Handbags at tea-time

 Husband and I are walking the dog when he tells me.

'You won't believe the ad that popped up next to my emails today.  A targeted ad.  It was outrageous.'

'Really?  What was it for?'

He's tall, my husband, but right now he stands - if possible - even taller.  I wonder why he's adopting that posture; elongating his neck, lifting his chin.  

'It was... an ad for a neck and facial exercise regime.  To help you get rid of jowls.'  He's affronted.  'Jowls?  I don't have jowls!'

He's right, he doesn't, which makes it ok to laugh.  'You're not serious?'

He pulls out his phone.  'Yes!  Look, I'll show it to you...'

I cut him off.  'God no, please don't.  I believe you, of course you got the ad.  I meant, are you seriously surprised?  We are in our fifties, after all.'

He's incredulous.  'Yes, but that doesn't mean they have to send me that shit.'

Now it's my turn to be affronted.  'OK.  This is yet another difference between men & women.  I get that crap in my feed every day.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I could show you a long list of ads that are offensive about the concept of what I, as a 50-something women, am expected to look like, care about, deal with - so many in fact, that I've stopped registering them,'

He seems surprised.  'Like what?.

'Oh god.  The list is endless.'  I think for a moment.  'So just before we came out, a repeat offender popped up.  Promoting an app for a keto diet.' I describe the infographic that shows a woman in different decades; teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties.  (Apparently there's no need to show the woman in her seventies because obviously she'll be in a home with a zimmer frame by then and not offending the world with her continued aging process. Or dead.).

'It's all fine until they picture what a woman in her fifties is supposed to look like.  Portly, flat-footed, slightly hunched, stocky-legged, wearing her hair in a ruddy bun, and-' by now my voice is so high with indignation that it's possible only the dog can hear me - 'with a fucking handbag looped over her arm like the queen.  Or a nana, about to hand you £5 as special treat on your 21st birthday.  At fifty.  I'm fifty four.  Do I look that?'

Both husband and the dog wisely stay silent.

Snacks, Lockdown style

 Husband walks into the kitchen as I'm measuring 50g of cornflakes into a bowl already containing 350g of porridge oats.

'What's that for?'

'I'm making flapjacks*'.

'What?  I thought they were healthy!'

'What on earth do you mean?' I'm bemused.

'Well, cornflakes.' I look at him blankly. 'They're processed.  Not exactly healthy.'

'Are you serious?'

'Yes.'

'Ok...'

He leaves the room, whilst I consider the 100g golden syrup, 175g soft brown sugar and 175g unsalted butter that I'm about to melt and add to the mix.

On balance, I decide, it's probably best not to mention those ingredients.  Instead, I'll leave him to enjoy the chewy deliciousness of the finished product without having his illusions of healthy eating completely shattered....

* UK flapjacks, not the US stacked pancake version.  

Disclaimer: Not a breakfast food.  Not a diet food.  Not healthy, as such.  But ruddy gorgeous, and essential in our Lockdown home.

Lockdown Laundry. Or, I'm Spartacus.

Husband and I are on our way to a socially-distanced drink with good friends when he glances down and tuts.

'My shorts are a bit mucky.  I need to get them washed.'

I blink.  This is too good.  'Get them washed?'

Husband realises his mistake and tries to backtrack.  'I only meant-'

'Get them washed?  You make it sound as if you're planning to send them out to the laundry.'

'I didn't-'

I'm laughing and so is he. 'That's very grand.  Are we people who send our washing out now?  To a laundry?  You do know that the laundry is standing next to you.  I'm the laundry.'

He's apologetic.  'Yes.  I know.  Sorry.   God, I'm not going to live this one down, am I?'

'I don't know what you mean...'

When we reach our friends, I am proud to say that I manage to keep the above conversation to myself for all of fifteen minutes.


For more posts on Lockdown Life, click here

Lockdown Haircuts...

It may be that you are one of those organised people who, when Lockdown started to loom on the not-so distant horizon, organised hair cuts for everybody in their family.  

I am not that person.

Or, it may well be that you already owned - or placed an early order for delivery of - haircutting scissors and clippers, to do the job yourself.  Guess what? I'm not that person either.  

