Chez Spud

As we all know, men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses…which is why I spent most of my 20s squinting. As, in my crazy head, the vague, distracted, squinty, wrinkled up nose look is an absolute WINNER.

I just don’t like wearing specs, it’s a vanity thing. I hate the way they leave a mark on your nose, or hurt your ears, or slide down your nose, and that awful ‘steaming up’ thing and the way they got lost and broken every 5 minutes. I hate the whole process of buying glasses as I have my Dr Spock eyebrows and droopy eyelids to contend with, plus ‘that’ pointy nose etc etc. Mind you I think these googly specs are quite something, don’t you think? Although they do make me look like Mitzi from The Koala Brothers.

I..hate…specs…but the specs are having the last laugh as the legacy of all that squinting is a whole bunch of deep wrinkles. Shakes fist angrily at the gods – curses to you ye gods of spite.

I also hate contact lenses and, on the rare occasion that I wear them, I am always very unpleasantly surprised when I look at myself in the mirror, wondering who the hell that old hag is peering back at me. One of the few upsides of being a Speccy Twat is that, with glasses off, you see a fuzzier, less wrinkled, less eye baggied version of yourself in the mirror. It’s generally quite pleasing. With glasses on, many of the wrinkles/eye bags are hidden and it’s reasonably pleasing. But with lenses in, and specs off, the full horror is revealed.

The only other advantage to poor eyesight is the ability to ‘take the edge off’ the world, without engaging in any kind off illegal activity. Specs off, and the world is a little blurred all over, it’s not unpleasant…like living in an impressionist painting. Best of all, you can deploy the ‘specs off’ trick to lessen the impact of a shouty email or letter. You know those times when you bang off a feisty email, telling someone how it is…you press send..you sit nervously awaiting their response…and when it arrives you can hardly bear to read their stinging response.

So, you pop your specs off, push your chair back from the desk and then just scan the email, just get the gist of it without causing yourself any unnecessary stress or emotional hurt by digging down in to the detail.Works every time. many a potential Grudge Book entrant has been saved by the ‘specs off’ trick – I’m sure of it.

No secrets this weekend, sorry folks! We are away, I will schedule a few bits but these secrets take more time and energy than I have today. Back Monday for more revelations….

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Secret 17…I keep a grudge book
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• 23 365 At Felixstowe Ferry
• Dirty Little Secrets
• Housekeeping

Dragged out of the archives for Scribbit’s July’s Write Away contest as ‘My most adventurous moment’…wearing a blonde swishy wig for a day. Quite an adventure for an elfin cropped curly brunette:

I want therefore I get, it’s simple enough. I’ve always, always wanted blonde swishy hair in an elegant bob rather than the brunette frizz bomb that I have. So I bit the bullet and bought a wig and, once I’d tussled it off Postman Andy who was surprisingly reluctant to give it up, I wore it for most of today. Yes, you read that right, I didn’t just pop it on for a photo. I wore it all day. In public. With people looking and everything. Never let it be said that I am not committed to my Secrets!

Here I am all dressed up and ready to go in to town for my swishy day, trusty iphone camerabag application to the ready:

I was feeling a bit nervous and felt sure everyone was pointing and staring at me behind my swishy back. So I eased myself in with a little sit down in the market square, unsure of which might attract more attention…a crazy woman very clearly wearing a wig with tufts of curly brown hair sticking out…or a crazy woman taking photos of herself…you decide:

I was too self-conscious to ponder for long so took a deep breath and went in to the very posh dress shop – quite an ambitious choice. It was going quite well until, arggh, the owner engaged me in conversation about my shoes and I felt all flustered – I hadn’t really reckoned on up close and personal human interaction. So I took a quick snap while she was dealing with another customer and made a hasty exit. Here I am looking very furtive and a little sallow – nerves?

