Weighing the odds

Today, I took a brave step back into territory I haven’t dared enter for more than three years.

I weighed myself.

It’s something I’ve assiduously avoided for a long time. I knew the numbers that it blinked back at me – even stark naked, with newly-shorn hair and after a visit to the littlest room – would not be happy ones.

They would stare back accusingly at me, defying me to feel good about myself in the face of evidence of my obvious gluttony and general piggery. And in doing so, they would rip my self-esteem to shreds, despite the fact that I know I have many qualities unrelated to what size jeans I wear, and I have lovely friends and family who judge me for ME, and not whether my undies are teeny-weeny thongettes or the biggest pair of control knickers M&S can churn out. 

And yet, just a few numbers on the scales display can cancel out all the positive and return me to that gibbering lump of insecurity that haunted my teen years.

So for the past few years, my closest contact with the bathroom scales has been making the sign of the cross as I walk past them, occasionally throwing some holy water in their direction and hissing like a scalded cat when someone suggested hopping on them. 

It was either that or surrender and submit myself to a very 40-something rage against the machine.

I’m a big girl, always have been, and tall with it. Think Miranda, but less posh and with the kind of chunky thighs that make me look like a human representation of a bell-curve. But despite my bulk, I’ve always been healthy and active. My bulk has never stopped me doing a thing, except hold my head high and come back with a witty reposte worthy of Dorothy Parker when a pasty, spotty stick insect of a shop assistant looks me up and down with a look of thinly-veiled disgust before announcing loudly to the entire store that “We don’t have anything in YOUR size”.

But I recently decided that after years of accepting middle-aged frumpiness, it was high time to take myself in hand and DO something. To take control and refuse to go quietly into the menopause that’s lurking somewhere around the next corner, or at most a couple of blocks down from it.

I’ve changed my way of eating and I’ve hit the gym with a vengeance. I feel good. My clothes are a little looser, I have more energy and parts of me stop wobbling a little sooner after I’ve stopped jumping up and down  in front of the mirror than they did a month ago. (You may ask why I jump and down in front of the mirror? Don't, it’s another story, for another day.)

And now I’ve succumbed to the propaganda of lost pounds and swallowed the story that I have to track what (if anything) is falling off me as a result of all my efforts. So today, I stripped down to my trusty M&S undies, took a deep breath and stepped on.

On the plus side, there was no scream of electronic agony, or a panic-stricken robotic voice telling me “One at a time,  please!” but the number was much more than anyone would be prepared to admit to in public, private or even the safety of the cupboard under the stairs. 

Of course, I knew it would be. But that didn't stop me wincing and feeling a wave of self-disgust and defeatism threaten to engulf me. I hopped off those scales quicker than a Chinese gymnast can dismount the asymmetric bars, I can tell you.

While the dreaded number is – and will remain – a closely guarded secret, at least now I have something to compare to when I bravely drag the dreaded confidence-buster out from its hiding place again next month.

But I will not, repeat NOT, be getting back on again a moment sooner!

Everybody’s an expert – ‘til there’s work to be done

What springs to mind when you think of a ‘creative type’?

A chain-smoking renegade (at least in their own little universe) who refuses to play by the rules and flaunts their tardiness for carefully-planned meetings (‘cos they were ‘caught up in the muse, man’)?

A fluffy-haired purple-clad mystic dripping with paganistic pendants and Tarot cards?

A coked-up ad exec talking Blue Sky bollocks at a thousand words a minute without pausing for breath or to listen to anything anyone else has to say?

Or some frazzled fiend sitting in the corner of an office trying to juggle projects, massage egos, read minds, keep within the lines of corporate compliance, beg and bully those who fail to deliver on promises, chase approvals and meet deadlines from another dimension, whilst all the time keeping a fixed corporate grin on their face and wracking their brains for a ‘creative’ way to deliver the same tired old message time and time again?

In case you haven’t already guessed, I am not entirely unbiased. Some people might classify as me as one of those ‘creative type’ (though other might just say ‘word drudge’ or even ‘glorified typist’). Yes, dear reader, I work in corporate communications, PR, or whatever you like to call it.

