Amanda Larkman's Blog: Middle-Aged Warrior, page 7

My Book!

My Book!

I am so excited to write this post. Excited and a little bit sick, to be honest because this is it. This is me coming out of anonymity after two years of blogging.

I am starting to realise that I can’t publicise this and stay undercover so now my family and friends will be able to read all my posts about all sorts of embarrassing things.

Also, of course, everyone could hate my book and pour scorn and mockery upon my head. Argh! But, this is something I’ve wanted to do all my life and if not now, when etc.

It’s not great timing that I’ve got this coming out just as we are dealing with a horrifying, world-wide pandemic and I am conscious of the millions of people who are going through extraordinary suffering, not to mention those heroes who get up and go to work every day in hospitals, supermarkets, lorries and so on to keep us all going.

But then, I’ve found reading and re-reading old favourites has been really comforting so maybe this will help someone stuck indoors with irritating partners and/or annoying children who could do with something to take their mind off things.

It is a pretty escapist novel, it’s got mystery and magic and an awful old woman who is horrible to people and makes me laugh – she’s basically my Nan. I wanted the book to represent all the strong, funny, bawdy and clever women I have known who never let the world defeat them, even though they may wobble sometimes.

I was going to use the tag line; ‘Because you’re never too old, or too fat to save the world’ but Rob wouldn’t let me. What do you think?

This blog and the wonderful people – you, dear reader – who have commented, made me laugh and offered fantastic advice, led me to this day and I am hugely grateful to all of you who had a look at some early chapters and gave encouragement.

It would be AMAZING if you could buy a copy, it’s only a couple of quid, and thanks to the marvellous Amazon you can get it all over the world. It is also in paperback but that’s more expensive.

It would ALSO be amazing if you could give it a review – but as they say, if you like it, write a glowing review, if you don’t, contact me and I will send you a refund! Or buy you a drink, depends how close we are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have followed my blog. I’m sorry I’ve been so crap about updates but I found I couldn’t do both, my brain just sort of split into fragments when I tried.

I’m working on a thriller now currently called ‘Green Eyes’ but that will probably change.

Lots of love to you all and let’s hope this horror passes soon.

Not About My Book But Random Ramblings

So what’s going on in the MAW household?

Well, to begin with, OCADO!

Jesus Christ, never has shopping been so stressful. As I mentioned in my last post we were doing pretty well with food, thanks to my ‘Walking Dead’ obsession shopping, but over the past few weeks supplies (of comfort food, mainly) were running dangerously low.

One tip, I got some delicious – I mean really delicious – bread from this online bakery. I didn’t know you could get bread delivered, but if you fancy some lovely, freshly baked loaves and rolls etc have a look here. Their fig and walnut bread is highly recommended (by me, who ate half of the loaf last night with butter).

For the past week I’ve been trying to get a delivery slot with Ocado. A combination of Rob’s paranoia, my asthma, hypochondria, and living in the middle of fricking nowhere, means we are quite reliant on home delivering our groceries.

The search for a slot was fruitless for days. My neighbour and I exchanged anxious texts, she was IN! No, she got bounced off. I kept getting bounced off until I was IN! Could book a delivery but couldn’t add any shopping to my basket. Neighbour could add to basket but couldn’t check out.

Then she was IN and BOOKED! I was sick with jealousy. She sent me a string of dancing emojis, saying she’d never been so excited about food shopping.

Three days later I was in, with a slot booked and I started adding stuff to the basket. I was very sensible and went for the meat, fruit, veg etc that we usually bought – my finger hovered over the ‘check out’ button. Here I was, moments away… my heart rate ticked up a notch then…

BLAM!

Bounced out.

This image has been burned on my retinas for the past week – I see it in my dreams.

[image error]Bounced

Nooooo! I cried in agony. I must have sounded pretty wretched because both Son AND Daughter looked up from their devices in mild consternation, before looking back down again. Dog, bless her, trotted over but she had – yet again – rolled in something disgusting so was sent back to her bean bag.

I found if I logged in again I had a few precious seconds before I got bounced so I started on a mission to get the trolley checked out. This took hours and hours and while I was doing this I kept seeing extra items and thought ooh! Yes! Better get that. Better get wine.

When I finally (last night at 1am) managed to check out and I received the email confirmation I realised that in my panicked state I’d managed to buy an awful lot of mint clubs, two different bottles of extra virgin olive oil (the one thing we didn’t need) and five different sets of multipack crisps.

It was all a bit of a blur, I don’t remember quite how it happened. The shopping is going to be much more expensive than normal and is basically full of high calorie carbs and chocolate.

Rob’s current project is clearing a huge flowerbed which is stuffed full of ugly coppice. He chops it down easy enough but is then left with a million branches and trunks so it looks like the aftermath of the 1987 hurricane out there.

That’s when the children are supposed to come in. I don’t know if any of you have, or have had, children around the age of 12 and 14, but they really don’t seem very keen on helping with the moving and chipping of said hurricane aftermath.

Emotional blackmail didn’t work, so I had to go through hours of tense negotiation. It took so long I might as well have gone out and done it myself. Eventually, I got Daughter to spend just over seven minutes in the garden and Son managed an entire hour.

They have been tricky to say the least. I find myself veering between impatience and frustration as they sleep in all day and live on their devices, and sympathy for them. Son is devastated his Yr 9 at school has been cut short and he is missing out on all that social stuff you do at that age. Daughter misses her friends and worries about her exams.

Daughter is going through that beady stage where she is critical of every bit of me. I remember going through it myself with my lovely mum but that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. ‘You’ve got a hole in those leggings,’ she’ll say. Or, ‘shouldn’t you brush your hair before you give that lesson, they can see you, you know.’ (I had, in fact, already brushed my hair.)

The way I pronounce ‘butter’, my ‘ridiculous’ insistence that towels don’t have to be washed after a single use, my borrowing back MY shoes that she’s pinched – all come under her critical scrutiny and I am found sadly lacking.

But then she will do something lovely. Last night she presented me with one of those paper ‘fortune teller’ things. Remember them? I didn’t know what they were called until I found this on Wikipedia.

I chose the colours and numbers as expected and when Daughter lifted the flap it said ‘Your Book Will Get You Millions’, and she then unfolded it all up and every flap said the same. Cue ugly crying and hugging from me, which she tolerated for about five seconds before pushing me off.

[image error][image error]My Daughter is lovely, really

I found the one thing I do that really, really annoys them. It fills them with mortification and horror. I don’t know whether you’ve seen it but it’s all over Tik Tok (An app to which I have become completely addicted, it is curiously uplifting – all those young people dancing at school and then getting expelled – joyous)

Anyway, there’s a guy on there with a thick southern accent who sings ‘Somebody come get her, she’s dancing like a stripper.’ Here is a woman who, like me, has got this song trapped in her head.

@vixmeldrew

Trying to get work done from home and this happens…

♬ original sound –

So what I do when the kids are annoying me is jump into their rooms and sing this, whilst dancing enthusiastically with lots of hip thrusting.

Talking of Tik Tok – here are some of my favourite videos.

This is my NUMBER ONE Favourite Tik Tok Video – it makes me laugh every time I watch it.

This could be my Mum

Look at these wonderful dancing hospital people!

@shuj___

#coronavirus #nhs #itu #uk #nurse

♬ WOAH – Krypto9095

Joyful and makes you cry at the same time

And finally this guy. This guy makes me feel funny in my tummy (you’re welcome *fans self*)

Phew! Don’t know what it is, but he sure has something – what do you think?

I hope you enjoyed them.

Please buy my book!

Please review my book!

Thank you for all your support over the years and let me know what you think of… THE WOMAN AND THE WITCH! – OUT NOW!

XXX

PS FINAL thought – I heard a few months ago a great quote and I am going to make it my motto – ‘Pain is what turns a woman into a WARRIOR!’

Middle-Aged Catch Up

Well. I really don’t know where to start. Who could have possibly envisaged that the whole world would be in lock down with a terrifying virus rampaging around? There are tough times, and I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well.

But enough of that. There’s enough misery out there without me adding to it. I have got a reason for my long absence, scouts’ honour, and more on that later, but I wanted to check in to let you know what’s been going on in the warrior household.

The Dog

So things have not been good for Dog. We found a lump on her hip and I thought – oh it’s fine. Probably just that piece of grass wandering around her body that they didn’t get out in her last operation.

Well it wasn’t. Turned out to be a tumour she had to have cut out. Horrors, horrors. The poor thing had to get back in her cone and have her tummy shaved (the vet offered a free ultrasound as she was in training and I thought, why not?) and a big chunk cut out of the top of her leg.

[image error]Look at her! Look at her poor little face!

The good news is she is absolutely fine now. She wasn’t allowed to go for walks for ages and when she was finally allowed off her lead she promptly ran into a wood for an hour and a half until I was hoarse with shouting and sweating like a pig.

I was just about to call the vet police (is that a thing?) when she trotted up to me with casual shrug and a ‘what?’ expression.

She has also managed to work out how to lever off the top of our metal bin so three times in a row I have woken up to find our rubbish scattered all over the kitchen with Dog lying under the sofa refusing to look at me.

She is over the moon that we are home all the time and is getting lots of walks. She is the children’s constant companion.

[image error]Dog helping Daughter with Distance Learning

The only problem with working from home with Dog is that when I was teaching a live lesson she crept up to my blind side and carefully clambered up my body until she was sitting on my lap. Her strength and weight was extraordinary and it took me quite a while to prise her off – much to the hilarity of my sixth form.

Family

As I am sure many of you have found, living all together can be tough. The children are driving me insane and I find it irritating they are both now taller than me and Daughter keeps stealing my clothes; she looks so much better than me in them I have now hidden everything.