Next I popped in to a kind of gift shop with some clothes and, hurrah, found a dress for a family party this weekend. Note the vacuum cleaner in the changing room. Kind of odd. I thought I’d take a full length snap of me before trying it on…I dressed up to match my swishy wig, I didn’t think the swishy wig was a jeans and skanky T shirt kind of gal:

The dress, nice huh? And a bargainatious £40 reduced from £130, so that’s another £90 in my dressing up box kitty. Hope the frock suits me with my regular frizz bomb hairstyle though, I’m a bit anxious it won’t. I considered taking the swishy wig off to check but it was a nightmare to get on and, besides, I was quite attached to her by this point:

Let’s pause for a moment for a from the hip shot of the shop. Mmm, I love this shop but every time I go in there I get overwhelmed and generally buy nothing even though I want everything. Why is that? The shop is called Little Mermaid, how do you like that ye Blog Camp 1.0 people? A little bit of serendipity.

Emboldened by my success I then swished off for an early lunch, and here I am looking pretty chirpy at the cafe:

And it was right around now that things started to go a little pear shaped. Firstly, I had a banging headache (ouch those wigs PINCH, mean cows) but much more problematically…the wind started to get up. There’s quite a breeze at the best of times down by the water and I had not factored for that in my al fresco seating choice. The appeal of the swishyness wore off very fast as it swished repeatedly in to my eyes, nose and mouth and stuck to my lip gloss. And I felt sure it was blowing around in such a way that tufts of my real hair were now showing. A surreptitious feel confirmed this to be the case so I quickly scuttled back to the car to banish the tufts before carrying on with my errands. Here I am at the post office, wig slipping in to my eyes and looking a bit antsy:

By this point I really wanted my own hair back, the wig was slipping forward and my head was slowly being boiled alive. But I wanted to try out my swishy on someone that knew me. So I drove over to my friend’s house to collect some cakes she made for me (she is the BEST kind of friend, the clever cake making type). This was her reaction:

Her verdict? That swishy suits me, makes me look ‘so young and pretty’. Hmmm, because my frizz bomb hair makes me….? I considered a Grudge Book entry but the cakes were in her favour. And besides I agree that I look younger in swishy, I guess she hides more wrinkles? Not sure about pretty but I think it suits me?

So now I know what it’s like to have blonde, swishy hair and now I think I want it even more than before – oh no. As for whether blondes have more fun, well I couldn’t possibly comment – this isn’t ‘that’ sort of blog ;-)

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• Mr Wonderful
• Blog Camps 1.5 and 2.0…here…I…come!
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!

Looking good, looking fine, looking a leeeetle bit like something out of ZZ Top? [hums] She’s got legs, she knows how to use them [/hums]……come on, join in, singalongaspud.

I used to be a biker, in the very broadest sense of the word. In other words I had a motorbike, well a scooter, oh go on I admit it…it was a moped. She was yellow and white, a Yamaha Pasola, with a nasty white top box (adorned with my ‘Yuck! Your disgusting fur coat’ and anti-vivisection stickers – forgive me, it was the 80s) and a whole 49cc of an engine. Top speed? 38mph, downhill, on a good day and with the wind behind me.

Ah how I loved loved LOVED that moped, Speedy was her name. When I turned 16 I mithered my parents to buy me a moped but they were having none of it. Fast forward a few months and, on my return from a trip, my Dad told me he had a surprise for me in the garden. And it was Speedy! She was second hand and was a heap when he bought her, so he lovingly brought her back to life while I’d been away. Isn’t that the best surprise ever?

Moustache has slipped. Damn, that is ALWAYS happening to me...

Speedy meant FREEDOM. All of a sudden I was able to go where I wanted, when I wanted. To school and back, to the various choirs and orchestras I played with, to friends, to boyfriends…or just out and about on my moped for the sheer joy of being able to do so. Life on the open road, nothing can beat it. My Dad claims he could hear me approaching from about half a mile away from the house, due the the high speed I insisted on riding at and the rather strained note of the 49cc engine as a results. Kind of “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

When I look back I think my parents must have been so cool to let me on the roads on a moped at the age of 16 – I certainly won’t be letting my boys do the same until they are, oooh, say…48? This was in the Stone Age when there were no mobile phones, so they regularly had no idea where I was or when I was coming back, for hours and hours at a time. No way of calling if I was in trouble or broken down for example.