Creativity is like a sense of humour, love of music, or affection for cute baby animals. No-one likes to admit that they don’t have it.

Unfortunately, few are prepared to do the legwork required to transform a spark of inspiration into a comprehensive, coherent and effective advertising campaign. The minute the process gets boring, they toss it back. And, more often than not, our best efforts get knocked back in the end, because “none of our competitors are doing it that way” (surely, that’s the whole point?). But, on the other hand, we do serve as a convenient whipping boy (or girl) when an ill-advised campaign we’ve argued against from the start falls flat on its face.

 
This week, a colleague was asked to create a generic ad for services the company provides to a very heavy industry sector. Fair enough, you might say. But she was told to make the ad ‘at least humourous’ (as we all know, heavy industry is an untapped barrel of laughs, isn’t it?) because some other suppliers’ ads that make ours look ‘dull’.
He also wanted to list all the relevant points, add a map or two and “make it look professional”.

Just the kind of dream brief you could wait a lifetime for. (Good thing he mentioned the professional thing – we had been considering sending him a picture a clown done in crayons by a friend’s cute six-year-old.)

Ok, we thought, we’re up to the challenge. Could he give us an idea of the sort of humour he had in mind? The response: “Don’t really know – I leave that up to you ‘creative types’.” [Note: the inverted commas were his, not ours]

Heavy sigh. Deep breath. Count to ten. Try again.

Maybe they could send us some examples of the ads from competitors that he felt showed the spark or humour that he felt ours lack? Silence was the loud reply. Nada. Not a dicky bird.

We’re now putting our poor brains through the creative mangle to come up with a new angle that will avoid the standard approach this manager deems dull, whilst keeping it professional and within the guidelines set for the company’s publicity materials.

 

Despite our resolve not to let it spill into our weekend, we know we’ll be stressing over it as we plod away on the gym treadmill, rinse the working week off us in the shower, sit down to our evening meal and battle to get some sleep. And there’s a good chance that it will invade our dreams and have us waking in a sweat of panic in the small hours.

Why? Because someone who's an undoubted expert in his own field thinks he can come into OUR field, armed with a mental monster truck and race around in circles for a while turning it into a muddy mess, then toddle off and leave us ‘creative types’ to clean up the debris.

We would never assume to tell a pilot, a mechanic, an architect, a brain surgeon or even an accountant how to do their jobs. They’re the experts. We let them get on with it. So why, oh why, does everybody think they can do our jobs better than we can?

In praise of Hair Majesty

We live in the Age of Me.

An era in which women are finally claiming their right to “Me Time” in which we stop stressing out about work, soothing the Other Half during his latest bout of Man Flu, making a mental itinerary of how empty the fridge is or how full the laundry basket, and attending to the demands of assorted offspring’s homework and extra-curricular shenanigans.

Or so the glossy magazines tell us, in between the articles on how to burn the optimum calories whilst achieving multiple orgasms (ha!) every time(ha ha!) – and look great in the process (falls off chair in hysterics).

We know we should be doing it, because all around us we hear of friends, colleagues, cousins-in-law, even strangers on the bus, talking about their appointments for massages, nail sculpting, massages, seaweed wraps (and not the sort you eat), colonic irrigation (WAY too much information!), yoga sessions, teeth whitening,  intensive circuit training, tan sprays and other me-affirming activities.

I get knackered just eavesdropping on their conversations. Where DO they find the time?

Personally, I’m a pretty low-maintenance kinda gal. My idea of pampering is ignoring the pile of unironed shirts and the teetering tower of plates waiting in the kitchen sink, and kicking back to watch a movie of MY choice with a brimming glass of vino on a Friday night.

I’ve had a grand total of two massages in nearly five decades on this earth. The first was undertaken in the line of duty in my days as a junior reporter on a local rag, writing about one of the first aromatherapy massage parlours to open in our corner of South London in the early 1980s. The other, two decades later, was at the hands of a kind and newly-trained friend. I enjoyed them both, but not enough to dig out a gap in my schedule and hole in my monthly budget.