You may, instead, be someone who has an admirably relaxed attitude to the whole Lockdown Hair issue, and has shelved it until the world returns to some kind of normal.  What's a little long hair, after all?  But no, that's not me.

I am, instead, the person who didn't think about haircuts at all before Lockdown started, and then continued not to think about them for another couple of weeks after that.  Although the odd  'Boy #2's hair is looking quite interesting', thought crossed my mind there was so much to think about with home-school etc it took yet more time before I bit the bullet and tried to find now almost-impossible-to-get hairclippers online.  Throw in long delays to promised delivery dates, cancellations and reorders, and by the time they arrived the men in my life had begun to look 1970's throwbacks - or the hair-bear bunch.

Thank the lord, the hair clippers finally arrived on Friday.  

Boy #1 was first to the slaughter.  Except, it wasn't - a slaughter, that is.  I had decided that some prep would be a good idea and thanks to my bloggy mate Toni Hargis (aka Expat Mum), I found Nevsy Zee on YouTube.  I can recommend taking a look (not a promotion, I promise) since as a result I didn't make too much of a hash of Boy #1's hair when we tackled it yesterday.  Not saying that anyone should pay me for my efforts, mind you - he looks a little bouffant around the edges - but still.

Unfortunately that led to an excess of confidence - for me, Boy #1, and my next victim.  Our learnings from this experience are set out below, for the benefit of all...

• Whatever your husband and son say, it is not a good idea to give your 16 year old a set of hair clippers and let him 'have a go' on his father's head. (Actually, I suspect that you already knew that). 
• Once you wrest back control of the clippers to try and repair the damage, be aware that for some reason the less hair a person has, the more difficult it is to give them a presentable haircut.  (Just saying).
• Fun fact: if a person has greying temples and you cut their hair really short (perhaps as requested or perhaps - ahem - by mistake) then it looks like they have bald spots on that part of their head.
• Finally, it is important to always - ALWAYS - check the length setting on a set of clippers.  This will ensure that when you pick them up again after a fit of panicked hysterical laughter at the previously-mentioned looks-like-bald-spots, the setting is the same as it was before you put it down.  Otherwise you may end up using a shorter setting, and giving them actual bald spots where their hair is a different colour, where this misfortune shows up even more clearly.

You're welcome.

(Needless to say, Boy #2 has passed on the home haircut.  Smart boy).

For more posts on Lockdown living in the time of CoVid19, click here.

Lockdown Gardening

I am not a natural gardener.  Neither am I an enthusiastic one; the sheer frustration of spending time weeding, clipping, mowing or pruning only to find just a few days later that you have to do it all again is not for me.  I like my hard labour to have long-lasting results, not just a couple of days of smug satisfaction whilst looking out on a well-ordered flower bed.

Generally, my approach to keeping our garden reasonably presentable is hit and run; if I find myself with both time and inclination then I may pull out the messiest looking weeds or cut back the rose that is threatening to obscure the kitchen window, but other than that I treat our outside space with benign disinterest.  Our better-organised neighbours probably hate it.  That said, I've been spending more time outside recently so have been paying more attention to what's going on out there...

This morning, as I look out at the pouring rain and contemplate just how wet the Dog and I are going to get when we venture out, I find myself - foolishly - thinking out loud.

'You know, the moss on the lawn isn't as bad as I thought.'

Husband breaks off from his ceaseless perusal of various news streams.  'How do you mean?'

'Well, you can see it from up here (I'm standing at our bedroom window), but as far as I can tell, the people either side of us - and either side of them - have it far worse.'

'Huh.'

'Although D, at the far end - his lawn is practically perfect.'

'Of course it is.  But D's a maniac in the garden.'

There's a pause whilst we both consider the madness of being emotionally invested in one's garden.  Then;

'Does it make you feel like you've won, then?  That we've got less moss?'

I'm horrified.  'No!  Of course not! Gardening shouldn't be a competition.  It's just, you know...'

'That you're happy we've got less moss.'

'Yes.'

'Because you've won.'

Goddamit, he's right.

