and Eurovision would be perfect. And what about Limahl and Nick Heyward and all those other ex-heart throbs who haven’t had a hit since the 80’s? Get them up there.  Shirts off.  Managing. I think that builders that could sing in tune from our rooftops might inspire the nation to start singing in public again.  Just a thought.

Daytrip to Noma

Regular readers of this blog will know that food is dear to my heart.  And lunch on a spring day with good friends is my idea of heaven.  So you can imagine how delighted I was, when our great buddies Katy and Kev announced that they’d procured a table at Noma for Emlyn’s 40th birthday present.

 

For those who don’t know, Noma has just been voted the Best Restaurant In The World and you might have seen it on Masterchef.  It’s on the water front in the middle of Copenhagen and is famed for its radically different approach to the menu, as the chefs go out each morning and forage along the estuaries and in the local forests for fresh ingredients. The result is sublime Nordic gastronomy, the likes of which, I’ve never even heard of – let alone tried.

 

The extravagance of flying to a foreign city for lunch is all a bit thrillingly jet-set in itself (or Easyjet set in our case).  But it was so worth it, as the whole experience of Noma was magical.  I’m aware that listening to someone bang on about a meal they’ve eaten is as boring as listening to someone else’s dream, so I’m resisting the urge to talk you through it morsel by morsel.

 

However, I will tell you that the whole vibe of the place is not what you’d expect for such a highly accoladed restaurant. Whilst every single detail is perfect, it’s completely unpretentious.  We were greeted by all of the staff, including Rene Redzepi himself, who was standing in the open kitchen.  The restaurant had a very seaside shack kind of feel with its low soft grey rafters.  There were no tablecloths or regimented cutlery, just friendly staff, who were all totally passionate and excited for us about the experience we were about to have.  We were told straight away that the beautiful flower arrangement in front of us contained some freshly baked malt flat-breads disguised as twigs, and we were to dig in and dip ’em in crème fresh.

 

Thus suitably relaxed and plied with champagne, we tucked into the most surprising ‘snacks’ often delivered and explained by the sous chef who’d just cooked them.  It was so fun and inventive – moss deep-fried and dipped in cep powder, a pot of radishes in edible soil (burned, crushed hazelnuts – I think! – which you eat with your fingers).

 

I did squirm a bit though, when they delivered a jar full of ice with live shrimps on top, which we were told to dip in the sauce and eat!  Mine flick-flacked out of the jar and onto the table, to much hilarity, but I figured that now probably wasn’t the moment to have an ethical/vegetarian crisis, having just ordered the twelve course tasting menu.  If you’re going to eat a wriggling live shrimp – I guess Noma’s the place to do it.

 

The menu itself was a sensory assault – all delivered with panache and a sense of humour.  The signature dish of pickled vegetables and bone marrow was just as pretty as it looked on the TV and SO tasty.  One of my favourites – apart from the sublime horseradish snow with the razor clams wrapped in dill jelly – was when the chef lifted the lid off a big black casserole dish in front of me, to reveal an oyster steaming over hot pebbles and shells.  The experience of the sea was so real, it actually brought tears to my eyes.

 

After a meal like that, I was expecting to feel like Mr Creosote – just one more wafer-thin mint away from explosion, but we were actually chipper enough to take up Yorkshire chef Sam Miller’s offer of a tour of the kitchens.

 

Behind the scenes, it was just as calm and immaculate as the dining room.  Walking round the higgledy-piggledy rooms, everyone had a smile and showed us all their weird and wonderful gadgets and took us outside to where they barbecue in the open air for one of the dishes – even in the snow.  Upstairs, there were loads of chefs doing the most intricate preparation.  That crispy chicken skin herb sandwich thing that I scoffed in one big – ‘ hmmmm’ -  you’d never believe how much time that takes to make.  You’d have thought that seeing how it’s all done would ruin it, but actually it just added to the alchemy.

 

We came away reeling and a bit sozzled, but in a good way.  We stumbled into a Danish bar where things descended a bit, and then we took lots of silly pictures of us jumping around (as you do).  We just made it back to the airport in time for our flight home.  Don’t tell the chef, but I did have to have an Easyjet ham and cheese toastie on the way home, which in its own disgusting way was delicious.  From the sublime to the ridiculous in one day.  I think it’s going to take a while to recover.

Birthday Pressure

I have to admit it, I’ve been a bit rubbish on the birthday front recently.  I’m usually right on it, as far as all things birthday are concerned, but I’ve reached a plateau of birthday ennui about everyone else.  And now that Emlyn’s big four-oh is looming round the corner, I’m frozen in the headlights of Birthday Pressure.  What the hell am I going to get him?

But it’s not just family.  There’s lots of birthdays to remember at this time of year. Not to mention the children. The children!  There’s suddenly squidillions of them to remember – mine and everyone else’s.