Me and Speedy sped around Somerset for a couple of years until I went to university, at which point she went to the Big Scrapyard in the Sky. She’d taken to cutting out for no reason after a couple of miles, just sheer laziness I think.

But mostly we had a happy relationship, I fell off her a couple of times but nothing spectacular and I ran out of petrol once. I had to push her home and I stomped in to the house in a rage and shouted at my Dad, “Speedy is BROKEN!”. But, turns out, that needle thing…when it’s on red…that’s when you’re supposed to put petrol in.

How do you like my biker beard, blowing in the wind? Quite natty I think, although it’s given me a hell of rash. Like shaving rash in fact. Note that it has fake lips attached, those are not – I repeat NOT – my own lips. Since I have thin, evil mean lips as previously discussed.

[hums] she’s never begs, she knows how to choose them [/hums]

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Secret 20…I can’t handle it when people use my stuff without asking
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• Hairy Bikers
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!

Here I am, throwing my toys out of the pram yet again. I’m not grimacing with fury (for a change), but with pain…turns out I’d been wildly optimistic in terms of calculating the likelihood of being able to squeeeeeeeeze my backside in to the pushchair. Spud’s arse in to pushchair does not go.

I’m ashamed to admit it but my rather quick temper and competitive nature can mean that I’m not much of a good sport. I play to win, end of story. Fortunately I am hopeless at all competitive sport so the world is generally spared the worst of my lashing out these days.

To my eternal shame I once stomped off the rounders field in a rage during a match against another school. My cheeks are actually burning as I write this by the way. There were very few girls at my school, as it had only just gone co-ed when I started there. There were upsides to this (mainly involving an endless stream of boyfriends, hurrah) and downsides, the main one being that if you were female then you were ‘in the team’ for every single sport regardless of your talent or interest. I hated it, but the numbers were against me…there simply weren’t enough girls to choose from.

Back to the rounders match. I was the bowler which was the position I could do the least damage in as I can’t catch. Turns out I can’t throw either and after endless ‘no balls’ with the other side racking up freebie points I’d had enough. Off the field I stomped yelling “I’m not playing anymore!” over my shoulder. I was 15. FIFTEEN! Not 5, but 15 years old. Oh…the…shame.

Worse, there were no ‘reserves’ on the team of course (not enough girls) and the match came to a grinding halt while I had a tantrum. After a bit of negotiation I was persuaded to do ‘The Walk of Shame’ and return to the field, head hung low, cheeks aflame and tear stained. I proceeded to bowl a million more ‘no balls’ but the umpire relaxed the rules and ignored most of them. Poor bloke probably feared I might do for him with a rounders bat if he crossed me.

As a child I would tantrum and howl so badly if I didn’t win a party game that I was frequently sent to my room during my own birthday parties. Eventually my mother gave in and would have a prize for the real winner, and another for me to shut me up. I could go on…but I’m not sure my pride can take it. I have put myself in the Grudge Book.

Diggy having a tantrum...proof that what goes around comes around

Mind you, my mother was so competitive that she cheated at Trivial Pursuit. One year we played TP after dinner each evening on holiday. It was getting pretty feisty and Mum was getting a bit narked at her poor ‘cheese’ rate. She was caught red handed one night, after we’d all gone to bed, REVISING the cards and answers. Very, very shabby.

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Secret 29…I’m a disgrace to the nation
• Secret 25…I’m a champion tantrumer
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!

Ah, it’s the only child in me you see? I like to think of myself as a big hearted, sharing kind of person..what’s mine is yours, I’ll lend you anything HELL I’ll pretty much GIVE you anything if you ask. I have no issue at all with that. But if you take my stuff without asking? Well, you’re in the Grudge Book for life.