Facials are a virtual unknown for me. Professionals have attacked (and tutted over) my pores just three times. And as for nails? Well, I’ve only HAD nails for the past 18 months, so you can imagine how many times I’ve trotted myself off to the local manicurist.

But even I, the Queen of Scruff, have one regular pampering treat that always lifts my spirits and give me a break from the drudge-filled reality of my mundane life.

Every month, without fail, I head for my trusted hairdresser for a trim, some chat and the royal treatment. I’ve been going to the same place for years. They know me. They know all my preferences and foibles - from my aversion to hairspray, to my insistence on running my hands through my newly-trimmed and crimped locks to 'scruff it up'. They know how I drink my coffee and which stories from the regulars will make me laugh. They know what suits me, not just in terms of face shape, hair type and excess baggage carried around the jawline, but also in personality. They know that the way I wear my hair (short and bright dyed red) is the way I want to present myself to the world, but also has to be easy enough to fit into my busy schedule.

They 'get' me' - and I wouldn’t change them for the world. My pet snipper Mika is under strict instructions not to retire until I go bald.

I’m due for a cut again soon and have already booked my regular appointment next week, but this time I’m going to treat myself and let Mika loose with her paintbrush. And I can’t wait to step out of the shop into the spring sunshine, spiky bits bouncing in the breeze and copper and black highlights glinting in the light, and walk home to present the latest reinvention of Me to the boys back home.

If I’m lucky, they may notice I’ve “had something done”.

But whatever I have done isn’t for them. It’s for me. It’s my little indulgence that even in times of violin-string tight purse strings and the relentless soundtrack of gloom and doom that accompanies much of modern life helps remind me that – yes – I AM worth it.

So, here’s to the hairdressers – and all the other Me service providers – who help us preserve our sense of self (and our sanity) when the going gets tough.

Long may they reign!

(Re)Boot Camp

Spring is well and truly sprung and with the green shoots sprouting everywhere, a new desire to take control and reinvent myself has started growing within me.

The winter has been a big fallow period in all sorts of ways – I’ve been on the work-home-work treadmill (with most of the home bits curled up on front of a screen or cooking up a storm in the kitchen), I’ve stuffed my face, I've convinced myself that I'm now too old to care about how I look, and I’ve neglected my writing (you know, the stuff no-one pays me for).

The result? I look and feel like a spud. Not one of those gorgeous  smooth-skinned little new potatoes appearing again round this time of the year. No, more like the lumpen old King Edward that's been forgotten at the bottom of the bag and is now rather squidgy to the touch.

Time to do something about it, methinks.
And why not get back into my blogging groove to write about it whilst I’m at it, I tell myself?

I’ve made a major review of my eating habits (not good) and am now limiting what I eat to a minimum on certain days and eating freely on others. Three weeks in, I’m shocked to find that on my ‘free’ days I’m NOT diving into the bread bin, devouring a small French village worth of cheese or throwing small children aside to get to the chocolate aisle in the supermarket. If anything, I’m eating smaller portions and snacking less, safe in the knowledge that if I fancy a little bit of something I can have it – and without the usual guilt strings attached wherever I have put myself on a diet in the past. So far, so good. It’s early days yet and I don’t expect to see real results for a while (but I AM now wearing a ring that I haven’t been able to fit on my finger for the past five years).   

Phase Two came came this week, when I squeezed myself (lumps and all) into my gym gear, laced up my trainers, carefully avoided all mirrors like an incognito vampire and hit the treadmill – the real one – at my local gym. I’ve plodded away the miles and ended up exactly where I started. I’ve subjected myself to various instruments of torture that tease and tense and pull at muscles I’d forgotten I ever had. I’ve worked up a most unladylike sweat and gone a rather alarming shade of red. And it felt good.

I’ve had to lock my ego in the Naughty Cupboard for the duration of my work-outs. If I let her out to play, she’ll bring her depressing sisters Self-Doubt and Defeatism along - and they’d be sure to throw a fit the minute they spotted a glimpse of a large, wobbly, middle-aged woman throwing herself about and looking like a badly pitched scout’s tent flapping in the wind.