The chocolate stash remains undiscovered, but I have to keep moving it to avoid detection. I have given up on wearing a bra at all, settling for thick jumpers, so there are some silver linings.

Now the holidays official have started, I have no excuses and Rob has been getting quite insistent that I should be doing half the cooking.

[image error]This is why I don’t cook

I tried to point out to him that I am not a natural cook and the last time I cooked a big dinner was at Christmas, and somehow I managed to burn myself so badly (on the edge of a saucepan – how is that even possible?) I had a giant blister, the scar of which remains to this day.

This didn’t cut any mustard with him, so I am getting pretty good at ham and cheese toasties (but now the bread has run out and I am 9 million and one in the Ocado queue) and I was quite proud of this pasta dish I made from the left overs in the fridge. I added loads of chipotle sauce and it was delicious.

[image error]

My other cooking success was golden syrup cookies. OK, so the syrup was so old it had gone a bit black around the edges of the tin, and the flour’s best before date was June 2018 – but they come out lovely. I made a billion of them, thinking they would last the lockdown duration, but the kids hoovered them up within a day and a half.

This was despite me hiding them in a variety of places including a muesli cereal box and the laundry basket. They’ve gone completely feral and roam about sniffing the air to see if there’s any food to be found.

I am very grateful to the Walking Dead because when I was binge watching it I got really paranoid about running out of food so I went through a phase of buying loads of tins. Rob scoffed at me and thought I was mad.

Well, who is the mad one now? Ha! Thanks to me, Rob found fourteen cans of custard, twelve tins of rice pudding and six tins of chopped tomatoes I’d put in the attic. Not so much the ‘idiot wasting our money’ now, eh, Rob?

It may not seem the most ideal of of food stores, but actually it’s been really nice having hot custard with crumble and bowls of comforting rice pudding. Next time I worry about a zombie invasion I will definitely stock up on yeast, chocolate chips and mayonnaise – all of which are sadly lacking in our household at the moment.

Rob is spending hours in the garden then getting very cross nobody will come out to help him except Dog who lies next to him and gets in his way.

I’ve spent too long on my phone constantly swearing at it because it won’t open when I look at it. I don’t know what I did, but I can’t seem to recreate the fricking expression I used when I first bought it and signed in, so have to keep using the passcode. I have no idea how to update my Face ID so am stuck with this.

[image error]Stupid phone

Not being able to go to the gym has been hard, but we are very near a field so I have been running around that every couple of days. (This time with a bra, a very firm one). I thought I was fairly fit until I did a bloody Joe Wick work out. Jesus! I ache all over today – very good value (I bought one episode on Amazon video, the 20 mins HIIT work out) and it was excellent.

[image error]I chose Joe purely because he is such an effective teacher *cough*

Having a slower pace of life takes getting used to but we are relaxing into it. We are very lucky we are safe at the moment, and can self-isolate, unlike those incredible people out there in the NHS, as well as the delivery drivers, farmers, supermarket workers, food stackers, bin men and women, and all the others who have to keep going out there to keep us all going. My heart goes out to them.

One lovely advantage to being able to sit and stare out of the window is you get to see some amazing birds. On our bird table I’ve had a woodpecker, and a beautiful long-tailed tit (I’ve been told that’s what he is) who is TINY but so bold he sat on my door handle and tapped on the window to be let in.

[image error][image error][image error]



My Book! MY BOOK!

OK, so I managed to keep a lid on my excitement until now. My book goes live on 3rd April!

I am hoping to send a link out so people can have a look. It’s going to be so embarrassing if everyone things it’s a pile of tosh.

The absolute worst bit has been finding a photo for my author profile on Amazon. I spent ages looking and thought the one I’d chosen was quite nice until Rob said I looked like a fat Chinese woman. ‘I look happy though, don’t I?’ I said. ‘Yes, you look happy,’ he replied.

I’ve got two novels finished now, and one I’m in by a few chapters. Writing the books and writing the blog at the same time is something I’ve found impossible, so it’s been nice to put the book aside to write this.

I feel like this is a bad time to be twaddling on about my book. It seems very trivial in this nightmare we are currently enduring, but I thought, well, maybe reading about an old witch and a fat, middle-aged woman is the escape we need in these dark times?

Speaking of coping with the nightmares… here are my escape recommendations….*

Stop watching the news and read/watch these instead

This was sweet, funny, and rolled gently along. I’m looking forward to her next one.

The wonderful, wonderful, Marian Keyes. This is a great big wodge of a novel and kept me sucked in until the end. Perfect to shut out the world.

If you want a good, gripping, thriller of a novel – Sophie Hannah is the master.

Love Lisa Jewell and her thrillers are top notch. Highly recommended

Have a look at my recommendations for books but if you click here you will find my top COMFORT READS, which we all need right now.

What to Watch?

Well GRACE AND FRANKIE of course!

Also, we’re late to the game, but Rob and I are really enjoying bingeing (sp?) on The Tunnel – the UK version of The Bridge.

Marcella – absolutely bloody brilliant – have you seen it? Really, really good thriller. Two seasons as well so will keep you going for a while.

Oh dear, I do like comedies very much but all I have watched lately have been gritty thrillers. They are absorbing, though – and maybe that’s what we need right now.

I can hear the sound of chocolate wrappers opening – Son’s found the stash!

Keep safe everyone.

*I used to get a % if anyone clicked on these links but I’ve never made any money so they chucked me off the programme, but I thought I’d better warn you just in case that I might get some pennies if you go on to buy this

Middle-Aged Catch Up

Well. I really don’t know where to start. Who could have possibly envisaged that the whole world would be in lock down with a terrifying virus rampaging around? There are tough times, and I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well.

But enough of that. There’s enough misery out there without me adding to it. I have got a reason for my long absence, scouts’ honour, and more on that later, but I wanted to check in to let you know what’s been going on in the warrior household.

The Dog

So things have not been good for Dog. We found a lump on her hip and I thought – oh it’s fine. Probably just that piece of grass wandering around her body that they didn’t get out in her last operation.

Well it wasn’t. Turned out to be a tumour she had to have cut out. Horrors, horrors. The poor thing had to get back in her cone and have her tummy shaved (the vet offered a free ultrasound as she was in training and I thought, why not?) and a big chunk cut out of the top of her leg.

[image error]Look at her! Look at her poor little face!

The good news is she is absolutely fine now. She wasn’t allowed to go for walks for ages and when she was finally allowed off her lead she promptly ran into a wood for an hour and a half until I was hoarse with shouting and sweating like a pig.

I was just about to call the vet police (is that a thing?) when she trotted up to me with casual shrug and a ‘what?’ expression.

She has also managed to work out how to lever off the top of our metal bin so three times in a row I have woken up to find our rubbish scattered all over the kitchen with Dog lying under the sofa refusing to look at me.

She is over the moon that we are home all the time and is getting lots of walks. She is the children’s constant companion.

[image error]Dog helping Daughter with Distance Learning

The only problem with working from home with Dog is that when I was teaching a live lesson she crept up to my blind side and carefully clambered up my body until she was sitting on my lap. Her strength and weight was extraordinary and it took me quite a while to prise her off – much to the hilarity of my sixth form.

Family

As I am sure many of you have found, living all together can be tough. The children are driving me insane and I find it irritating they are both now taller than me and Daughter keeps stealing my clothes; she looks so much better than me in them I have now hidden everything.

The chocolate stash remains undiscovered, but I have to keep moving it to avoid detection. I have given up on wearing a bra at all, settling for thick jumpers, so there are some silver linings.

Now the holidays official have started, I have no excuses and Rob has been getting quite insistent that I should be doing half the cooking.

[image error]This is why I don’t cook

I tried to point out to him that I am not a natural cook and the last time I cooked a big dinner was at Christmas, and somehow I managed to burn myself so badly (on the edge of a saucepan – how is that even possible?) I had a giant blister, the scar of which remains to this day.

This didn’t cut any mustard with him, so I am getting pretty good at ham and cheese toasties (but now the bread has run out and I am 9 million and one in the Ocado queue) and I was quite proud of this pasta dish I made from the left overs in the fridge. I added loads of chipotle sauce and it was delicious.

[image error]

My other cooking success was golden syrup cookies. OK, so the syrup was so old it had gone a bit black around the edges of the tin, and the flour’s best before date was June 2018 – but they come out lovely. I made a billion of them, thinking they would last the lockdown duration, but the kids hoovered them up within a day and a half.

This was despite me hiding them in a variety of places including a muesli cereal box and the laundry basket. They’ve gone completely feral and roam about sniffing the air to see if there’s any food to be found.

I am very grateful to the Walking Dead because when I was binge watching it I got really paranoid about running out of food so I went through a phase of buying loads of tins. Rob scoffed at me and thought I was mad.

Well, who is the mad one now? Ha! Thanks to me, Rob found fourteen cans of custard, twelve tins of rice pudding and six tins of chopped tomatoes I’d put in the attic. Not so much the ‘idiot wasting our money’ now, eh, Rob?

It may not seem the most ideal of of food stores, but actually it’s been really nice having hot custard with crumble and bowls of comforting rice pudding. Next time I worry about a zombie invasion I will definitely stock up on yeast, chocolate chips and mayonnaise – all of which are sadly lacking in our household at the moment.

Rob is spending hours in the garden then getting very cross nobody will come out to help him except Dog who lies next to him and gets in his way.

I’ve spent too long on my phone constantly swearing at it because it won’t open when I look at it. I don’t know what I did, but I can’t seem to recreate the fricking expression I used when I first bought it and signed in, so have to keep using the passcode. I have no idea how to update my Face ID so am stuck with this.