Lockdown conversations

It's amazing how attractive a trip to the local Sainsbury's becomes when the alternative is these four walls, isn't it?  Husband and I have taken to divvying up trips to the supermarket as a sort of illicit treat, now that it's our only way to get further from the house than the couple of circular miles we cover on dog walks

It's been great having him at home for such an extended period of time, but Husband's more frequent than usual assumption of Lockdown Hunter Gatherer duties has had some adverse effects.  Household snackage has gone up, mainly due to the fact that crisps and dips are being purchased at higher frequency than usual.  The cost of our shopping has increased (see previous note about snackage). The fridge was deemed to be ineffeciently filled, so has been 'reorganised'.  Not emptied out and cleaned, you understand; just reorganised (mainly to make space for beer). There have been suggestions made that the food in the storeage cupboard be itemised on a spreadsheet. (Be my guest, I said.  It hasn't happened yet, for some reason).  And a certain level of executive oversight on the contents of said fridge has been in evidence.

I give you Exhibit #1, m'lud.

Husband, standing in front the fridge, sighs disapprovingly: 'Look at this.'

Me:  'Look at what?'

Husband:  'These grapes.'

I look.  'They seem fine to me.'

He tuts.  'No.  Look there; the best before date.  It was yesterday.'

Me:  'Well, they are in the fridge, so... I'm not that bothered.'

Husband: 'But that's why they are at the front of the shelf - so we could see the date.  So that they could be taken out of the fridge and used.'

Me:  'Oh.  I see.  You're right, of course.  If only there was someone other than me who could open the fridge, check the date and take them out so they could be eaten.'


Reader, we left it there.

WFH - WTF? (When Lockdown gets real)

As a result of Covid 19 my husband, the inveterate traveller, is being forced to work from home (wfh) for at least the next three weeks.

Send wine.

We've been here before, for longer than that. One of the best things about writing a blog is that you can search up a word on your old posts and be transported back in time - my own personal Tardis.  (Boy #2 and I are currently working our way through the back catalogue of 'Dr Who'.  Matt Smith is the current doctor - a personal high point for me).  Anyway, I managed to find a post I wrote back in 2008 when my husband was made redundant from the bank he worked for.  He was wfh home for around 4 months - on and off - and it prompted this observation:  

We've already had the arguments over my incorrect stacking of the dishwasher. I am ineffecient, apparantly. Are the plates clean? I ask. That's not the point, I'm told. I bite my tongue. (I am doing a lot of that recently). We reach a compromise: I won't mention the un-emptied gym bag or the coffee cups left around the place, he mustn't criticise the way I stack the blasted dishwasher.

That was two weeks into his 2008 wfh experience.  Only two weeks.

Like I said; send wine.  Send ALL the wine.

Diamonds may last forever, but skoda's don't...

Dear Purple Skoda,

I really thought that this was a letter I would never have to write. I honestly believed that you would be part of our lives for ever, growing ever more crotchety - but still just about going - for many years to come, and yet hear we are, a mere 7 years after first meeting, saying our goodbyes.

I remember when we first met. I was 3 weeks off my due date with Boy #1, and Husband had finally bowed to Realism and accepted that our days of being young cosmopolitan Londoners who used public transport to get everywhere, only hiring a car when we needed to leave the capital, were over. Since I had always been the one to deal with transport issues up until then (having mostly been the one gifted with company cars), I decided that this time he could do the legwork, and let him get on with sourcing a suitable vehicle whilst I concentrated on finishing up at the office before going on maternity leave, and waddling around like a very hot duck at the end of the 2003 summer heatwave.

So when, the day after I shut down my laptop for the last time in 6 months and left work weighed down by good wishes and goodluck cards, I did so in the certain knowledge that when we went to the second hand car dealer the next day (getting there by tube, obviously), he would not have let me down.

Well, he didn't. Exactly. But he did wait until we were almost there, me sweating and sailing along like a ship in full sail, before announcing that he had already spied a suitable car on the website. "I'm not sure you're going to like it" he said nervously. Safe in my pregnancy bubble, I remained as serene as it was possible to be for a nearly nine month pregnant woman walking along in 30degC temperatures, and in need of the loo and vast quantities of cold water at the same time. A Ford Focus? A Clio, perhaps? How bad could it get? My husband, after all, is something of a petrol head. Of course he would pick us a good car!

What I had forgotten, however, was that as well as being a petrol head, my husband was also Dutch; a nation famed on mainland Europe for being 'careful' with money.

"It's a skoda" he mumbled.