I guess this comes from, as a child, always knowing where my ‘stuff’ was ie. exactly where I left it. As a result, I get very antsy when my stuff ISN’T where I left it or if I find people using it without asking. Naturally I am a grown up and I have learnt to paint on a relaxed, ‘No, go ahead, it’s not problem’ mask. But inside I’m screaming, ‘GET…OFF…MY…STUFF!”

I have a particular issue with stationary items in the workplace. Generally I sellotape a sticker with my name on it on to key items such as staplers, hole punches etc. Alas my current colleagues seem to think this is some kind of challenge; I am rarely in the office so they think it’s OK to use my stuff (wrong – to be clear, it is never, ever OK to use my stuff without my express consent). They have attached another sticker to my stapler which says ‘We use this all the time when you’re not here!!!’ Oh, how I laughed and jested with them when I saw it. Whilst mentally scribbling in the Grudge Book of course…

One of the real downsides of having children is that they have absolutely no respect for the concept of ‘my stuff’. Over the years I’ve had to concede my mobile, my make up, my notepads, my handbags etc to them. But two things make me rage when they even approach them are (1) my Symthson diary, so pristine and pink with blue page prettiness and (2) my MacBook. Even MrSpud gets the evils when he dares to use it. The boys stab at the screen with buttery/chocolatey fingers, then smear it all over the keyboard, and takes turns to ‘shut the door’ i.e slam the lid down with force. Entry in the Grudge Book for them too, every time.

Smythson Diary and favourite necklace (since broken by boys...grr)

I know, it’s only ‘stuff’. But, you know, it’s MY STUFF. So leave it alone unless you’ve asked to use/borrow/abuse it. OK?

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Secret 22…I used to be biker
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!
• FINALLY…Secret 30…I am a Big…Fat…Liar…

A bit 'take a letter Miss Freak' - no?

So, I only like to watch films I’ve seen before. It’s not as daft as it sounds; watching a film takes a couple of hours of my life and I need to be confident it’s going to be worth the bother. Naturally there is a ‘bit’ of a flaw here in terms of actually watching any new films and getting them on to the Approved List. Generally I stick to the following categories:

1. Films with a near identical plot to a film on the Approved List
2. Films without Keira Knightly in them
3. Films which are sequels to those on the Approved List
4. Films of books I have read and loved (VERY dicey though, trade off between ruining my love of the book v safety net of knowing what the plot is)
5. Films with Michael Palin in them

Films that I categorically refuse to watch:

1. Anything MrSpud says is ‘an absolute classic’ (dong: hear that? that’s its death knell)
2. Anything involving war, violence, subtitles, conflict, horror, hobbits or sci-fi
3. Anything with dead horses heads in it
4. Anything with John Wayne in it
5. Anything involving historical reenactments of any kind

I’m perfectly happy with my Approved List but not so MrSpud who has tried to instigate Movie Night, each Saturday, in the desperate hope of him being allowed to watch something not directed by Mike Leigh. I’m not that keen on the idea as I think the list is just fine as it is. One or two new films have slipped through the net despite my best efforts at distraction, but for the most part the Approved List remains reassuringly static.

Occasionally I allow MrSpud to watch films that are not on the Approved List, as long as he doesn’t try to make me watch them or engage me in any kind of discussion about his movie du choix. The absolute exception to this rule is the Lord of the (sno)Ring trilogy which I cannot abide.

MrSpud having a turn with 'the eyes'

When I very first met MrSpud I got hoodwinked in to trip to the cinema with him and his extended family to see Lord of the Rings. I really thought that film would never, ever end and that I would be stuck forever in some kind of recurring nightmare involving Shires and people with bad ears and a terminally poor grip on reality. Three hours of misery, contemplating ripping off my own arm and eating it to alleviate the tedium, whilst trapped between a couple of Nanas who slept soundly throughout. Straight in to the Grudge Book for MrSpud for that little jaunt – he has a whole page to himself you know…

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!
• FINALLY…Secret 30…I am a Big…Fat…Liar…
• Secret 29…I’m a disgrace to the nation

I confess, I cheated again. MrSpud took this as I wasn’t in the mood for all the faffing with the tripod etc. So I set it up, painted my face bright green and woke him up from a sofa snooze to photograph me. It took him about 20 seconds to even notice anything was different about my face. WTF?!