It doesn’t help that time seems to have sped up this decade.  A year lasts about a month in old time.  So much so, that I’m thinking of instigating a leap year rule.  The rule shall state that you are entitled to remember a person’s birthday once every four years and still qualify as a good friend/relation/godparent.  But I know it won’t wash.

I’ve always  been susceptible to Birthday Pressure, as my own children will testify.  The need to create a wonderful, all-singing, all-dancing birthday celebration is my default setting.  And that, coupled with my conviction that I’m not a real mother unless I’ve baked and iced a jaw-dropping, photo-worthy slab of yummy cake, is a recipe for disaster.

Because I can’t bake.  As in, totally don’t get the fact that it’s scientific and you have to follow instructions.  I just can’t help myself going off-piste, so all of my efforts are a colossal disaster.   And I take baking failure very personally.  There’s always tears.

It’s particularly galling as I don’t really like cake in the first place – I’m more of an olive and salami kind of girl.  And I can’t see the point of spending all that money and effort icing a cake, when it’s just going to get covered in slobber from the candle-blowing out bit.  But can I readily admit to this and go all-out to embrace the shop-bought birthday cake?  Hmm.  Well I can…but with difficulty.  And even then, I lie, attempting to pass it off as my own.

This year, I came up with an ingenious plan and delegated the cake-making part of the Little One’s birthday on Saturday to my parents, using being ‘in transit’ as a brilliant excuse.  But it backfired, when Dad produced a huge and splendid cake and the children were so impressed, it rather reinforced my sense of being a rubbish mother.  If Grandad can do it, why can’t you?

I also kept schtum about the concept of hosting a party for the nursery kids, whipping the family off to a day at the zoo and an evening of bowling instead.  So the Little One came back from school yesterday and stood with her hands on her hips, indignant. ‘Why didn’t I have a birthday party, Mummy?’  And I said, ‘because you didn’t want one.’  And she said, ‘but I didn’t know I could have one.’  So I said, ‘You can.  Next year.’  But she still looked upset.

I also forgot a friend’s birthday at the beginning of last week, although she was on my mind.  Then to compound the error, I sent her a breezy text saying I hadn’t heard from her for a while.  When I listened to her return message, mentioning that she’d been to a spa for her birthday with another (clearly better) friend, my blood ran cold. Doh!

But Birthday Pressure is a problem for the busy working person.  Because even if you do remember the birthday the day before and throw money at the situation, I’m wondering whether sending a present from an online store direct to a friend, really counts as having made the appropriate present-choosing effort.  It may be efficient, but does it really show that you care?  Enough?

Amazon have given a nod to the problem by providing a gift wrapping service, but it costs a fortune, and it still doesn’t address the issue, that one hasn’t gone out to a local bookshop, chosen a book, written in it, wrapped it, packaged it up, queued at the post office and actually sent it.  In time for the actual birthday.

Annoyingly, we all have friends who get it right all of the time.  They’re usually a bit posh and have birthday calendars and reminders on their swanky iPhones.  They always send thoughtfully chosen cards to the children on time.  I’m always amazed and just a little bit jealous.

But we all pile on the Birthday Pressure, despite the new-fangled ways of getting round it.  Ecards  for example.  Great idea, but they just don’t cut it in the real world.  A friend’s step-mother recently went nuts because she’d sent her an ecard attached to an email on her birthday.  My friend thought it was an eco-friendly gesture, but certainly wasn’t interpreted that way the other end.

It all makes me think that what I really need is a wife.  A decent, proper wife, who can shop for natty little presents and funny cards and bake cakes and throw lovely parties for the kids.  And she could clean and tidy up in between.  Oh, and water the garden.  And maybe go on a diet for me. Wouldn’t that be heaven?

Working Lunch

I know I’m lucky to be a novelist, but I have to admit, sometimes I miss working in an office. Only because the lunches were so great.  Especially on Fridays.

Back in the days when I worked in Sales Promotion, flexing my literary talents by writing such copy gems as Honey Monster’s Soccer Pop-Up’s for the back of Sugar Puffs cereal boxes, we’d all down tools at lunchtime.   And even if there was a boardroom lunch and we had to stay in the building, it was always fun to nick sandwiches from the trays from the outside caterers, sneaking corners of coronation chicken from under the cling film.

But on Friday lunchtimes, we’d religiously pile into All Bar One to reward our week’s work with a big fat lunch and a couple of large glasses of chardonnay.   Oh, happy days.

The non-participation, non-event lunch is the writer’s curse. And the concept of a whole hour of free time in the day, outrageous.  You’d think since Emlyn and I both work at home and we’re kid-free at noon, that we’d slope off for long lunches, but the guilt is too great and the time for writing always too short.