[image error]Stupid phone

Not being able to go to the gym has been hard, but we are very near a field so I have been running around that every couple of days. (This time with a bra, a very firm one). I thought I was fairly fit until I did a bloody Joe Wick work out. Jesus! I ache all over today – very good value (I bought one episode on Amazon video, the 20 mins HIIT work out) and it was excellent.

[image error]I chose Joe purely because he is such an effective teacher *cough*

Having a slower pace of life takes getting used to but we are relaxing into it. We are very lucky we are safe at the moment, and can self-isolate, unlike those incredible people out there in the NHS, as well as the delivery drivers, farmers, supermarket workers, food stackers, bin men and women, and all the others who have to keep going out there to keep us all going. My heart goes out to them.

One lovely advantage to being able to sit and stare out of the window is you get to see some amazing birds. On our bird table I’ve had a woodpecker, and a beautiful long-tailed tit (I’ve been told that’s what he is) who is TINY but so bold he sat on my door handle and tapped on the window to be let in.

[image error][image error][image error]



My Book! MY BOOK!

OK, so I managed to keep a lid on my excitement until now. My book goes live on 3rd April!

I am hoping to send a link out so people can have a look. It’s going to be so embarrassing if everyone things it’s a pile of tosh.

The absolute worst bit has been finding a photo for my author profile on Amazon. I spent ages looking and thought the one I’d chosen was quite nice until Rob said I looked like a fat Chinese woman. ‘I look happy though, don’t I?’ I said. ‘Yes, you look happy,’ he replied.

I’ve got two novels finished now, and one I’m in by a few chapters. Writing the books and writing the blog at the same time is something I’ve found impossible, so it’s been nice to put the book aside to write this.

I feel like this is a bad time to be twaddling on about my book. It seems very trivial in this nightmare we are currently enduring, but I thought, well, maybe reading about an old witch and a fat, middle-aged woman is the escape we need in these dark times?

Speaking of coping with the nightmares… here are my escape recommendations….*

Stop watching the news and read/watch these instead

This was sweet, funny, and rolled gently along. I’m looking forward to her next one.

The wonderful, wonderful, Marian Keyes. This is a great big wodge of a novel and kept me sucked in until the end. Perfect to shut out the world.

If you want a good, gripping, thriller of a novel – Sophie Hannah is the master.

Love Lisa Jewell and her thrillers are top notch. Highly recommended

Have a look at my recommendations for books but if you click here you will find my top COMFORT READS, which we all need right now.

What to Watch?

Well GRACE AND FRANKIE of course!

Also, we’re late to the game, but Rob and I are really enjoying bingeing (sp?) on The Tunnel – the UK version of The Bridge.

Marcella – absolutely bloody brilliant – have you seen it? Really, really good thriller. Two seasons as well so will keep you going for a while.

Oh dear, I do like comedies very much but all I have watched lately have been gritty thrillers. They are absorbing, though – and maybe that’s what we need right now.

I can hear the sound of chocolate wrappers opening – Son’s found the stash!

Keep safe everyone.

*I used to get a % if anyone clicked on these links but I’ve never made any money so they chucked me off the programme, but I thought I’d better warn you just in case that I might get some pennies if you go on to buy this

Why you should watch: Grace and Frankie – Update

In celebration of the return of this fantastic series I am re-posting this. Do go and watch it – it’s wonderful!

I am nearly done with the third draft of my comic caper novel and am hoping to enter it in the Comedy Women in Print Competition – watch this space!

Also, all sort of updates on Dog, my children – who have managed to grow three feet in the last month and are now taller than me (horrors!) – plus the story of my gruesome arm blister (with pics!) – to come as soon as I stop writing this BLOODY BOOK xx

I was delighted to learn the the fourth season of Grace and Frankie was coming to Netflix on the 19th January. It’s a very watchable and funny programme. At the very least it’s so wonderful to see actors in their late 70’s featuring as central cast members with all the passions, joys and frustrations of ageing explored with such honesty and humour.

But it’s not just the novelty of seeing great acting from so called ‘senior actors’ which makes this worth watching. The whole cast is brilliantly put together and the script is full of zippy one liners which are so quick and so clever you find yourself having to keep on using the 10 second rewind button to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

The Premise

Excuse terrible quality – there isn’t a YouTube video of it and the kids were hogging the TV so had to record it from my laptop!

As can be seen from the opening titles the premise is fairly straight forward.

Grace and Frankie have been married to their lawyer husbands, Robert and Sol for over forty years. In the opening episode Grace and Frankie are invited by their husbands to go out to dinner, all four of them.

Robert and Sol are divorce lawyers who run a law firm together, and their wives are delighted as they think that the reason for the dinner is that the men will be announcing they are finally going to retire.

Grace and Frankie do not like each other. They have kept civil over the years because their husbands have been friends and colleagues throughout their married life. The antipathy between them is obvious from their awkward conversation at the restaurant table whilst waiting for their husbands.

Robert and Sol arrive and instead of announcing their retirement, announce they are leaving Grace and Frankie. For each other.

Robert, Grace’s husband, reveals they have been in a relationship for twenty years. They want to start the new chapter in their lives together, ‘before it’s too late’.

Robert explains with eager pride, ‘because we can get married now.’ To which hippy Frankie replies dryly, ‘I know. I hosted that fundraiser.’

The upshot is that, for a variety of reasons, Grace and Frankie end up having to live together in the families’ shared beach house.

Much of the humour comes from the ‘Odd Couple’ dynamic between Grace and Frankie. However, their children, particularly the waspishly brilliant Brianna Hanson played by June Diane Raphael, gives the series extra scope and appeal.

The Characters







Grace and Frankie

If you’re the same age as me you may remember the wonderful film ‘9 to 5’ which was the first time I saw Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin acting together, along with Dolly Parton. It’s still a film that can be enjoyed today – very of its time though! You can watch the whole thing on YouTube  It has one of the best theme songs.

Here is the original trailer which is terrible!

Someone made this one which I think is better as at least it features the women and the song!

Anyway, sorry, massive digression…

The reason I am quoting a film which is 38 years old is not only because I am happy to see these two together again (let’s hope Dolly Parton does a cameo in G&F at some point), but their long standing connection with each other gives extra strength and depth to the roles they play in this programme.

Fonda plays an uptight WASP who rigidly controls her diet. Her drink is a vodka martini ‘straight up, very dry – two olives on the side.’ When she asks a waiter to take away the bread basket Frankie points out to her that vodka is made of potatoes. Grace replies, ‘alcohol has it’s own rules.’ She was a very successful business woman before handing over – with reluctance – her cosmetics company to her daughter, Brianna.

Although her marriage to Robert was essentially loveless, she misses the respectability and social standing he offered her and struggles with accepting her age: movingly crying: ‘I refuse to be irrelevant!’

Frankie is an unapologetic old hippie. I love her character; she is an artist with a free spirit and expresses constant exasperation with Grace’s uptight approach to life. Open about her sex life, keen on dope and good food, she is the antithesis of Grace.

One of her most heart-breaking moments is when she applies to be an Art Teacher at a seniors’ home and the staff member showing her around assumes she is there for a room as one of the  ‘old folk’. Frankie is horrified and leaves in high dudgeon, but demonstrates some supple yoga squats yelling, ‘I’m not old!’ before she leaves with a swish.

Frankie invents and successfully markets a sex lube made from yams. This is the advert they put together.

Later, as their relationship develops and grows, Grace and Frankie work together to create a vibrator suitable for older women with issues such as arthritis in their hands. Here they explain to their family why they are doing it.

In an episode early on in the first season, No 3: ‘The Dinner’, there is a little thread underlying the main plot about Grace’s poor eyesight and Frankie’s problems with her hearing. It is very subtle but it leads to a joyful conclusion right at the end of the episode.

Grace’s sight and Frankie’s hearing – you have to watch the whole episode, really to appreciate why this is so funny.

Bravo to the creators, Marta Kauffman Howard J. Morris, for little touches like this which, in my opinion, make an outstanding show. The UK show One Foot in the Grave used to do a similar thing with little plot trails leading to unexpected conclusions.

Although very funny, this show does not flinch from the tragedy of ageing. Friends die; children grow up, divorce, drink and are unhappy; Grace and Frankie find their bodies fail them and they constantly face the terrors of their mortality. But I love it because they face these hardships with stoicism and humour, they challenge people who ignore or overlook them. I love their courage.

Frankie dresses up Grace and takes her dancing. They end up on the bar and are told, ‘Ma’am you’re going to have to get down.’

Brianna Hanson played by June Diane Raphael – she wears the most amazing clothes



Brianna Hanson

All the cast are wonderful but I particularly adore this character. Never seen without her razor sharp traffic-light-red cupid bow she is deliciously witty. She wears the most fabulous clothes and gets some of the best lines.

Walking into her family home where her ‘two gay dads’ now live:

Sister: Wait! What are you doing?

Brianna: I’m having dinner with my gay dads, you?

Sister: You can’t just walk in there! It’s not your house anymore.

Brianna: I lost both my virginities in this house. It’s my house.

[image error]

Most importantly, she’s got this get way of drawling her lines deadpan in the style of late greats such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The bitch with a heart of gold is a familiar archetype but June Diane Raphael does it with such style she brings new life to the cliche.

It helps she is supported so ably by the other children of the older couples, her sister Mallory – played by Brooklyn Decker – can hold her own against Brianna, and they capture the complexities of the sister relationship with absolute conviction.

I hope I’ve convinced you to have a look if you haven’t seen this already. Finding all these clips has reminded me again what a fantastic show Grace and Frankie is. The good news is it is going from strength to strength with – so far – each season being better than the last.

