Category Archives: My Ramblings

Mar 27 2013
15 Comments
My Ramblings

Waking Up In La-La Land

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is mentally scan myself, checking for any sneaky MS symptoms before stumbling my way to the shower.

Then it’s feeding the cat, flinging a couple of Weetabix at The Teenager, organising schoolbag/handbag, meds, coffee, make-up, to-do lists, washing up, sorting laundry, more coffee.

All pretty normal? A scene played out up and down the country?

Nope. Helena “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000” Christensen was recently plugging her latest lingerie collection and put her name to an entire article about underwear with some sage advice for us lesser mortals.

She suggests creating a ritual out of selecting and putting your underwear on by lighting a candle first, as ‘there’s something about the scent and the low flickering light that’s good for early starts.’  Bizarrely, she confesses she never has time to find matching socks or underwear, but finds it ‘inspiring’ to mix pieces. So that’s alright then.

Helena, love, it’s simple really. Ditch the diptych candles and hey presto, you’ll have time to find your matching socks.

Anyway, once you’ve successfully completed the tricky task of selecting your underwear, another person with too much time on their hands, Calgary Avansino (no, me neither)  recently had a three page spread where she shares her breakfast smoothie recipe with the world.

The twenty ingredients include chia seeds, coconut water, baobab powder, bee pollen, lacuma powder, maca powder, frozen kale and half a courgette. Oh, and some mint leaves which she keeps a stock of in her freezer. No doubt she grows the stuff herself in her specially-designed herb garden.

She is beautifully photographed in her fabulous kitchen, hair perfect, designer dress and high-heeled shoes on, wrists laden with artfully-chosen jewellery and surrounded by rustic bowls of fruit and vegetables, a vast array of tubs and jars and a cute kid with silver shoes on.

Now, I have nothing against Helena promoting her underwear or Calgary plugging her website per se but what I do object to are the endless unattainable ‘lifestyles’ us normal women are bombarded with on a daily basis. Don’t these people know anything about real life? Most of us wake up worried about money, jobs, MS – not whether our housekeeper has re-stocked the candle supply or if we’ve run out of bee pollen….

p.s. Do tea-lights from IKEA count?

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Mar 25 2013
16 Comments
My Ramblings

It’s Only A Number. Isn’t It?

Oh joy. I will be forty 39 plus 1 in less than half a year. I won’t be celebrating, but rather I shall be holding a memorial service to my first 40 years, along with lashings of wine and copious amounts of cake.

To help me feel even more inadequate than usual, The Sunday Times Style magazine thoughtfully published a list of ’40 Things To Do Before You’re 40.’Here’s some of the ones I haven’t done and have no hope of doing before August:

  • Get an accountant – ha ha thud. That’s me laughing my head off.
  • Bin all your tights and replace the lot with Falke – unfashionable me has no idea what/who Falke is. Hopeless.
  • Have a kinky dream about a colleague – the builder? Seriously?
  • Go to Glastonbury – nope.
  • Host an afterparty that people still talk about years later – what the heck’s an afterparty and why have I never been to one?
  • Stop wearing lycra – never.
  • Spend a year with an incredibly flat stomach – and give up Maltesers and toast? Crazy.
  • Unwrap a diamond – not unless it’s a Diamond White cider party pack.
  • Grow your hair so long that it covers your nipples – one word – why?

But here’s some I have done:

  • Decide whether you want children – yup, I’m keeping the Teenager.
  • Be able to order wine confidently – ‘Cheapest bottle of your house white, and make it snappy, my good man.’
  • Pull an all-nighter, drink sambuca, dance on the tables, then go straight to work – too many times to mention.
  • Live abroad long enough to get a taste for the local breakfast – those were the days. Sigh.
  • Witness a birth – I was definitely there when The Teenager was born.
  • Perfect your signature roast chicken – Waitrose, I love you.

Don’t you just hate these lists? Here’s my kind of list – recently-announced top 5 snacks in the UK (drum roll….) bacon butties came out top, no doubt helped along by my recent alarming consumption of them. They were closely followed by cheese on toast, sausage rolls, Cornish pasties and Scotch eggs. Now that’s a list you can get your teeth into…

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Mar 04 2013
23 Comments
My Ramblings

A Random Crafty Picture…

Cardiff-20130304-00049

 

Some of you have asked to see my Easter branches – I know it’s way too early, but anything is better than studying. Plus, I get to feel all crafty and domesticated. Pinterest? Nailed it.