But we still fantasize about lunch, like real working people do – usually from about 9.30am in my case.  But there’s no fancy ciabatta, or sun-dried tomato or salady nonsense round here.  Instead, ravenous at 1pm, we meet like cave-people down by the fridge to forage for last night’s leftovers.  Sometimes, we’ll splash out on some supermarket sushi, or take-away chips, but only on Fridays.

It’s not so bad now the sun has come out and we can eat our cold curry in the garden, but we eat and then get straight back to work.  Only yesterday, Emlyn was reminiscing about his old office lunch hours when he’d eat his sandwich in the park and ogle at all the girls for the other 58 minutes.  It’s not quite the same with just me.  And I don’t think my tracky bottoms are doing it for him.

But I have to admit that I get very jealous when I hear about people having a big corporate lunches.  Fancy being paid to do my favourite thing all the time.  I only get to have a lunch date once a month, if that.

We met a lovely MP on holiday last year who diets during August, because he has to attend so many big lunches the rest of the time.  I couldn’t bring myself to get the violins out.  And city boys are the worst culprits, although our rich friends say times are leaner these days.

But it’s not just them.  Publishers, of course,  are renowned for their lunching habits. There was once a fantastic panto at the end of the London Book Fair when a famous agent and publisher got up on stage to sing the ballad, ‘the long and winding lunch’, to the tune of The Beatles, ‘long and winding road’.  Never a truer word sung.

With that in mind, I’ve spent this week corrupting my fabulous new editor into a Friday  lunch date in May.  To be honest, it wasn’t that hard.  But I can’t wait.

In the meantime, my March lunch date is today.  (I’ll tell you about April’s exciting lunch plan in a future blog.)  I’m off to glam up to go to the AGM of ‘Rubbish Mothers’, an elite club of which I am a proud member.  It involves bunking off for a boozy lunch to a nice Thames-side restaurant with some wonderful girlfriends. Do I feel guilty?   Course I don’t.  The long and winding lunch and rubbish mothering go hand in hand.  Try it sometime.

Life lessons from a ten-year-old

How are your parenting skills?  On a good day, I’ll give myself an eight out of ten, I guess.  But you’re the first person I’ve told that to.

I’m not saying I’m a bad mother, I just don’t shout about being a good one.  But then, I don’t measure myself in the ways that other people do.  For example, I don’t get involved too much with mumsy school stuff.  In fact, I’m a total shirker when it comes to volunteering for committees and the thought of being the class rep fills me with dread.  What if they found out how often I take my kids to the pub?

So I hardly ever read the scores of emails that come round from all the other more dedicated mothers every week.  I work on the principle that if there’s something really important I should know about, I’ll get to hear about it eventually.  I’m not into monitoring every aspect of my child’s education. I’m more in the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ camp.

So it was very refreshing when the new headmistress sent round a letter this week and I perked up and took notice, for once.  She’s on a mission to teach our ten-year-old kids some ‘life skills’ before they go up to senior school.  On her list, among many suggestions, are a touch typing course, a first aid course with St John’s ambulance, a cycling proficiency course, a cookery course, and an introduction to trading a fantasy portfolio on the stock exchange.  As well as visits from guest speakers and a stint doing some community service.

See? Education can be innovative and good after all.  Those are all fabulous things to teach a ten-year-old.  And thank God, because the older I get, the less sure I am about the practical life skills I’m capable of imparting myself. OK, so I can  touch type at the speed of light, but I’m not entirely sure how to carry out a Heimlich manoeuvre and the only stocks I’ve ever owned have promptly plummeted.

Of course that wouldn’t be so bad, but I’m not such a great role model at the more trivial side of life either.  The other stuff my ten-year-old really wants to know about – namely, how to look cool.

But me and blow drying hair? Skilfully applying make-up?  Fashion?  Help!

I put it down to the terrible training I had myself.  My early days were spent being dragged around Marks and Spencer’s with my mother and making do with hand-me-down clothes from my elder sister. My teens were spent copying what Tracey Woods bought from Miss Selfridge (remember Iron Lady lipstick?).  My twenties involved getting pissed in the pub, then doing a smash and grab for clubbing gear on Kensington High Street, and my thirties were spent mostly in pregnancy clothes.  And so now, in my forties, I’ve wound up with many, many pairs of jeans that don’t fit, a host of outdated party frocks and some truly shameful T-shirts.  Where’s my skilfully put together designer wardrobe? I always thought I’d have one when I reached this age. Where did all that go wrong?

The Big One caught Gok on the TV the other day.  ‘Why don’t you ever buy clothes like that, Mum?’ she asked. Good question.

So I took her to Zara on Saturday for some retail action.  I can’t say therapy.  I find shopping far too stressful.  It’s the basics I can’t get right.  Like, the second I walked in, I was too hot.  How do you regulate your body temperature in a shopping mall? How come all the other shoppers look comfortable and aren’t lugging round their huge parker over their arm?