This trailer for Season 3 sums up everything I love about Grace and Frankie. Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

PS I completely love Jane Fonda anyway, but her recent Instagram post made me love her even more.

[image error]



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Why you should watch: Grace and Frankie – Update

In celebration of the return of this fantastic series I am re-posting this. Do go and watch it – it’s wonderful!

I am nearly done with the third draft of my comic caper novel and am hoping to enter it in the Comedy Women in Print Competition – watch this space!

Also, all sort of updates on Dog, my children – who have managed to grow three feet in the last month and are now taller than me (horrors!) – plus the story of my gruesome arm blister (with pics!) – to come as soon as I stop writing this BLOODY BOOK xx

I was delighted to learn the the fourth season of Grace and Frankie was coming to Netflix on the 19th January. It’s a very watchable and funny programme. At the very least it’s so wonderful to see actors in their late 70’s featuring as central cast members with all the passions, joys and frustrations of ageing explored with such honesty and humour.

But it’s not just the novelty of seeing great acting from so called ‘senior actors’ which makes this worth watching. The whole cast is brilliantly put together and the script is full of zippy one liners which are so quick and so clever you find yourself having to keep on using the 10 second rewind button to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

The Premise

Excuse terrible quality – there isn’t a YouTube video of it and the kids were hogging the TV so had to record it from my laptop!

As can be seen from the opening titles the premise is fairly straight forward.

Grace and Frankie have been married to their lawyer husbands, Robert and Sol for over forty years. In the opening episode Grace and Frankie are invited by their husbands to go out to dinner, all four of them.

Robert and Sol are divorce lawyers who run a law firm together, and their wives are delighted as they think that the reason for the dinner is that the men will be announcing they are finally going to retire.

Grace and Frankie do not like each other. They have kept civil over the years because their husbands have been friends and colleagues throughout their married life. The antipathy between them is obvious from their awkward conversation at the restaurant table whilst waiting for their husbands.

Robert and Sol arrive and instead of announcing their retirement, announce they are leaving Grace and Frankie. For each other.

Robert, Grace’s husband, reveals they have been in a relationship for twenty years. They want to start the new chapter in their lives together, ‘before it’s too late’.

Robert explains with eager pride, ‘because we can get married now.’ To which hippy Frankie replies dryly, ‘I know. I hosted that fundraiser.’

The upshot is that, for a variety of reasons, Grace and Frankie end up having to live together in the families’ shared beach house.

Much of the humour comes from the ‘Odd Couple’ dynamic between Grace and Frankie. However, their children, particularly the waspishly brilliant Brianna Hanson played by June Diane Raphael, gives the series extra scope and appeal.

The Characters







Grace and Frankie

If you’re the same age as me you may remember the wonderful film ‘9 to 5’ which was the first time I saw Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin acting together, along with Dolly Parton. It’s still a film that can be enjoyed today – very of its time though! You can watch the whole thing on YouTube  It has one of the best theme songs.

Here is the original trailer which is terrible!

Someone made this one which I think is better as at least it features the women and the song!

Anyway, sorry, massive digression…

The reason I am quoting a film which is 38 years old is not only because I am happy to see these two together again (let’s hope Dolly Parton does a cameo in G&F at some point), but their long standing connection with each other gives extra strength and depth to the roles they play in this programme.

Fonda plays an uptight WASP who rigidly controls her diet. Her drink is a vodka martini ‘straight up, very dry – two olives on the side.’ When she asks a waiter to take away the bread basket Frankie points out to her that vodka is made of potatoes. Grace replies, ‘alcohol has it’s own rules.’ She was a very successful business woman before handing over – with reluctance – her cosmetics company to her daughter, Brianna.

Although her marriage to Robert was essentially loveless, she misses the respectability and social standing he offered her and struggles with accepting her age: movingly crying: ‘I refuse to be irrelevant!’

Frankie is an unapologetic old hippie. I love her character; she is an artist with a free spirit and expresses constant exasperation with Grace’s uptight approach to life. Open about her sex life, keen on dope and good food, she is the antithesis of Grace.

One of her most heart-breaking moments is when she applies to be an Art Teacher at a seniors’ home and the staff member showing her around assumes she is there for a room as one of the  ‘old folk’. Frankie is horrified and leaves in high dudgeon, but demonstrates some supple yoga squats yelling, ‘I’m not old!’ before she leaves with a swish.

Frankie invents and successfully markets a sex lube made from yams. This is the advert they put together.

Later, as their relationship develops and grows, Grace and Frankie work together to create a vibrator suitable for older women with issues such as arthritis in their hands. Here they explain to their family why they are doing it.

In an episode early on in the first season, No 3: ‘The Dinner’, there is a little thread underlying the main plot about Grace’s poor eyesight and Frankie’s problems with her hearing. It is very subtle but it leads to a joyful conclusion right at the end of the episode.

Grace’s sight and Frankie’s hearing – you have to watch the whole episode, really to appreciate why this is so funny.

Bravo to the creators, Marta Kauffman Howard J. Morris, for little touches like this which, in my opinion, make an outstanding show. The UK show One Foot in the Grave used to do a similar thing with little plot trails leading to unexpected conclusions.

Although very funny, this show does not flinch from the tragedy of ageing. Friends die; children grow up, divorce, drink and are unhappy; Grace and Frankie find their bodies fail them and they constantly face the terrors of their mortality. But I love it because they face these hardships with stoicism and humour, they challenge people who ignore or overlook them. I love their courage.

Frankie dresses up Grace and takes her dancing. They end up on the bar and are told, ‘Ma’am you’re going to have to get down.’

Brianna Hanson played by June Diane Raphael – she wears the most amazing clothes



Brianna Hanson

All the cast are wonderful but I particularly adore this character. Never seen without her razor sharp traffic-light-red cupid bow she is deliciously witty. She wears the most fabulous clothes and gets some of the best lines.

Walking into her family home where her ‘two gay dads’ now live:

Sister: Wait! What are you doing?

Brianna: I’m having dinner with my gay dads, you?

Sister: You can’t just walk in there! It’s not your house anymore.

Brianna: I lost both my virginities in this house. It’s my house.

[image error]

Most importantly, she’s got this get way of drawling her lines deadpan in the style of late greats such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The bitch with a heart of gold is a familiar archetype but June Diane Raphael does it with such style she brings new life to the cliche.

It helps she is supported so ably by the other children of the older couples, her sister Mallory – played by Brooklyn Decker – can hold her own against Brianna, and they capture the complexities of the sister relationship with absolute conviction.

I hope I’ve convinced you to have a look if you haven’t seen this already. Finding all these clips has reminded me again what a fantastic show Grace and Frankie is. The good news is it is going from strength to strength with – so far – each season being better than the last.

This trailer for Season 3 sums up everything I love about Grace and Frankie. Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

PS I completely love Jane Fonda anyway, but her recent Instagram post made me love her even more.

[image error]



[image error]

My Movie Moments

I’ve become more reflective in my old age. It really is true how important it is to grab hold of happy moments when they come because you realise it isn’t a given that they will happen again. The absolute best of these I call Movie Moments.

This isn’t just about being happy – giving birth to a lovely baby, getting married, falling in love yada yada – of course those are precious. It’s also not about being happy, but I do want to tell you about a recent moment that made me VERY HAPPY INDEED. It’s funny, in my youth happiness was linked to looking good. I once gave £10 to a homeless man who said I had great legs. (I am conscious this is of course completely unacceptable in these #metoo days, but I walked on air for a good week afterwards) And I DID have great legs then, I wish I’d appreciated them more. They are getting slimmer and more muscular now – thanks to all the jumping – but they are all kind of warty and freckly – unlike the sleek, brown, glossy limbs of my trainer. Why is that? Bloody ageing, that’s why. Is there an solution other than wearing hideous, flesh coloured tights?

Anyway let me tell you what made me happy recently. If you remember, I wrote about my Jenny Eclair moment. I adore her and the podcast she does with Judith Holder. In my post I moaned that I had emailed and tweeted them both with no reply.

Well!

A few weeks ago I tweeted Jenny again and sent the link of my article again.

And this is what happened!!!!

[image error]

ARRRGGHHHH! This made me so happy. And being dared to write a novel by someone whom I so admire was head-turningly delicious. Especially since my book is coming along nicely after I re-wrote the first third. This has given me a boost in good time as the summer holidays start and I have a bit more time.

Back to Movie Moments. It’s not about being happy, it’s about everything being perfect. The setting, the feelings, the look – all has to be so in alignment it feels unreal.

I have had two movie moments and last week I had a third.

The first happened when I had just started my first proper job at a boys’ school. I was 23, had a car, was living away from home and was enjoying that wonderful sense of complete, carefree freedom that you can only feel in your early twenties (before debt, heavy relationships, and children)

It was the most gorgeous late May day. The sky was cloudless and shone above with a deep, Cerulean blue like highly polished glass. There was alight breeze and I was walking out of the school over to my car. I hadn’t a care in my head.

As I walked, a cool gust of wind rolled towards me and suddenly a great tree in the front yard which was groaning with the most beautiful, pale pink blossom shook loose its flowers which absolutely cascaded over me like the most abundant, sweet-scented confetti.

The flowers swirled around me for minutes. I remember I kept walking through clouds of blossom, my head just reeling. I felt more like a bride than the day I actually was a bride.

A few years later, now in my early 30s – still before children (until last week I was beginning to suspect movie moments end when you have to live with you children) – and some friends and I had ventured up to the big smoke. We had been to a number of clubs before winding up in Soho where we stopped at a noodle bar at about 3 in the morning.

It was one of those brilliant nights when you end up chatting with complete strangers. The night was filled with possibilities, and I had endless deep, philosophical conversations with random people; solving the problems of the world in that earnest way you do when you’re young and drunk.