On with the secret. In short, pretty much every time I go near water I vomit. I have been sick on ferries (once before it had even left PORT), yachts, sail boats, motor boats…you name it, I’ve ruined it with sick. A faint whiff of Dettol must follow me wherever i go.I’ve been sick at sea, on rivers, estuaries, reservoirs, boating lakes and, most famously, on a canal. Yes, you read that right, I have been sick on a canal boat.

Which makes it all the more puzzling that I own a boat. Neither MrSpud nor I can sail, and I have no intention of ever learning after depositing my lunch on a crowded beach (to rapturous applause) after my first, and last, sailing lesson as a teenager. We’ve never even seen the boat, I couldn’t even tell you much about her other than the fact that she’s called Frances and has red sails. I ‘think’ I’ve seen her bobbing around on the estuary from the safety of quay, but I can’t be sure as I daren’t look for too long in case I’m sick. I should just ask the blokes at the boatyard but I can’t bear the thought of those old sea dogs sneering at me like the the fancy London Land Lubber that I am…”Excuse me, my good fellow, could you tell me which one is my boat?”. Blushes.

We bought the boat with a friend last year. He can’t sail either. What were we thinking?! I suspect MrSpud and his pal got carried away on some kind of Swallows & Amazons nautical whimsey whereas I had a rare attack of the smarts and made what I am sure is a very sound investment decision i.e it passes the ‘what’s in it for me?’ test with muster.

Here’s the plan…when the boys are old enough I will pack them off to sailing school and then they can have the boat and spend weekends pootling up and down the estuary while I retire to the sofa. Joined..up..thinking,

I’ll just have to hope they haven’t inherited my wibbly wobbly sea legs. If so, no matter, they can take a bucket.

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Swallows & Amazons
• Housekeeping
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!
• You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream

Be afraid...be very afrad

Mwah ha ha. I don’t keep an ‘actual’ grudge book, because that would be crazy, right? But, I fess up, I do have a bit of a mental grudge book where I keep a rolling list of those unlucky souls who have slighted me in some way over the years. Because that’s not crazy, right?

First up, my mother. I know, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and all that, especially when it’s someone you adored but..you know…she boobed. She hurt me! I was 15, she told me she was pleased I’d grown my hair from a short, elfin cut cut to a bob because, and I quote “You have such a thick neck”. WHAT?!!! Aren’t mothers supposed to be those kindly, forgiving, you can do anything and I will support you as long as you’re happy kind of people? Apparently not. Not least because I have subsequently spent most of my adult life with a short, elfin chop..and thus displaying my ‘thick neck’ apparently. So, number one grudge …. my mother. You sleeping well up there in heaven Mum? Giggle.

Number two….best friend from childhood who told me I had, ‘Evil, thin, mean lips’. WHAAAAAAAT?!!! To this day, 30 years later, I still look at my lips and assess them for evil, thin, mean qualities. ‘Possibly’ I had told her she had ‘big, fat, rubber lips’ which provoked this assault. I can’t be sure, it was a long time ago.

Number three..MrSpud, natch. In response to me being a sobbing wreck after my mother died, telling him the worst bit for me was that I couldn’t believe I was never going to see her again, he responded…”Well…you know…you’re not”. Waaaaah! Well thanks for that, way to go empathy. Giggle.

I could bore you all night. Just know that if you’ve slighted me, insulted me, put me down, ignored me or tried to get the better of me….you’re in the book. But don’t be afraid, don’t lose any sleep at night, just don’t do it again…right?