Oddly enough, although I cringe at the sight of my tracksuit-straining thunder thighs, sigh at the untamed flab around my middle and stare in horror at my meaty upper arms as I lift the mini bar-bells, no-one else seems to notice. As I take a sneaky peak around, I see that all the body beautiful 20- and 30-somethings around me are far too engrossed in themselves to point and laugh at me.

See that muscle-bound hunk grunting to lift the equivalent of a small family car in the corner? He’s more worried about not letting the bar slip and smash into his artfully unshaven face – and perhaps wondering if he needs to get his chest waxed at the weekend (ow!).

The perfectly proportioned gym bunny with the look of hunger (and you can bet it’s REAL hunger) on the ski-master? She’s just trying to catch the eye of the muscle-hunk, whilst presenting her pert derriere to the world and taking care not to smudge her mascara. Maybe she's also trying to work out why, despite all her hard work to achieve physical perfection, she can't seem to find a decent man - and might a few Botox shots make the difference?

The chap who's been running (yes, running) on the treadmill for the past 2 hours? Ever wondered what he’s running from?

As I plod my way through my routine, I try to ignore the scruffy, beetroot-faced old biddy waving at me from the mirrored walls, and remember that we all have our insecurities, we all have our problems, we all have our doubts. None of us is perfect, even if it might look that way to others.

But finally taking the first step to doing something about it feels good.

Emerging from the cave….

What are you lot still doing here?

That’s not the way it was supposed to go.

When I holed myself up in a cave deep beneath suburban Athens, armed only with a bumper shipment of Pot Noodles, a silo of teabags and six months’ worth of 'Crosswords for Idiots Weekly', it was in the sure and certain knowledge that I would have the place to myself when I emerged just after the Winter Solstice.

No longer would I have to worry about the unpaid bills staring accusingly at me in a pile of guilt on the kitchen table. No more would I have to wait in line at the supermarket behind the little old lady trying to pay for a year’s supply of cat food with her collection of five-cent coins. Nor would I have to fend off the attentions of smiling men with dirty sponges oh-so-keen to clean my windscreen at every traffic light, or resist the urge to throw accordions out of train windows when angelic faced urchins disrupt my morning commute with 'Lady of Spain' (on an Athens train, for heaven’s sake).

No, I’d have the place to myself. And though I might get a little bored, I’d no longer have to ‘make nice’, dress up or wear shoes for the sake of getting along with the rest of the world. In short, my world would be…. me.

Imagine my dismay then when I unbolted the 15 padlocks, rolled away a boulder worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, opened two sets of metal doors, and pulled the camouflaged curtain in the mountainside to find everything as I found it.

Blinking in the bright but chilly sunlight, I scratched my head as I spied cars and lorries bustling like beetles along the nearby highway, heard the distant yells of kids in school playgrounds for the last time before the Christmas break, and smelled the scent of woodsmoke in the air as Athenian households with fireplaces burn everything they can get their hands on (including grandad’s wooden leg) to get warm without switching on the central heating.

Then it dawned on me.

I’d been had. Taken for a mug by the Mayans – those geometrically dressed but oh-so-cool ancient dudes in South America whose left-behind wisdom told us that time would literally run out just four days before Santa Claus was due to set off from the North Pole to start his marathon delivery for 2012.

Maybe they just ran out of numbers, or stone to carve them into?

Perhaps their alien masters set it all up as a huge practical joke to be enjoyed through the distance of time and space, in their alternative dimension?

 

Or could it all have been an elaborate hoax dreamt up by Central American Tourist Boards to encourage doomsday believers from around the world to travel to their countries in the hope of being picked up by the Mother Ship before the end was nigh?

Or maybe, just maybe, it was a diversionary tactic to get us all talking about the impending end of time (or not) to take our minds of the mess than the powers that be have made of everything?

Whatever the truth behind it, I’ve been forced from my subterranean refuge after scraping the bottom of tea barrel, chugging the last pot of monosodium glutamate and filling in the final 15 Across. I’m back in the real world, with all its problems, pitfalls and practical jokes.