I stopped, and looked at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"And it's purple".

"You're not kidding."

Not, perhaps, the most auspicious start to a relationship. But , dear skoda, you have done us proud over the last 7 years. You might not be the coolest car on the block, or even an acceptable colour, but your big boot enabled us to transport 2 children and their various accessories, over more trips to Holland and the West Country than I care to think about. Sure, there were rare incidents where you decided to throw a hissy fit; that time in a torrential rainstorm at midnight in Belgium, for example. When Husband decided to wash down your engine. Or when you decided we should splash out on a new exhaust. Or two.

But overall, you've been a good friend, ignoring the leaf-litter of papers, sweet wrappers and coke cans that rattled around on the floor, and proving good-humoured about always being the dirtiest car on the block (Husband still swears that our neighbours thought you belonged to the cleaners and that they probably all thought we weren't paying them enough...).

It was only when we pushed you too far, ignoring your pleas for more coolant, that you finally gave out on Husband on the M25 in rush hour one evening and threw in the towel for good. (And no, I won't remind you of how I repeatedly asked him if we should pay attention to the little light on the dashboard and of how he laughed at me and told me not to be so silly, there would never be anything wrong with you...).

So now it's goodbye, dear skoda. I have no doubt that your replacement - when we finally return to live in Blighty, whenever that may be - will probably be just as uncool and just as good value for money as you ever were. But I must admit that I do rather hope that in one respect, it will be different.

Please, not purple.

Best wishes,

PM x

Summer-time - and does anyone have any diocalm handy?

I'm falling behind on my blog reading. I'm also falling behind on replying to comments, Twitter, newspapers, books, and practically everything that doesn't involve bouncing around in a pool with small children, soaking up the sun and regretting the croissant with butter and honey I had for breakfast.

But hey, you only live once.

I do, however, want to ask you one question;

Do you, like me, sometimes wonder how you came to partner up with a man so similar to one of your parents?

My sister, for example, married a man who has much in common with our mother (if it's possible to say that without making him out to be some sort of emasculated person, which he most definitely is not). And I? Well, I often wonder if I have ended up with a close copy of my father.

For example, Dad was something of a workaholic when I was growing up. (He still is, actually. Which is a neat trick when you're supposed have retired already.) Most of the time this manifested itself in not being around too much during the week (at least when we children were awake), and being on something of short fuse for much of the rest of the time. (Hmm...). And when it came time for the holidays, you could bet that the first 3 days or so would be wasted due to the fact that he would come down with some illness that pounced on his lowered immune system the moment he slowed down his normal frenetic pace and the adrenalin disappeared from his body.

Ah.

I don't think I'm stretching the point too much when I think of my beloved languishing upstairs still suffering the after-effects of his stomach upset on Saturday if I say this pattern of behaviour bears certain... similarities... to those displayed by my father. (And no. This is not a one-off).

So I'm wondering. Is it that I've essentially chosen a man who has many of the same qualities I admire in my father (in this instance; being a hard worker, incredibly focused, and with an eye on the long term goal rather than a short-term easy life) and which of course have similardown-sides (finding it hard to slow down, getting ill when he does)? And do we all do the same thing of looking for traits we respect in our parents when we choose a partner?

Or does this sick-holiday syndrome happen to everyone and I'm just reading too much into it?

Yesterday's definition of 'Idiocy'..

... is deciding, whilst making a relish for a bbq, to check that the chilli peppers you're using are not as bland as they look by touching your hand to your mouth after chopping them up.

And yesterday's definition of 'Relief' is discovering that the myth about a drink of milk helping to remove chilli-oil from your tongue does actually have some basis in fact, after all.

Whilst today's definition of 'Disbelief' is the discovery that your Husband has taken your lap-top charger away to London with him for the week. (Cue 'The Scream' face as you contemplate a week on your own with the kids in Moscow without blogging, e-mail, internet and - for fuck's sake - Skype. Apologies for the cursing by the way, but really - no access to any of the above would make any expat blogger use a few choice expletives, I promise...).

(And today's definition of 'A Reprieve - for Him' is the discovery that if you cannibalise one of his redundant lap-tops you are able to replace the missing part with no harm done. But sssh - we're not going to share that with him yet. Are we?)