Finally, worn out, we decided to walk home. Arm in arm with my bessie mate Guy and a few other mates we rolled down a street in Soho. We were lit with that strange, orange, electric wash of light you don’t seem to get nowadays, and above us the moon hung huge and white.

Still fairly drunk I remember thinking how much I loved everyone walking down the street with me and how brilliant the world was. Just then a man appeared from the pavement, a long shadow, he stood up and produced a saxophone which glittered in the light. Out of the blue he started playing a haunting jazz number. It fitted the mood so perfectly it made me shiver.

We carried on walking, without speaking, allowing the music to weave us back home. I could almost see the credits roll above our heads as we reached the end of the street.

Last week was Son’s sports day. He was low because his exam results hadn’t been great. A week of anger, defensiveness and hurt has caused rows and frustration. It made us both feel miserable.

I hate Sports’ Days. It’s always too hot, and other parents always make me feel poor, gauche, fat and awkward. But he was desperate for me to come watch so I went along. (Muttering all the while how sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child, and why should I drag myself out when he’d been a complete pain all week.) But his confidence was so low after the exam horror I knew he wanted me to see him do something he was good at. Dyslexia doesn’t stop you being able to run well. It was also his last one before he moves up to the next school.

He hadn’t done badly, a second and a third but I could see he was not happy. He had one race left. I was thinking about going and was cross with Rob as he had not managed to get there so I was phoning him asking where he was when I realised Son’s race had started.

It was the 4 by 400 metre relay. On his team were three of his mates; I’d known for years and seen them grow up from little lads of five or six.

Now some were great hulking already-shaving nearly men. Son is growing like a weed but it still skinny as a stick with a great mop of hair he takes great pride in. I can see him limbering up.

First guy runs brilliantly putting them ahead. The next guy has a good go, keeping up the lead and the third does the same.

As the third guy nears Son, who is waiting, quivering like a highly charged wire, there is a crackle on the sports ground microphone.

‘I don’t believe it,’ says the head of Games. ‘I’m looking at my watch here and we are very close to breaking the school record…’

Hearing this, Son CATAPULTS away from the start line and starts to bucket his way down the track.

‘He’s 58 seconds away from the record,’ echoed the voice around the field. ‘Oh I’m getting goose bumps. Come on, Middle Aged Warrior’s Son!’

Son is still streaking along. I’ve never seen him run so fast. His legs look like he’s stretched them by about a foot. The crowd starts to clap which drives Dog mad so she starts pirouetting about and barking.

The woman on the mike is getting more and more hysterical. ’35 seconds to beat now.’

Son’s sports coach is now running alongside him yelling, ‘Come on, MAW’s Son!’ he shouts. Unbelievably, Son sprints even faster.

Mike woman is now roaring, ‘Come on, everyone! This isn’t just about Houses anymore, this is about a whole school record! Give him a cheer!’

And the whole field ERUPTS into cheers. ‘Come on, Son! You can do it!’

All his mates are now running alongside the track screaming. I can see the look of desperation on his face. He’s so close to the end but I can see he’s at the end of his rope…

And he does it!

He breaks the record!

By six seconds!

All I can hear is screams and cheers. Son somersaults over the finish line and collapses on the grass. He immediately disappears under a pile of mates.

I punch my way through the crowd with Dog and he sees me and stumbles towards me crying his eyes out.

We share a hug and I can feel him sobbing. ‘I’m so happy!’ he says, tearfully.

‘I’m so proud of you!’ I cry. ‘It was like Chariots of Fire!’

And then he is gone. All the team are smiling, everyone is clapping them on the back and exchanging hugs. Son’s face looks like it is going to split in two his grin stretches from ear to ear.

My third movie moment.

And the most wonderful thing was I was there to see my boy have his Movie Moment. I hope he has hundreds more.

My Movie Moments

I’ve become more reflective in my old age. It really is true how important it is to grab hold of happy moments when they come because you realise it isn’t a given that they will happen again. The absolute best of these I call Movie Moments.

This isn’t just about being happy – giving birth to a lovely baby, getting married, falling in love yada yada – of course those are precious. It’s also not about being happy, but I do want to tell you about a recent moment that made me VERY HAPPY INDEED. It’s funny, in my youth happiness was linked to looking good. I once gave £10 to a homeless man who said I had great legs. (I am conscious this is of course completely unacceptable in these #metoo days, but I walked on air for a good week afterwards) And I DID have great legs then, I wish I’d appreciated them more. They are getting slimmer and more muscular now – thanks to all the jumping – but they are all kind of warty and freckly – unlike the sleek, brown, glossy limbs of my trainer. Why is that? Bloody ageing, that’s why. Is there an solution other than wearing hideous, flesh coloured tights?

Anyway let me tell you what made me happy recently. If you remember, I wrote about my Jenny Eclair moment. I adore her and the podcast she does with Judith Holder. In my post I moaned that I had emailed and tweeted them both with no reply.

Well!

A few weeks ago I tweeted Jenny again and sent the link of my article again.

And this is what happened!!!!

[image error]

ARRRGGHHHH! This made me so happy. And being dared to write a novel by someone whom I so admire was head-turningly delicious. Especially since my book is coming along nicely after I re-wrote the first third. This has given me a boost in good time as the summer holidays start and I have a bit more time.

Back to Movie Moments. It’s not about being happy, it’s about everything being perfect. The setting, the feelings, the look – all has to be so in alignment it feels unreal.

I have had two movie moments and last week I had a third.

The first happened when I had just started my first proper job at a boys’ school. I was 23, had a car, was living away from home and was enjoying that wonderful sense of complete, carefree freedom that you can only feel in your early twenties (before debt, heavy relationships, and children)

It was the most gorgeous late May day. The sky was cloudless and shone above with a deep, Cerulean blue like highly polished glass. There was alight breeze and I was walking out of the school over to my car. I hadn’t a care in my head.

As I walked, a cool gust of wind rolled towards me and suddenly a great tree in the front yard which was groaning with the most beautiful, pale pink blossom shook loose its flowers which absolutely cascaded over me like the most abundant, sweet-scented confetti.

The flowers swirled around me for minutes. I remember I kept walking through clouds of blossom, my head just reeling. I felt more like a bride than the day I actually was a bride.

A few years later, now in my early 30s – still before children (until last week I was beginning to suspect movie moments end when you have to live with you children) – and some friends and I had ventured up to the big smoke. We had been to a number of clubs before winding up in Soho where we stopped at a noodle bar at about 3 in the morning.

It was one of those brilliant nights when you end up chatting with complete strangers. The night was filled with possibilities, and I had endless deep, philosophical conversations with random people; solving the problems of the world in that earnest way you do when you’re young and drunk.

Finally, worn out, we decided to walk home. Arm in arm with my bessie mate Guy and a few other mates we rolled down a street in Soho. We were lit with that strange, orange, electric wash of light you don’t seem to get nowadays, and above us the moon hung huge and white.

Still fairly drunk I remember thinking how much I loved everyone walking down the street with me and how brilliant the world was. Just then a man appeared from the pavement, a long shadow, he stood up and produced a saxophone which glittered in the light. Out of the blue he started playing a haunting jazz number. It fitted the mood so perfectly it made me shiver.

We carried on walking, without speaking, allowing the music to weave us back home. I could almost see the credits roll above our heads as we reached the end of the street.

Last week was Son’s sports day. He was low because his exam results hadn’t been great. A week of anger, defensiveness and hurt has caused rows and frustration. It made us both feel miserable.

I hate Sports’ Days. It’s always too hot, and other parents always make me feel poor, gauche, fat and awkward. But he was desperate for me to come watch so I went along. (Muttering all the while how sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child, and why should I drag myself out when he’d been a complete pain all week.) But his confidence was so low after the exam horror I knew he wanted me to see him do something he was good at. Dyslexia doesn’t stop you being able to run well. It was also his last one before he moves up to the next school.

He hadn’t done badly, a second and a third but I could see he was not happy. He had one race left. I was thinking about going and was cross with Rob as he had not managed to get there so I was phoning him asking where he was when I realised Son’s race had started.

It was the 4 by 400 metre relay. On his team were three of his mates; I’d known for years and seen them grow up from little lads of five or six.

Now some were great hulking already-shaving nearly men. Son is growing like a weed but it still skinny as a stick with a great mop of hair he takes great pride in. I can see him limbering up.

First guy runs brilliantly putting them ahead. The next guy has a good go, keeping up the lead and the third does the same.

As the third guy nears Son, who is waiting, quivering like a highly charged wire, there is a crackle on the sports ground microphone.

‘I don’t believe it,’ says the head of Games. ‘I’m looking at my watch here and we are very close to breaking the school record…’

Hearing this, Son CATAPULTS away from the start line and starts to bucket his way down the track.

‘He’s 58 seconds away from the record,’ echoed the voice around the field. ‘Oh I’m getting goose bumps. Come on, Middle Aged Warrior’s Son!’

Son is still streaking along. I’ve never seen him run so fast. His legs look like he’s stretched them by about a foot. The crowd starts to clap which drives Dog mad so she starts pirouetting about and barking.

The woman on the mike is getting more and more hysterical. ’35 seconds to beat now.’

Son’s sports coach is now running alongside him yelling, ‘Come on, MAW’s Son!’ he shouts. Unbelievably, Son sprints even faster.

Mike woman is now roaring, ‘Come on, everyone! This isn’t just about Houses anymore, this is about a whole school record! Give him a cheer!’

And the whole field ERUPTS into cheers. ‘Come on, Son! You can do it!’

All his mates are now running alongside the track screaming. I can see the look of desperation on his face. He’s so close to the end but I can see he’s at the end of his rope…

And he does it!