So far I have managed to keep Bubble the cat away from batting at the eggs, and I have placed Wee Bubble next to the vase just to annoy her.

p.s. Bubble not very impressed – she sneaked up behind me and shoved Wee Bubble off the shelf…

Cardiff-20130304-00051

p.p.s. I really should get some studying done….

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Mar 03 2013
10 Comments
My Ramblings

I’m Harry Styles’ Mother…

If you want to feel suddenly ancient, do what I did on Friday and go late-night shopping into town right before a One Direction tour date.

The plan was a good one. The Teenager was at a sleepover, the builder was in town and we were going to hit the shops, followed by a drink or two, perhaps a bite to eat. How cosmopolitan and smart I felt as we left the house. Hmm.

Lots of traffic on the way in, got parked, went to the lift. Hordes of tweenagers jumping up and down squealing at each other, comparing glittery eye-shadow and nail varnish.

Swarms of them flooding the shops and restaurants, clutching banners ‘I’m Mrs Styles’, ‘Marry ME Harry’, ‘One Direction – Over Here’. In an instant, I felt very, very old and very dowdy as I remembered Harry was only 19 (19!!) and was born in 1994, two years after I left high school. I was old enough to be his mother.

The builder wanted to buy a new duvet, and as we were standing feeling up different togs and feathers, working our way up and down the row, I felt even older. Duvet shopping. On a Friday night. Where did it all go wrong?

I bought some cards (ooh, they do a lovely selection in John Lewis), vitamins and a new wallet. Exciting. Prematurely old? We decided to cut our losses and head to the bars. We wandered around, checking each of them out. Too trendy, too dark, too small, too many doormen, too big, too loud, too scary. We were a walking, talking Dr Seuss poem.

I stopped outside one of them in horror. ‘Retro Bar – 90’s Music’. Since when were the 90’s retro? Dispirited, we sat outside a fake Spanish tapas bar, glumly sipping our wine (me) and gin and tonic (the builder), watching the skinny, mini-skirted women teetering past on high heels, hair sprayed into submission, faces glowing with anticipation. We muttered to each other, ‘she must be freeeezing’ and ‘why don’t they put a warm jacket on?’

We finished our drinks and went home. I put the cat out, popped my slippers on and settled down for a nice night in front of the telly, the lyrics of ‘Those Were the Days My Friend’ running sadly through my mind. I think it’s time to shake things up a little…

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Feb 23 2013
8 Comments
My Ramblings

Sick or What?

Adapting to the role of  an ill person is not easy. Society makes it very clear – if you are sick, you must want to get better and you must co-operate with the medical establishment.

In return, society will ‘allow’ you to shed normal responsibilities of work and household tasks for a limited time, until you are better. You are recognised as being in need of care and unable to get better by yourself.

This theory was first developed by Talcott Parsons in 1951, and despite its shortcomings, still holds firm in most peoples minds. But what happens if you have MS, your illness fluctuates and often you are well enough to participate fully in society? Where do you stand then?

MS can mark you out as a fraud. Some things said to me over the last two years:

  • ‘But you look so well.’
  • ‘When are you giving up work?’
  • ‘Wow, you’re drinking alcohol.’
  • ‘I thought you were ill.’
  • ‘Why are you so tired, you were fine yesterday?’

Living as a fairly young person, with a fairly invisible illness renders you an uncomfortable anomaly. I have no standard ‘markers’ of a sick person, no visual clues. People just have to take my word for it, and this is where the tension arises.

I am in a no-man’s land between being well and being ill. I still want the ‘privileges’ that being well and a productive member of society brings – a job, a social life, status, etc. Yet I also need the exemption when I am ill, the extra support and help and many people, and society, would much prefer it if I chose one scenario and stuck to it. I can either be fully productive and keep quiet, or give in and take up the sick role full time.

Other people with MS can be just as judgmental. I once went to an MS support group and felt very out of place and unwelcome. Finally, the organiser took me to one side and gently explained that I made the others uncomfortable. I was talking about work and going out for a meal that evening. He said that this group meeting was often the only outing they had in two weeks. I wasn’t ‘sick’ enough to join their group. I never went back.

What’s the solution? I have no idea…..

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