I picked up lots of clothes, but then balked at the idea of queuing for the changing rooms, so I queued instead to pay for them, huffing and puffing and feeling insecure.  Three-quarter length zippy jeans and a backless t-shirt?  Sky-scraping orange heels?  With these bunions?

The only item that actually worked (and that I won’t now be taking back) was a spotty blue scarf The Big One chose and I said we could share as it was twenty quid.  The trendy assistant at the till folded it up and said, ‘Good choice.  This is the best thing in the store.’

I stared a the Big One, a whole new thought occurring to me.  What if she could teach me? What if a miracle has happened and I’ve accidentally bred my own fashion guru, who can effortlessly mix ‘n’ match charity, Top Shop and designer pieces?  What if she turns out to be thrifty and cool in the way that I’ve never been?  Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Maybe being a good parent isn’t about imparting life skills to your children, but learning skills from them instead?   OK, so my three-year-old is a bit young to be teaching me anything of value soon.  But surely it’s only a matter of time.

And in the mean time, with my more practical deficiencies, I’m volunteering as a ‘helper’ for the life skills course.  I’ll let you know what useful stuff I pick up.

Check-out. The new rage.

I love a new product.  I’m a sucker for them.  Especially cleaning products.  I had the first Dyson vac, which was so heavy I lost my big toenail the first time I used it.  And remember The Swiffer? I wandered around the house like the lady on the advert showing my dust to anyone who would look.

 

Dishwasher products were my fad for a bit.  But after extensive powerball research, I  can exclusively reveal that cheapo powder works best. Fact.  I draw the line at air fresheners, though. I  tried one out once in the playroom, but strangely I never experienced the ‘Tibetan peace chimes’ or the ‘freshness of a mountain stream’, when I opened the door.  Only rotten apple core and something unspeakable on the bottom of a discarded trainer.

 

Beauty products are another one of my early adoption vices.  It’s always been so. Who can forget Apri, a ground-up almond facial wash that took the entire surface of your skin off?  That certainly got rid of my teen blackheads.

 

I’m hopelessly gullible when it comes to the whiff of a new product.  When Gwyneth mentioned this week in a magazine that she bathes in Epsom Salts, I put in a request for some on Emlyn’s Superdrug run.  ‘They don’t have them in stock,’ he announced on his return, ‘the Victorians used the last of them.’

 

It’s no surprise, then, that they love me in Space NK. I had one of their first swanky black ‘N.dulge’ cards with my name on it and I have more lipsticks that don’t suit me than I care to count.  But oooh.  Filler.  That sounds good.  And look at the shiny packaging.  So new…

 

So you’ll see it follows that when my local supermarket recently brought in a scanner system, where you could scan your shopping and plop it straight in your bag – or in my case, my fetching granny trolley – I was chomping at the bit to sign up with my jazzy pink store card.

 

I was an immediate convert, shouting loudly about my super speedy shopping.  It was all going swimmingly until I went shopping with the Middle One at Christmas.  The crafty Miss managed to sneak in a big tin of Quality Street into our trolley.  When we came to pay, smugly bypassing the huge queues at the checkout, they demanded a rescan and we were nicked.  So now I’m on some kind of blacklist.  And every time I shop, more often than not, I get asked for a rescan, even though I shop there all the time.

 

So, on Monday, Emlyn and I went shopping together.  Bad mistake.  Shopping solo is surely one of the true benefits of being married for over ten years. I picked up my  scanner, ‘Welcome Mrs Rees,’ it told me, ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking it out of the slot, Emlyn pulled a face and told me that it was another new-fangled fad of mine and it took far long.

 

‘You’re wrong,’ I told him.  ‘I shall prove it.’  So we did our shop together in a rather scratchy way, him harrumphing about me carefully scanning everything.

 

But when we came to pay, infuriatingly, I was asked for a rescan.

 

The look on Emlyn’s face sent me orbital.   I had to ask him to leave the store, so I could loose my rag in private.  I have since had an email of apology from Customer Services about the subsequent ‘scene’, but it’s taken me all week to get over my sense of injustice.

 

Having not being back to the said supermarket in protest, we went to the other one across the road to buy some Special K this morning (as you do).  I was amazed when Emlyn chose to use the self service checkout.  Fool!  ‘It won’t work,’ I gloated. Besides, he didn’t want a bag, didn’t have a Nectar card and was paying with a fifty pound note.  The machine can’t cope with that. He had to call the assistant….twice…and ended up going to the checkout when the self service machine self combusted.  So it’s not just me.

 

Which leads me to conclude that the moral is that it’s all very well to be an early-adopter, but old-fashioned bottle bleach and Pond’s Cold Cream still work the best.  And in life, sometimes you just can’t avoid the checkout.