Posts

Showing posts from 2014

Fab at Forty - am I?

So, forty finally arrived.   It looks alien on the screen to me. Me, 40!   It sounds so mature.   Grown up. Like I should be able to knit.   Or at least sew a button on. I know you want to know whether I was indeed Fab at Forty.   Well of course I couldn’t say…but I can say that after ten months of counting and pointing and shaking my thang at Zumba, I’ve managed to knock a couple of stone and a couple of dress sizes off.   Never got to my holy grail 12 though, so at least I’ve still got something I can put on my New Year list. After not knowing what to do, I decided to have a party, where enough people duly oohed and aahed about my reinvention to have made it worthwhile.   Three generations of family raised a glass, and friends old and new put on their gladrags and helped me have a lovely time.   But now what?   I’ve been planning for months, buying shimmery and glimmery doo-dahs to put some fab in the very functional function room.   I’ve glittered up invitations, sourced

Guilt

Image
When I was discharged from hospital after having Daughter six years ago, I was sent home with painkillers, blood pressure and water tablets and a rather large dose of maternal guilt. The drugs were for a week or so, but the guilt was to be taken liberally several times a day. The guilt is largely about two things. The first is not being there.  Not for the school drop off. Or pick up. Or to be a 'helper' in her class. Or to take one of her friends home from school for tea, and 'everyone else has someone for tea all the time'. I should get a different job she said, so I can be there to do that. The second is about not giving her a sister (or a dog, because I'm allergic). We tried, we succeeded, but it wasn't to be. We have tried to explain that you can't guarantee a sister, but that falls on deaf ears. And really, she doesn't want a baby sister, she wants a ready made five year old sister to play with right now. So, in order to compensate for my epi

All Change

Every morning, when I’m performing my morning ablutions, I hear a small child be dropped off at his grandmother’s house round the corner from us (they’re not really loud, we’re on the corner!) and every morning, he cries.   Now I’ve seen this child, who must be about two, with his grandmother, and he’s happy as Larry (lucky old Larry, always cheerful).   What he doesn’t want is for his mummy to leave him.   I hear his nanny placate him with their plans, and I’ve seen his mummy extricate herself and drive off.   And every time I hear or see it all, it takes me back to when Daughter was little little (considering her to be just little now that she is nearly 6). I went back to work when Daughter was six months old, and as I’ve mentioned before, it was all very traumatic for me.   And probably for Father, who was her primary daytime carer and used to present me with a record of nappies changed, ounces of milk taken and slop ingested.   Strangely there was no record of the Starbucks mu

I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear...

Fooled by a few cheery sunny and warm days over the last couple of weeks, I have unearthed the summer clothes.   There is quite a rigmarole to the change of seasons in our house, as limited wardrobe space has always required clothes to be boxed up and stored in the loft.   This is what happened in the parental home, with poor Father being required to get in the loft and unearth unlabelled bin bags for me, Sister and Mother, and always be sent up for a rogue sandal (or boot).   Sister and I always had a pile ‘em high attitude to clothes, so we’re talking a lot of bags.   I think that was probably the first thing they did when I left home (last to leave) – teary eyed wave and then up the stairs at record speed to use all the now vacant wardrobe and drawer space!   No more seasonal change loft jaunts for Father now. I sent Husband up for the summer boxes, also for the last time due to the wise purchase of some nice furniture for the spare room, and he was very surprised to only find

Ready, Steady, Lunch!

Friday’s packed lunches are always depressingly sparse.   One of us does the food shop (also known as The Big Shop)on a Friday, which means by Thursday night when I make the lunches for the next day (really, who has time to make it in the morning?), there are slim pickings.   Not for Daughter, of course.   She has the same every day – sandwich (egg or ham on strict rotation, and the exotica of egg has been a fairly recent addition), bear crisps, a mini chocolate bar that is apparently approved by mums due to the high milk content, apple juice and until recently a well-travelled pot of grapes.   It was well travelled in that she very rarely ate them and they went back and forth.   The lunch-box police would probably take me away, but they want to try living with a fussy eater.   So of course there is always everything that she wants, and let’s face it, I’d do a midnight run to the supermarket in my slippers if I discovered something missing for her.   Substitutes will not be tolerated

Just Another Can on the Shelf

Image
I have 24 cans/bottles/sprays etc of hair product on my shelf in our bedroom, so this of course doesn’t include the ‘wet’ hair products that crowd the bathroom (at least 9 that I can think of from the top of my head, pardon the pun). I know what you’re thinking.   You’re imagining me with a different hairstyle every day, all carried off with that ‘just stepped out of the salon’ shine and gloss.   Wrong, wrong, wrong.   I wear my hair the same EVERY DAY.   Loose and straightened for work, palm tree style with fetching fringe clip when I get home.   So what’s with all the stuff?   I’ve got nice hair, if it’s not too big headed (there’s another one!) to say.   But I live with the desire to have nicer hair.   Glossier, fuller, straighter, curlier, more defined…and clearly those 24 products have promised me a variety of those desires at some point.   And have they?   Mostly, no.   Do I keep falling for the promises?   Yes.   I am a marketing team’s dream.   Put a picture of Cat Dee

Retail Therapy

Image
Daughter and I enjoyed a bit of retail therapy this weekend.  Well, when I say enjoyed, perhaps I should say 'participated in with only minor levels of discomfort' . First stop, Primark. I'd forgotten our sunglasses and it was a glorious day in Liverpool today, so in we went to splurge a couple of quid on some sunnies.  Despite having promised myself I wouldn't buy any clothes until I've lost some weight and saved some money, I don't get into Liverpool very often and the lure of city centre shopping was too much for me, and I had the clearly ludicrous idea of having a quick look. And quick it was, because Daughter was keen for me to know she didn't really want to be there. I'm used to her moaning, so I could have put up with that, but she tried to wander, and there's nothing to send my stress levels rocket higher than Daughter being more than about 10cm away from me. My fear isn't that she'll fall over or get lost, it's that she'll be