He breaks the record!

By six seconds!

All I can hear is screams and cheers. Son somersaults over the finish line and collapses on the grass. He immediately disappears under a pile of mates.

I punch my way through the crowd with Dog and he sees me and stumbles towards me crying his eyes out.

We share a hug and I can feel him sobbing. ‘I’m so happy!’ he says, tearfully.

‘I’m so proud of you!’ I cry. ‘It was like Chariots of Fire!’

And then he is gone. All the team are smiling, everyone is clapping them on the back and exchanging hugs. Son’s face looks like it is going to split in two his grin stretches from ear to ear.

My third movie moment.

And the most wonderful thing was I was there to see my boy have his Movie Moment. I hope he has hundreds more.

Bloody DPD Delivery!

Just as my middle age rage (detailed in various posts here, here and here) was getting under control, today happened.

I have lost count of the number of blood-boilingly irritating battles I have had with incompetent delivery companies and poor customer service. I am painfully conscious I have become a middle-aged cliche and try very hard to control my fury when nobody takes our order for an hour and a half, or I get lied to about why my long-booked holiday has been cancelled.

My children HATE it when I ask to see the manager, or write to the school to (politely) enquirer why my dyslexic son is yet to receive the learning enrichment sessions he was promised six months ago. I am not, however, going to apologise for questioning a waiter who has brought my son’s hamburger in what is clearly an egg soaked brioche bun, despite me telling them he had an anaphlyactic allergy to egg.

I hasten to add I am never rude, I don’t yell or shout – I am crisp and factual and say things like ‘I’m sure you can understand my frustration’, or ‘this has made me feel quite cross’ without actually BEING cross if you see what I mean.

Also what is really annoying is that if something goes wrong my entire family all look over at me, patiently waiting for me to kick up a fuss and get things sorted on their behalf. Son isn’t so embarrassed if I’m chasing up his fricking ketchup order.

Oh leave it to Mum, she’ll sort stuff out. We’ll just sit here looking down at the table, pretending we don’t know her while she tries to avoid having to jab her child with an epi pen in the middle of Gourmet Burger.

The good news is it’s half term. Woo hoo! The bad news is we arrive back at our lovely house in the middle of nowhere, joyfully noticing the sun flooding in through newly washed windows and make the mistake of looking at the comments in the visitors’ book.

I work in a school where my job requires me to live in over term time. To prevent our house being left empty all that time we rent it out as a holiday let. It has been closed for the past year as Rob built a new kitchen and we had a new loo/shower room installed and a lovely new twin bedroom.

Last year was tremendously hard, mostly financially as the builders ended up costing double their original budget, and Rob – who suffers chronic depression made worse by losing his father – was on his knees having spent every weekend for a year designing and building our gorgeous new kitchen.

We left the house at the end of the Easter holidays absolutely gleaming. The oven had been professionally cleaned, all the lovely, freshly ironed, bed linen lay crisp and even, all Dog’s hair had been removed and the kitchen, in particular, looked like something from the Houzz website.

‘The guests are going to love this’, I thought, laying out the wine, M&S Lemon drizzle cake, top quality crisps, tea, coffee and milk in the welcome pack. ‘Hope they leave a nice review…’

Well they didn’t. The comment made the following points.

The main bedroom needed TLC and curtains were shabby (it’s a shabby chic bedroom)The garden furniture was rusty. (If they looked more closely they would see the rust was painted on. It was like that when we bought it. It was an (I see now ill-advised and rather late to the party) attempt to join the shabby chic wagon)They couldn’t work the key safeThe BBQ was stored against a wooden wallThere was a willow warbler right next to their window, which they found very annoying.

Why oh why didn’t they mention the lovely new shower room? The gorgeous reclaimed-oak lined kitchen? The new, very beautiful wood burning stove with attached pizza oven?

What really got me was how much it winded Rob. He hates having to let the place out as it is, but to have such a negative review was heartbreaking.

Of course, it’s fine for guests to highlight problems, but for fuck’s sake, why not chuck in a few positives? I mean, what can be wrong with an M&S lemon drizzle cake? The peak of human endeavour? They didn’t even mention it. They ate it though.

Which bring me onto my rage topic of the day.

DPD – the delivery company

Yesterday, when we arrived at the house not only had the guests written a nasty review, they’d also ruined a bed throw with some revolting brown substance. This threw me into a panic as the house was being photographed in two days by a professional photographer for the website advert.

‘We have to have a bed throw to match the cushions for the pictures!’ I yelled at Rob. ‘What are we going to do?’

His response, as I am sure is yours, was a mystified shrug. OK. I know it’s not a big deal, but I’m very tired at the moment, and I want the bed to look nice for the pictures.

We were in the middle of nowhere and a trip to the right shop would take hours, and I couldn’t really justify the petrol and cost to the environment just because I wanted the bedroom to look pretty in the photographs.

So I turned to my trusty old friend. John Lewis. They’d see me right.

And they did. A beautiful new throw in exactly the right colour. Here it is

[image error]Isn’t it lovely? And it was on sale – you can find it here

And it had next day delivery! Result! I knew I could trust John Lewis, they’ve never let me down. Last year they delivered an emergency double sofa bed 24 hours after I ordered it. Not only was it in a ravishing turquoise, it was a third of the original price. The delivery men were lovely, arrived on time, were friendly and chatty, unwrapped the sofa and melted away taking away all the packaging .

Unfortunately I didn’t realise, as I merrily clicked ‘pay extra for next day delivery’, that they would be using DPD.

Argh! DPD. I have come across them before when ordering from Amazon. In my dealings with them they have done the following at least once if not multiple times

Said there was no-one to take the parcel. This despite the address being a security gate manned 24/7. (This has happened a lot)Left a ‘sorry we missed you’ card through the door without knocking. I watched it flutter to the ground and raced to the door to open it but the (struggling to think of a word without swearing here) ‘gentleman’ had already squealed away in his vanReported they couldn’t find the place. I had left a comment saying call this mob number if you can’t find the place but they didn’t call it.Watched a delivery guy in his van writing out a ‘sorry we missed you card’ when he hadn’t even come through the gate. This time I managed to get to him before he drove away and nabbed the parcel from him.

So if I realised John Lewis were using DPD I would have thought twice about paying for the next day delivery charge.

However, all seemed to be going well. I received my hour slot, and was told ‘Zhivko’ would be delivering my order. Lovely.

Half an hour in I had a look on the ‘track my order’ link and discovered a photograph of my front gate (about a hundred yards away from where I was sitting) with the words

Delivery Refused

above it.

What? How the… What? Who?

My heart started to pound. I needed that parcel today! Why is he saying we refused delivery? What about my lovely photo?

Yes, yes I KNOW this is petty and nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I wanted to match the cushions and have a lovely picture for the website. I am aware this is the very definition of privilege and first world problems, but tell that to my adrenaline levels and sense of outrage.

I think what got me is the lie. How the hell could I refuse the delivery? He didn’t come to the front door! Why would I refuse a parcel I had paid a lot to have delivered that day?

Arrrgggh

So I called up John Lewis and spoke to a very sympathetic woman who kept me on hold while she called the DPD Maidstone delivery depot. She got back to me to say the driver had reported he couldn’t open the gate because it was locked. (Not that we had refused delivery, which is what he put on the ticket).

This is our gate. It is very, very old and wooden. It will swing open if you tap it. It is impossible to lock

[image error]

So I responded by saying, ‘have a look at the photo the delivery man took of the gate to prove he was there. Can you see a lock?’

No she couldn’t, said the lovely John Lewis lady. (Interestingly, that photo immediately disappeared from the DPD tracking link page after this call)

John Lewis lady got back to me to say the manager of the Maidstone DPD depot had spoken to the delivery man and he was going to come back now with the parcel.

Great! All sorted.

I thanked her and sent Rob down to the gate to make sure it was open so the Delivery man would be able to come through it.

An hour later. No sign.

I called John Lewis back. They called DPD again. This time, another lovely customer service from John Lewis reported the manager at the depot had spoken to the driver but this time I discover the driver had flatly refused to bring the parcel back, despite the manager insisting he did so. The driver argued that a group of people had told him nobody of my name lived at that address.

What people!? We are in the middle of nowhere! Another lie. The John Lewis rep said she had noted an increasing number of complaints from customers about DPD’s service

John Lewis then advised that they were going to put me straight through to the DPD complaints department. I was amused to hear a recorded message from DPD before I was put through saying ‘we know you may be angry, frustrated and upset, but please don’t rant at our service team. No excuse for abuse.’

It must say something that they have upset, frustrated and annoyed so many of their customers that they have to have that as a recorded message. Perhaps they should look into their customer service so customers DON’T GET UPSET, FRUSTRATED OR ANGRY!

Anyway, I was finally put through, and the DPD’s complaints rep was good: professional, calm, and appreciative of how annoying all this was. She was at a loss to explain why the driver was able to refuse to return with my parcel when the manager had told him to do so.

She then mentioned time pressure, bank holiday yada yada. I did – in my mildest of voices – enquire why it was decided my parcel was not delivered so others could be delivered on time – but of course there was no answer.

So the upshot is I didn’t get my lovely John Lewis next day order. OK. Fine. It’s not the end of the world. But I HATE being lied to. Don’t say the parcel was refused because you can’t be arsed to walk up the path to the house. Don’t them keep coming up with more lies, blaming me, when all I did was sit in my house and wait for a delivery.

DPD needs to stop this. Bearing in mind how unfair I felt the review of our cottage was I am conscious I need to be tolerant here and recognise the humanity of it all (not that the guest awarded me thee same courtesy but still…) I don’t want to only see the negatives.

