Friends For Life

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom"

- Marcel Proust

Last night, I had supper with my school friends in a fabulous restaurant called Gilgamesh, in Camden. I knew I'd had a great night as I got that fidgety feeling on the train home and couldn't wait to get back and tell Mr H all about it.

These lovely girls have been a part of my life for the last 20 years and between us we've shared tears of laughter/joy and supported each other through life's many ups and downs. We try to get together as often as possible but realistically, we never manage more than 2-3 meet ups per year. Some of us are married, some of us are mothers, some of us are single and one lady in particular has the most enviable jet-setting lifestyle that takes her to far flung places, that we sit and stare, lapping up every word when she describes her latest adventures.

The dynamics of the group are the same as when we were 15. There's the glamorous one, the clever one, the loud one, the organised one, the quiet-takes-it-all-in one and so one. Being with them last night was like taking a trip back in time, back to the school days, back to the class room. It only takes 10 mins of all being back together before the noise levels get out of hand, the gossiping is in full flow and you forget that it was 6 months since you'd last seen them (when it feels like only yesterday).

These girls are part of me, part of my make up, part of my life story. We'll still be putting the world to rights, discussing men, careers (and more children) over glasses of plonk, well into our 50's. And I never want it or them to change.

Enough Is Enough

When is it acceptable to firmly put your foot down with a man and refuse to believe that he is capable of carrying out any DIY task, without trampling on his ego and risking an almighty strop, big enough to rival that of your 3 year old daughter? I only ask because I have had to do exactly that with Mr H. I don't enjoy telling him that I'd rather hand over our well earned cash to someone who waves a business card under my nose and tells me that he has letters after his name to prove that he's a plumbing/electricity/carpentry expert.

But after this week, I think it's going to be very easy to wave my trump card, accept professional help and say 'Enough Is Enough!'.

Picture the scene...10 months ago, a lovely, shiny, new washing machine arrived on our doorstep, accompanied by an equally lovely young gentleman who had come to install it. The warning bells should have been ringing very loudly when I overheard Mr H say rather jovially, 'oh don't worry old chap, I can look after that', at which point, the lovely, capable gentleman from Hotpoint waved goodbye, never to be seen again (whilst no doubt thinking how wonderful it was to be clocking off early).

Now picture the scene 2 months ago. We'd suspected that there was a damp problem in the house when the freshly painted white walls started bubbling and producing a texture not dissimilar to that horrid 70's wallpaper effect. 'Don't worry, darling', exclaimed Mr H in his most reassuring voice. 'It must be the flat roof!'. And so followed many a trip to our local DIY store to buy, amongst other things, tar and paintbrushes. As a very incapable female who has no desire to paint walls, mow lawn or grout bathroom tiles, I happily entrusted the 'capable' man of the house and thought nothing more.

If I still have your attention, just picture the scene 1 week ago. My very capable girlfriend, Mrs G (more on her another time, every woman should have a friend like her), spotted the now rampant and taking-over-the-house-kind-of damp and wondered why we'd done nothing about our leaking washing machine, as it was OBVIOUS TO HER that it was the source of our problem. I guess that the additional clues - split skirting boards, cracked door frames and damp kitchen floor tiles would also have been an indication that the problem had nothing to do with the roof, but as I've said before, I am in no way a house expert and therefore not qualified to comment.

Roll forward to 3 days ago, when a very lovely chap from our buildings insurance company paid a visit, only to declare that the industrial heaters would have to be installed for 3 weeks and that the kitchen tiles would have to be pulled up to allow the concrete to dry out, for a further 5 weeks.

Now I'm a great believer in giving people a second chance but I also insist that people admit when they don't know what they're doing and/or they've cocked up. Mr H has since confessed to not knowing very much at all about plumbing (??!!) and has promised to stick to his chosen field of expertise - WOODWORK! After a panicky email to the MIL to double-check her son's references, I was informed that I should not be doubting him because he did get an 'A' in GCSE Woodwork after all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that takes motherly love to a whole new level. Hmph.

Rewind Here We Come

Amidst the excitement of starting up this blog, I forgot about the one thing that has literally been keeping me awake this week.

Bought tickets to the 80's Rewind Festival - 21st to 23rd August, Henley On Thames. It's going to be extraordinarily good. The line up so far includes Kim Wilde, Go West, Heaven 17, Belinda Carlisle and Nik Kershaw, to name a few. I'm campaigning for Bucks Fizz and Kajagoogoo to make an appearance - 2009 is after all their comeback year...

We're going to be 'glamping' with friends, ie. we've paid for someone else to lug the tent, erect it, pump up the airbeds and provide fresh, new sleeping bags. Come on, this is Henley, for Gods Sake!