I suppose I’d better start being sociable again. And what better way to restart after months of hiding out waiting for the end of the world than reconnecting with you lovely people, safely hidden behind your flickering screens, out there in Webland?

We survived the promised Armageddon of 2000 without a single plane falling out of the sky, we faced the end of times fondly prepared for in the wild mountains, we even came through TellyTubbies and Turkish soap operas relatively unscathed. So the next time I hear about the impending end of everything my response will be “Oh yeah? Bring it on!”

Until then, I promise to do my best to be chatty and personable, perky and punctual, and to get back into the habit of boring you silly with 'She means well, but…' witterings on a regular basis.

And I suppose that wishing you all happy, peaceful and fun times with people you love to celebrate Baby Jesus’ birthday is as good a start as any.

And as for 2013? Well, I can now say that she (even years are boys, hence all the major sporting events, and odd years are female cos we secretly admire all things odd) no longer scares me.

I’m a tough cookie that can do two months of solitary confinement, cackling hysterically no more than eight times daily, with only arrow words and anagrams to keep me company. So go ahead – hit me with your best shot.  

Just don’t come near me with that accordion.

Ghoulies and ghosties...

When I was at primary school, we had a wonderful teacher called Mrs. Griffiths (sadly, no longer with us) who – among many other things – taught us the “Hallowe’en Prayer”…
From ghoulies and ghosties,
And long-legged beasties,
And things that go “bump!” in the night.
Good Lord, deliver us.

Now, the rhyme is of Scots origin, but it is forever imprinted on my mind in the musical lilt of the Welsh Valleys that was so apparent in Mrs. Griffiths’ voice.

I’ve been thinking about the Hallowe’ens of my youth over the past few days as I the In ternet goes creepy crazy in anticipation of this evening's antics. I've seen several people I thought I knew transformed into walking pumpkins, my normally benign nephew as a seriously scary looking serial killer bunny, and some of the more budget-minded planning to wrap themselves in toilet paper to play the mummy (which is fine unless it rains...).

At the risk of sounding like an old fart (again), when I was a lass (you have to imagine this in a Northern accent, in the style of the Monty Python '4 Yorkshiremen' sketch), we never had no trick-or-treat. We just had bobbing for apples – if we were lucky.

The whole imported American concept of Hallowe’en has really only taken hold in the UK since I left, so I find it really strange to think of gangs of 12-year-olds roaming the streets dressed as witches, ghosts, vampires… and fairy princesses (aren’t they s’posed to be scary?) to menace householders unless they dosh out enough goodies to give the kids a sugar rush that will have them bouncing off the walls until the Christmas onslaught.

Back in MY day, it was a far more enigmatic and creepy night. OK, we didn't exactly lock ourselves in the broom cupboard for the night (well, just that once) but I certainly remember hiding my head under the blankets after a Hallowe''en bedtime story.

Hallowe’en is a shortened form of All Hallows’ Eve (Hallows = Saints) as it's the night before All Saints’ Day on November 1. This was supposed to be one of the few times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world and when magic is at its most potent. It was the night when all the ghoulies, ghosties, witches and goblins et al would come out to play for one last blast before the goody-goodies from the Saints’ camp took over.


Not surprisingly, it's yet another example of Christianity absorbing a much earlier Pagan festival in order to win followers in the early years of the Church. Hallowe’en origins lie in an ancient Gaelic festival called Samhain, which celebrated the end of the harvest season. It was the time when the ancient pagans used to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for their winter stores. The ancient Gaels also believed that it was night when the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped, allowing the deceased to come back and cause havoc by spreading sickness and damaging crops. Costumes and masks were therefore worn in a bid to placate the spirits by mimicking them.

One year, I decided to conduct a Hallowe’en experiment. Tradition has it that if a young virgin peels an apple (symbol of fertility) anticlockwise, keeping the peel in one unbroken coil, in the front of a mirror at midnight on the night of October 31, her husband-to-be will appear to her. Mum must have wondered why I so enthusiastically offered to peel a couple of pounds of Bramleys for apple crumble during the day (well, I had to practice, didn’t I?) but come midnight, I managed to peel my apple in one intact snake of peel. And sure enough, a male figure appeared from the shadows behind me - but it was no tall, dark stranger from my future, just dear old dad coming to tell me that it was well past my bed-time and to go to sleep!