I am struggling to find the positives, I must be honest. I have absolutely NO problem with John Lewis. They have, as ever, been professional, courteous and helpful. Also, the customer complaint woman at DPD was without fault.

I’m also sure Zhivko is a perfectly nice young man and is not one to lie as he did. I suspect DPD is putting their drivers under tremendous pressure to meet deadlines and their conditions and pay are sacrificed if they don’t meet their targets.

The answer is then DON’T PROMISE NEXT DAY DELIVERY IF A) YOU CAN’T DO IT AND B) IF YOU CAN ONLY DO IT BY FORCING YOUR DELIVERY DRIVERS TO LIE TO EVERYONE!

I would advise John Lewis to disassociate themselves from DPD until they get their act together. The biggest complaints I have read about DPD is the annoyance customers feel when drivers lie to say nobody was in, or they couldn’t find it, or delivery was refused. I am sure these drivers are nice people – why are they being put in this position? Are they responding to intolerable and unreasonable performance targets? I suspect that to be the case.

So I am still waiting for my lovely bed spread, and the pictures on my holiday cottages website won’t show the pulled-together shades of blue scheme I have worked so hard to achieve.

Still, at least Dog is happy and Son and I had a lovely hour in the fields yesterday in the sun. Here is a video of happier times.

Bloody DPD Delivery!

Just as my middle age rage (detailed in various posts here, here and here) was getting under control, today happened.

I have lost count of the number of blood-boilingly irritating battles I have had with incompetent delivery companies and poor customer service. I am painfully conscious I have become a middle-aged cliche and try very hard to control my fury when nobody takes our order for an hour and a half, or I get lied to about why my long-booked holiday has been cancelled.

My children HATE it when I ask to see the manager, or write to the school to (politely) enquirer why my dyslexic son is yet to receive the learning enrichment sessions he was promised six months ago. I am not, however, going to apologise for questioning a waiter who has brought my son’s hamburger in what is clearly an egg soaked brioche bun, despite me telling them he had an anaphlyactic allergy to egg.

I hasten to add I am never rude, I don’t yell or shout – I am crisp and factual and say things like ‘I’m sure you can understand my frustration’, or ‘this has made me feel quite cross’ without actually BEING cross if you see what I mean.

Also what is really annoying is that if something goes wrong my entire family all look over at me, patiently waiting for me to kick up a fuss and get things sorted on their behalf. Son isn’t so embarrassed if I’m chasing up his fricking ketchup order.

Oh leave it to Mum, she’ll sort stuff out. We’ll just sit here looking down at the table, pretending we don’t know her while she tries to avoid having to jab her child with an epi pen in the middle of Gourmet Burger.

The good news is it’s half term. Woo hoo! The bad news is we arrive back at our lovely house in the middle of nowhere, joyfully noticing the sun flooding in through newly washed windows and make the mistake of looking at the comments in the visitors’ book.

I work in a school where my job requires me to live in over term time. To prevent our house being left empty all that time we rent it out as a holiday let. It has been closed for the past year as Rob built a new kitchen and we had a new loo/shower room installed and a lovely new twin bedroom.

Last year was tremendously hard, mostly financially as the builders ended up costing double their original budget, and Rob – who suffers chronic depression made worse by losing his father – was on his knees having spent every weekend for a year designing and building our gorgeous new kitchen.

We left the house at the end of the Easter holidays absolutely gleaming. The oven had been professionally cleaned, all the lovely, freshly ironed, bed linen lay crisp and even, all Dog’s hair had been removed and the kitchen, in particular, looked like something from the Houzz website.

‘The guests are going to love this’, I thought, laying out the wine, M&S Lemon drizzle cake, top quality crisps, tea, coffee and milk in the welcome pack. ‘Hope they leave a nice review…’

Well they didn’t. The comment made the following points.

The main bedroom needed TLC and curtains were shabby (it’s a shabby chic bedroom)The garden furniture was rusty. (If they looked more closely they would see the rust was painted on. It was like that when we bought it. It was an (I see now ill-advised and rather late to the party) attempt to join the shabby chic wagon)They couldn’t work the key safeThe BBQ was stored against a wooden wallThere was a willow warbler right next to their window, which they found very annoying.

Why oh why didn’t they mention the lovely new shower room? The gorgeous reclaimed-oak lined kitchen? The new, very beautiful wood burning stove with attached pizza oven?

What really got me was how much it winded Rob. He hates having to let the place out as it is, but to have such a negative review was heartbreaking.

Of course, it’s fine for guests to highlight problems, but for fuck’s sake, why not chuck in a few positives? I mean, what can be wrong with an M&S lemon drizzle cake? The peak of human endeavour? They didn’t even mention it. They ate it though.

Which bring me onto my rage topic of the day.

DPD – the delivery company

Yesterday, when we arrived at the house not only had the guests written a nasty review, they’d also ruined a bed throw with some revolting brown substance. This threw me into a panic as the house was being photographed in two days by a professional photographer for the website advert.

‘We have to have a bed throw to match the cushions for the pictures!’ I yelled at Rob. ‘What are we going to do?’

His response, as I am sure is yours, was a mystified shrug. OK. I know it’s not a big deal, but I’m very tired at the moment, and I want the bed to look nice for the pictures.

We were in the middle of nowhere and a trip to the right shop would take hours, and I couldn’t really justify the petrol and cost to the environment just because I wanted the bedroom to look pretty in the photographs.

So I turned to my trusty old friend. John Lewis. They’d see me right.

And they did. A beautiful new throw in exactly the right colour. Here it is

[image error]Isn’t it lovely? And it was on sale – you can find it here

And it had next day delivery! Result! I knew I could trust John Lewis, they’ve never let me down. Last year they delivered an emergency double sofa bed 24 hours after I ordered it. Not only was it in a ravishing turquoise, it was a third of the original price. The delivery men were lovely, arrived on time, were friendly and chatty, unwrapped the sofa and melted away taking away all the packaging .

Unfortunately I didn’t realise, as I merrily clicked ‘pay extra for next day delivery’, that they would be using DPD.

Argh! DPD. I have come across them before when ordering from Amazon. In my dealings with them they have done the following at least once if not multiple times

Said there was no-one to take the parcel. This despite the address being a security gate manned 24/7. (This has happened a lot)Left a ‘sorry we missed you’ card through the door without knocking. I watched it flutter to the ground and raced to the door to open it but the (struggling to think of a word without swearing here) ‘gentleman’ had already squealed away in his vanReported they couldn’t find the place. I had left a comment saying call this mob number if you can’t find the place but they didn’t call it.Watched a delivery guy in his van writing out a ‘sorry we missed you card’ when he hadn’t even come through the gate. This time I managed to get to him before he drove away and nabbed the parcel from him.

So if I realised John Lewis were using DPD I would have thought twice about paying for the next day delivery charge.

However, all seemed to be going well. I received my hour slot, and was told ‘Zhivko’ would be delivering my order. Lovely.

Half an hour in I had a look on the ‘track my order’ link and discovered a photograph of my front gate (about a hundred yards away from where I was sitting) with the words

Delivery Refused

above it.

What? How the… What? Who?

My heart started to pound. I needed that parcel today! Why is he saying we refused delivery? What about my lovely photo?

Yes, yes I KNOW this is petty and nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I wanted to match the cushions and have a lovely picture for the website. I am aware this is the very definition of privilege and first world problems, but tell that to my adrenaline levels and sense of outrage.

I think what got me is the lie. How the hell could I refuse the delivery? He didn’t come to the front door! Why would I refuse a parcel I had paid a lot to have delivered that day?

Arrrgggh

So I called up John Lewis and spoke to a very sympathetic woman who kept me on hold while she called the DPD Maidstone delivery depot. She got back to me to say the driver had reported he couldn’t open the gate because it was locked. (Not that we had refused delivery, which is what he put on the ticket).

This is our gate. It is very, very old and wooden. It will swing open if you tap it. It is impossible to lock

[image error]

So I responded by saying, ‘have a look at the photo the delivery man took of the gate to prove he was there. Can you see a lock?’

No she couldn’t, said the lovely John Lewis lady. (Interestingly, that photo immediately disappeared from the DPD tracking link page after this call)

John Lewis lady got back to me to say the manager of the Maidstone DPD depot had spoken to the delivery man and he was going to come back now with the parcel.

Great! All sorted.

I thanked her and sent Rob down to the gate to make sure it was open so the Delivery man would be able to come through it.

An hour later. No sign.

I called John Lewis back. They called DPD again. This time, another lovely customer service from John Lewis reported the manager at the depot had spoken to the driver but this time I discover the driver had flatly refused to bring the parcel back, despite the manager insisting he did so. The driver argued that a group of people had told him nobody of my name lived at that address.

What people!? We are in the middle of nowhere! Another lie. The John Lewis rep said she had noted an increasing number of complaints from customers about DPD’s service

John Lewis then advised that they were going to put me straight through to the DPD complaints department. I was amused to hear a recorded message from DPD before I was put through saying ‘we know you may be angry, frustrated and upset, but please don’t rant at our service team. No excuse for abuse.’

It must say something that they have upset, frustrated and annoyed so many of their customers that they have to have that as a recorded message. Perhaps they should look into their customer service so customers DON’T GET UPSET, FRUSTRATED OR ANGRY!

Anyway, I was finally put through, and the DPD’s complaints rep was good: professional, calm, and appreciative of how annoying all this was. She was at a loss to explain why the driver was able to refuse to return with my parcel when the manager had told him to do so.

She then mentioned time pressure, bank holiday yada yada. I did – in my mildest of voices – enquire why it was decided my parcel was not delivered so others could be delivered on time – but of course there was no answer.