With my iTunes account set up, I then managed to spend over £40 in under 30 mins downloading favourite 80's tracks. Who on earth designed a website that takes your money with just one 'click'....talk about praying on the innocent and naive...still, I have the best compilation ever and am currently in the process of downloading lyrics. Preparation is key...

Damn You, Dominos

It started off with a little nibble, then turned into a savage destruction of last nights leftover Dominos pizza, which I really promised I would throw away, and then kept on the pretence that Mr H would need it for his lunch today. Then he totally screwed up my plan by 1) not eating it and 2) going out tonight with the boys. Which could only mean one thing. Home alone with a pizza, whispering my name AKA Diet Disaster. How is it humanly possible that I could eat my entire weeks' Weightwatchers points in the course of 2 days. Oh Buggeration.

Calling all WINOS

As previously mentioned, Mrs C has started her own blog and it's utterly fabulous - a highly amusing read and full of interesting life observations. Check out the link on this blog to hers...Six Seconds of Sanity. I won't steal her thunder or plagiarise her text but I will mention a new group called WINOS - Women In Need...Of Something - which Mrs C founded and of which I am a member. The concept is simple. You get a group of like-minded women together who have something more to offer than the mother role, housewife role, dutiful wife role and general dogsbody role. You arrange regular get-togethers with these like-minded folk and you do stuff that is alien to your day-to-day existence. Eg. laugh-yoga, sketching classes and so on.

We could have all signed up to the local branch of WI but I couldn't find anything on their website about voluntary excessive alcohol consumption at meetings. Pah.

Weigh & Shame

I have been attending Weightwatchers meetings for the last couple of months in a bid to lose my baby weight. Actually, if my daughter has just turned 3 and I am still carrying around the extra said baby weight, technically it's not baby weight at all. It's a food baby. One that I have lovingly invested in over time and have grown quite attached to.

My first WW meeting was simple enough. Now I'm by no means the heaviest girl in Surrey but apparently I could do with losing at least 10% of my total body weight. I was weighed and shamed, ie. someone stands in front of you and tells you very honestly, exactly how much you weigh. All very black and white. Designed to shock you. Anyway, the lovely group leader sat me down, inspired me with her before/after photos and then sent me on my merry way to log everything that passed through my lips for the next week. Easy peasy, or so I thought.

It's taken me over 2 months to lose about 9lbs. It would have been more but I have yo-yo'd up and down the scale - 2lbs loss, 2lbs gain, 1lb loss and so on. I don't need Weightwatchers. I need someone to wire my jaw. I also need my delightful boyfriend to stop being my Feeder.

It's very annoying to watch a 6ft 1 male eat his body weight in food one evening and wake up the next morning not an ounce heavier. I only have to sniff chocolate in my sleep to put on half a stone.

Go on...treat yourself

http://www.suzannah.com/

I was recently forwarded a link to the sublime fashion website that is www.suzannah.com. The girl is a genius. We first met when she was about 18 (at the time she was my big bro's girlfriend) and I thought she was pretty cool then. Through the power of Facebook, we caught up 17 years later and now I'm pleased to hear that her dream of owning her own fashion label has come true. If you have a special occasion or simply just love clothes and want to feel like a princess, check out her site. You won't be disappointed...happy shopping x

Shoes Glorious Shoes

I am known for my love of good shoes. Flats, mid-heels and sky-scraper 'oh god i can't live without them' towering dangerously-heels.

My first pair of really incredible shoes was bought back in 2005 - a pair of Gina Silver Mist Campari stilettos - I blew my entire summer bonus on them and bought them for a friend's wedding in Prague. No one told me about the cobbles though. I lasted 5 mins teetering around precariously before I had to resort to my back up diamante flats from Matches (which shredded my feet to pieces like a cheese grater, incidently). Suffering aside though, I still have the Ginas and occassionally get them out of the box, stare at them, admire the sparkles and pray for the day that Mr H finally takes (drives) me somewhere worthy of those glamorous feet candy.

Unfortunately, Motherhood and heels do not go well together. I have spent the last 3 years in very boring flats, namely Birkenstocks and Converse. However, I recently turned 35, had an early mid-life crisis and blew my lighting budget for the house on 3 pairs of amazing Kurt Geiger evening shoes. It may still be dimly lit in my front room but hell, do my feet look good.

The Virgin Blog

Inspired by my good friend Mrs C, this is my first entry into the world of Blogging. It's only taken me 5 months to get off my bottom and write it. There...easy peasy. I don't know what all the fuss was about.

I have nothing in particular that I want to write about but being blogged up is seemingly moving myself into the new technology times. The fact that I only discovered iTunes last week perhaps speaks volumes....