Fab at Forty - nine months and counting

Image
Doesn’t time fly when you’ve set yourself a time-bound goal?   I’ve now got nine full months to the big birthday, and after the positivity of my last post, I’m afraid it’s all bad news for this update. I’ve had a major, major dose of the lurg.   I may have mentioned it, although it’s not like me to share my suffering, ha ha.   I’ve been off work for four weeks with a nasty chest and lung infection (so definitely not the catarrh the first doctor said!) and it’s knocked me for six.   I haven’t been able to get to my classes for a month now, and although I barely ate for a week (and hit my lowest weight for about three years!), once my appetite came back, the scales crept back up.   The bits that were feeling firmer are feeling soft again (much to Daughter’s joy that the bingo wings haven’t gone) and I’m a long way off buns of steel.   I’ve stuck to Choc-Free Feb though, as long as I don’t count the numerous chocolate digestives I snaffled yesterday.   When I say Choc-Free, I mean ac

One Shade of Grey

I was blow drying my hair the other day and I saw it.   Just hanging out there, like a hard-faced silver interloper.   Yes, there it was.   A grey hair.   Now, don’t get me wrong.   At 39, I know I’ve had a good innings, and it’s not actually my first.   I’ve got a couple of baby fine silvery strands at my right temple, only visible during the most extreme episodes of tying my hair back (pretty much just when I put a face pack on).   But this devil was on my part.   And as if to mock me even further, it hid when I brushed my hair, smug in the knowledge that I know it’s there and now I can’t find it.   I’m on high alert, ready for it to pop up at any point.   The good thing for me is that I’m nearly 6 foot tall, so not many people see the top of my head, but now I know it’s there and I wish I carried a hat off with more panache. I know I’ve done well to get to this age without more grey, and all my forays into home colouring have been for the fun of it, but does this mean I’m actua

It's not the cough that carries you off...

I'm off work ill. I've got a chest infection. A chest infection that Dr 1 said was catarrh. This was while he was writing me a prescription for both an inhaler and ' something to relieve shoulder pain'. The something was ibuprofen gel which, for the unasthmatic amongst you, the average asthmatic cant use. Me included.  A chest infection that Dr 2 upgraded to an upper respiratory virus. A chest infection that Dr 3 finally identified, perhaps because I virtually crawled in there. A chest infection that has set a tooth off that I had root canal two years ago, like an old war wound. Did you know some root canals never settle? No, nor did I. Wish they'd told me that first!  Despite the eventual identification, the antibiotics don't seem to be touching it and I feel Very Poorly Indeed. If only I'd walked into the ER at Grey Sloan Memorial, they'd have had me sorted at a glance. Of course I probably would have been diagnosed with some incurable tropical disease

Fab at Forty - ten months and counting

As the first month of the year is limping to a close, I thought I’d update on the Fab at Forty plan. I’ve succeeded in the Dry January challenge.   Well, counting chickens really, but at lunchtime on the last day of the month I think I’m safe to say I’ll make it!   Sister was very keen that I kept my participation in Dry January quiet for fear of sounding like Oliver Reed (showing my age again).   I don’t usually drink very much, so it wasn’t a hardship, and I’m glad that for once I’ve met a challenge like that.   Many a Lent has seen me break a giving up pledge! The fitness side is taking shape (no pun intended!) and I’m going to Zumba twice a week run by the lovely Ellen at http://www.heatonefitness.co.uk .   I absolutely love it.   I could only go once this week due to work commitments and I missed it.   The only downside is the Zumba high on the night when the class finishes at 9pm – reasonable bedtime is futile!   I’ve even bought some new trainers, so I must be serious.

Lunchtimes are a window on the world.

Where I used to work, lunchtimes didn’t really exist.   There was an occasional downing of tools and natter about this, that and the other, but leaving the building was rare.    And that’s not to say there wasn’t enough in the town centre if one wanted to pass an hour, particularly if one wanted a pastry based lunch.   I did have to pass an Asda Superstore on my way home though, and that did get visits aplenty.   They must have wept when I left the old place, their profits must have really nosedived.   When I say I visits aplenty, let me expand by saying Daughter thought her name was George for some time. But now I work in a town centre, and life outside the office is there to marvel at. Regular readers will have already heard of the lure of Marks & Spencer and other emporiums.   I know this is a bit of a recurring theme (see Reverse Ambition in the archives), but I stare at this outside life agog, mentally like a child drooling in a sweetshop window.   There are people shoppi

Fab at Forty

2014 is the year I turn 40.   Not until the end of 2014, I’m at pains to make clear, but it is the year nonetheless.   So, it’s time to follow through with a pledge that I threw out there in the heady days of summer…to be a size 12 by I’m 40.   With 11 months and counting, there’s no time to lose.   I haven’t made any other resolutions, because quite frankly, this will take all my efforts. So, L and I have set about our plans.   L isn’t 40 until 2015, but being a good friend she’s joining me on the journey.   If shaping up happened by planning alone, we’d be a pair of supermodels.   But alas it appears to require more moving and less eating.   Pah. We’re extremely accomplished at talking about our fitness plans.   There are some plans to get running gathering dust, and L’s lovely and super-fit husband P has offered plans and chaperoning on dark nights.   We’ll get round to it.   I fear we have the potential to be fair-weather runners.   I’m more likely to be fair-weather shuf