Growing up in England in the '70s and '80s, we were still relatively unsophisticated compared to today's children and Hallowe’en held a thrill of fright and anticipation (a bit like watching Dr Who from behind the sofa), but none of the pallaver we see these days.

It was a simple pleasure that came with the season – along with the scent of bonfires in the air as devoted gardeners burned off their garden waste, the joy of wading through fallen leaves in the park in search of conkers, and coming back to the house after a walk with your cheeks burning from the chill. And just around the corner was the promise of lighting up the skies for Bonfire Night.

Maybe I’m just getting nostalgic in my old age?

Oh well, 'Happy Hallowe'en ya'all!'

She stoops to conker?

Ah, autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, bringing back memories of shushing through piles of fallen leaves and playing conkers in the school playground. But did you know that the good old horse chestnut (a.k.a. the conker tree) is NOT a native to Britain, but a migrant from... Greece and Albania?

Yes, apparently it's true. But somehow I can't see the Greeks embarking on the annual orgy of smashing your opponents' nuts (in the nicest possible way) that generations of British schoolkids have enjoyed.

Time and time again, I have greeted the first hints of that gorgeous autumnal tang in the air with an attempt to explain the rules and reasoning of conkers to The Other Half.

He sits there patiently, giving me the indulgent look of one humouring a slightly dim but lovable child, while I try to convey my enthusiasm for scrabbling about in the wet grass to find the perfect shiny brown conker with which to annihilate my rivals' offerings.

His demeanour is one of "OK, that sounds like the sort of thing you Brits would do. But why?".

To be honest, I don't have an answer. It's just one of those things that is an integral part of growing up in the UK. No rhyme nor reason is required - it just IS. Just like he can't explain to me WHY Greeks traditionally fly kites on the first day of Lent, why Greek grannies put a red and white knotted string bracelet on their grandchildren's wrists every May Day, nor why taramosalata (made from fish eggs) is allowed during the Lenten fast which forbids both fish and eggs.

For the uninitiated, to play the game, you need to take a large, hard conker and carefully drill a hole through it. Then you thread a piece of string through the hole and knot it at one end. Next step is to find an opponent, with whom you will take turns to hit one another's conkers. This goes on until one of the conkers is smashed, and the status of the winning nut is enhanced according to how many rivals it has annihilated (one-er, two-er, six-er, etc.).

That's it, really. Nothing more, nothing less. But it used to keep us happy for hours on end.

Over the years, the World Conkers Championship held in the UK has raised thousands of pounds for charities for the blind - and, in a delicious twist, a few years back it was sponsored by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health in a bid to counter the public's perception of its inspectors as killjoys.

Now, those of us who nurse fond memories of the annual search for the perfect shiny conker (perhaps still hidden in its spiny green outer casing) amid the dozens fallen at the feet of a spreading horse chestnut tree will also recall the tricks we used to employ to make our conker a champion. Baking it in the oven, soaking or boiling it in vinegar, coating it with clear nail varnish or rolling it in hand cream to make the impact softer (but be warned - conkers explode when microwaved).

Unfortunately, any 'artificial hardening' of your conker will immediately get you thrown out of the World Conker Championships as ex-Monty Python Michael Palin found out to his cost in 1993 (he was disqualified for baking and soaking his conker in vinegar).

I hope that despite Britain's increasingly enhanced fears of how every-day life can harm our offsping (Daily Mail-type stories of 'Elf & Safety gone mad' when schools ban playtime games of conkers, for fear of bits of smashed nuts flying into kids' eyes or even triggering nut allergies), the autumn air in my homeland is still filled with the sounds of horse chestnuts cracking against each other - and the occasional bashed knuckle.

As for me, I'm off in search of a conker tree in its native Greek habitat.

I may be some time...