Nobody puts Spud in the corner.

MWAH HA HA!!!!

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Secret 24…I wish I didn’t have to wear glasses
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Dirty Little Secrets
• Housekeeping
• I’m not really here

Go on...I dare you...

Care to dance? Fancy a spin round the dancefloor with me? Spin me, twirl me, jitterbug and whirl me…let’s bop, let’s jive, let’s shimmy and shake…let’s strut our stuff until our big fat ankles ache…

Oooh I’m getting all poetic. Rhyming ‘n’ everfink. So do you? Care to take a spin with me and  dance like there’s nobody watching? Well, you’d better pray nobody is watching if you’re dancing with me because, frankly, it’s embarrassing.

You know those awkward looking souls always hugging the edge of the dance floor, swaying and rocking and jigging from foot to foot whilst throwing murderous glances in the direction of the cool kids who really know how to throw some shapes? Yup, that’s me, I’m one of those.

I’m actually very peeved that the cool dancing gene passed me by as, in my head, I can really trip the light fantastic, man, I’m on fire on the dance floor.  My mother was a ballet/tap/modern dance teacher so surely I should be able to manage a bit of disco dancing? But, no, my entire repertoire consists of (a) the shuffle (b) the sway and (c) what can only be described as ‘the lurch, with pointing’.

Alcohol doesn’t improve matters, quite the opposite. All it does is unleash an inner, deep belief that I am a brilliant disco dancer. Enter a new Spud dance in to the equation which is ‘the lurch, with pointing, AND SINGING ALONG LOUDLY’ even though I never know the words. Oh no…I’m blushing now as I remember Discos of Yore and my shambolic performances.

Alas said discos were not in some village hall in my youth. Oh no, I’m talking about work functions and many, many of them. I’m surprised I’m still in employment actually. There may even have been an episode of AIR GUITAR, complete with something tied around my head, on a balcony in the ballroom of the Waldorf hotel, with an audience of all 700 partners of the law firm I worked for at the time. Shudder.

MrSpud is pretty ‘special’ on the dancing front too. He compliments my ‘lurching with pointing’ attempts with a kind of ‘hobbit’ dancing. He likes to dance alone, and can generally be found wheeling around the corners of the dance floor, slightly hunched over like someone’s just punched him in the stomach complete with low moaning (I think that’s him singing though). Kind of like a hunch-backed, dwarf sized Morrissey.

Imagine our shared joy when it dawned on us that we were going to have to perform for our wedding guests during the torturous ‘first dance’. What to do? The hobbit with wheeling? The lurch with pointing? Bit of air guitar? Ah, a story for another day.

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• Showtime!
• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• Aging (Dis)gracefully
• AWOL

Way, way, way back in 2000 I had a dream date to end all dream dates. It went swimmingly, there was laughter, there was banter, I was hilarious, he didn’t do too badly keeping up. Frankly, it was a triumph.

A watched phone never rings...not even if you watch it for 8 years

I spent the next day mapping out our future life together, named our children, named our dogs, checked his surname didn’t sound ridiculous with my first name and practiced my new signature a few times while I waited for him to call.

I waited, and I waited, and I waited some more. And when I was fed up waiting it dawned on me that OF COURSE he had lost my number and was probably engaged in a frantic hunt for me. So I rang him, left a message. And still he didn’t call back despite me repeating my number at least 3 times and remembering not to call him my ‘hubbie’ or anything.

Either he’s never going to call or he’s engaged in some kind of extreme version of The Rules and he’s playing really, really hard to get.  My ego likes to think it’s the latter.

No matter as I have the fantastico MrSpud anyway who, thankfully, has never read The Rules and is far too little for any kind of extreme sport anyway xxx

Bonus outtake shot ;-)

Hello? Is that bonkers anonymous?

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• The Gallery… Mustachioed
• Housekeeping
• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!
• FINALLY…Secret 30…I am a Big…Fat…Liar…
• Secret 29…I’m a disgrace to the nation