So the upshot is I didn’t get my lovely John Lewis next day order. OK. Fine. It’s not the end of the world. But I HATE being lied to. Don’t say the parcel was refused because you can’t be arsed to walk up the path to the house. Don’t them keep coming up with more lies, blaming me, when all I did was sit in my house and wait for a delivery.

DPD needs to stop this. Bearing in mind how unfair I felt the review of our cottage was I am conscious I need to be tolerant here and recognise the humanity of it all (not that the guest awarded me thee same courtesy but still…) I don’t want to only see the negatives.

I am struggling to find the positives, I must be honest. I have absolutely NO problem with John Lewis. They have, as ever, been professional, courteous and helpful. Also, the customer complaint woman at DPD was without fault.

I’m also sure Zhivko is a perfectly nice young man and is not one to lie as he did. I suspect DPD is putting their drivers under tremendous pressure to meet deadlines and their conditions and pay are sacrificed if they don’t meet their targets.

The answer is then DON’T PROMISE NEXT DAY DELIVERY IF A) YOU CAN’T DO IT AND B) IF YOU CAN ONLY DO IT BY FORCING YOUR DELIVERY DRIVERS TO LIE TO EVERYONE!

I would advise John Lewis to disassociate themselves from DPD until they get their act together. The biggest complaints I have read about DPD is the annoyance customers feel when drivers lie to say nobody was in, or they couldn’t find it, or delivery was refused. I am sure these drivers are nice people – why are they being put in this position? Are they responding to intolerable and unreasonable performance targets? I suspect that to be the case.

So I am still waiting for my lovely bed spread, and the pictures on my holiday cottages website won’t show the pulled-together shades of blue scheme I have worked so hard to achieve.

Still, at least Dog is happy and Son and I had a lovely hour in the fields yesterday in the sun. Here is a video of happier times.

Going to the Gym at 50 (Even though I hate it)

I hate exercising. I’m not one of those evangelical nutcases in spandex extolling the joys of feeling the burn. Also, I am very much not an Instagram influencer, posting shots of my streamlined stomach and rounded backside. Nope. The best you’ll get from me is a picture of my hairy legs – see below.

If you see past posts I’ve written of my (very) slow exercise journey, you will see from my ‘before’ photo that I was very much NOT a person who exercised. The nearest I got was eating toast in front of a Davina fitness DVD.

I’d start the year promising myself I’d do lots of exercising but it never happened. Well certainly not for very long.

The trouble is, suddenly thirty years passed. THIRTY YEARS. I’ve banged on about this before, but I reached a crisis point. The Doc told me I was diabetic. It was a shock, although I knew it was going to happen.

Thankfully, I managed to get enough weight off to bring my sugars down, but I knew I had to change things. So that’s when exercise came in.

I realised today, and it is something I am extraordinarily proud of, I have gone to the gym every week (OK I missed a couple) for two years. I also realised that without being conscious of the change, I have become a bit evangelical about it.

You know they always say if I can do it so can you? Well I really mean it. If I – who have loomed between being six stone over weight to two stone overweight (currently bobbing about between the two extremes) – can now jump on a box, or run for twenty minutes then you definitely can.

I know massive numbers of you are already well ahead of the game and are climbing mountains and jumping out of planes and generally being complete warriors all over the place. You guys are incredible and I take my hat off to you. You don’t need to read this.

I am writing this to me, really; the overweight woman on the sofa who has given up on her body and stuffs in food so they don’t have to think. That person – can be a man or a woman – who feels really crap. All the time. Sick, and stressed, and sweaty and dizzy. I really wish I’d read an article like this ten years ago so I can proudly say now I’ve been to the gym every week for ten years rather than two.

But hey ho. Didn’t happen. Life moves on – no regrets. I’m here now.

I’ve titled this going to the gym but it’s really about exercising. It doesn’t matter where you do it, of course. I am well aware of how lucky I am to have a gym through work, and a reduced deal on a personal training session so when Rob and I go, it only costs us 15 quid each. If you don’t want to do the gym then don’t. But I hope reading on will inspire you to try some exercise if you don’t do any. Trust me. Even if it’s a walk, or climbing up and down the stairs, you will feel a difference. Slowly but surely.

The Gym

Going to the gym can be really intimidating. If you walk into a gym and you feel you shouldn’t be there, or some fit young twat gives you the side-eye, then walk straight out. Keep looking until you see a gym filled with people of all ages, sizes and fitness levels.

If you can, get a trainer. Team up with your partner or a mate – even a couple of mates – to bring the cost down. It makes SUCH a difference as you can have a laugh with them but the trainer will be keeping you interested with a whole host of different things you can do. I say interested, it’s not really that it’s interesting, there is nothing interesting about exercise, it’s just a tad less boring if you do something different each time.

Did you know that you can ask your GP to give you an exercise referral? I’m in the south-east and you can see a document here about how you GP can get you onto a 12 week programme at a local gym for free or a reduced cost. (This is for the south-east but from what I’ve read it’s available across the UK)

I LOVE it when I go to the gym and it’s full of exercise referral people. Mainly because they are usually 70 plus so make me feel like a spring chicken, but also because I feel they are exercising for health and fitness, not so they would look good in an Instagram photo.

Always go early

This is what works for me. I am (clearly!) not a professional. I have to schedule exercise into my calendar. Those times are sacrosanct. I can’t book anything else. I put them in before work because there is no way in God’s Green Earth I am getting off my backside to go to the gym after I get back from work.

You will be amazed at how brilliant you feel when your exercise is done and dusted and you have the whole of the rest of the day not feeling guilty about not doing exercise.

I still can’t believe I go and exercise first thing. I used to be such a slug-a-bed I could sleep until noon, no problem at all. Since I hit 45, though, I find I can’t do that any more. So might as well get the bloody exercise over with.

Also, if you go early, it’s often full of those lovely referral people who are mostly retired and like to get it done before they go to the shops, so you are surrounded by quiet, concentrating nice people rather than over-enthusiastic young fitness freaks taking pictures of their arses.

Put your exercise clothes on the minute you get up

Honestly, this really works. Don’t even think about it. Get those trainers on and walk out the door. I never eat breakfast, I hate exercising on a full stomach but you might be different. Everyone seems to be a bit mixed about this – but that is how I roll.

Exercise clothes. Now there’s an issue. I adopt the sagging leggings with holes in, teamed with an enormous ‘Walking Dead‘ T-Shirt, look.

Today I hit a problem in that all my sagging leggings were in the wash. A good hunt through the drawer unearthed an old pair of purpose built exercise leggings cut off just below the knee.

I pulled them on and was nearly out of the door when I remembered we were in May and I hadn’t shaved my legs since New Year’s Eve. The clock was ticking. Dare I? How bad was it? How bad could it be?

[image error]Answer: Pretty damn bad

Oh God!

Now, I am a feminist and I applaud the right of every woman to grow every hair they want. I hate the fact that it bothers me to have hairy legs but it does. Call me a bad feminist, but this was proper, long hair that I could part, plait, and put up into a pony tail. What to do?

Sod it! I thought, running outside. No time, and I know from bitter experience that any procrastination at all would mean I wouldn’t go to the gym. The whole way there I had imaginary muttered conversations with people who might comment on my hairy legs. Looking at the photo, I should have been more concerned by the fact that one of my socks is Daughter’s school sock from year 4, and the other is Rob’s sports sock from Nike. The Nike sports sock I had sworn blind I hadn’t stolen from him.

Don’t be intimidated by others

Sometimes, if my timing is off, the lovely elderly people in the gym are replaced by those women who I find ridiculously intimidating. You know the ones. Women who have spent their lives regularly exercising, watching their weight and dressing in beautiful work out outfits.

There is one in particular who makes me boil with envy. I call her Ms Chic. She is probably early 60’s and has gorgeous, silvery-white hair she has cut into a sharp Eton crop. I read somewhere that as your face gets old and messy your hair should become super sleek, sharp and neat in contrast.

Well this woman has got that nailed. Not that her face is old and messy, but the sharpness of her hairstyle looks fabulously dramatic and never fails to make me feel like a jelly-fish blob of untidiness and split ends.

I don’t have a sharp, chic, Eton crop because if I did, I would look like this.

[image error]

I see this woman often and I always try and give her a little smile or raised eyebrow, sharing in the horror of exercise as we return dumbbells at the same time.

It never works. She never responds. I have realised I am Not Her Sort and so have stopped smiling wryly at her. I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t really want to make friends with someone who makes me feel sweaty and gargantuan. Not that this poor woman has ever said anything to me. Maybe she’s just deaf or something.

Today was mortifying. As I was cooling down, I stretched out my legs, horrified anew at their hairiness. As I gazed, I noticed an odd lump. ‘Skin Cancer!’, said my hypochondriac brain promptly.

As I’m blind as a bat and not very supple I couldn’t bend over far enough to have a good look. With a shifty glance around the gym I took out my phone to take a picture so I could zoom in and see what it was.

Of course, just as I did this, Ms Chic leaned over me to retrieve a weight from the rack next to me.

I looked up at her, phone camera open and focused on my warty, hairy, pudgy leg. We exchanged a glance. I opened my mouth, searching for any words I could say that could possibly explain what I was doing but found none.

She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible, shake of her head and retreated to the back of the gym.

So. Yes. You may have awkward encounters in the gym, but you can have them anywhere, and being embarrassed won’t kill you. (Whereas a lack of exercise might! Ha!)

Listen to music or watch Netflix

Last week I was so unbelievably gripped by the last episode of season three of Line of Duty I cycled furiously for a full thirty minutes on the exercise bike and didn’t even notice the time passing!

So don’t think there is anything wrong with watching TV while you’re exercising. As long as you peddle hard, you’re still getting the benefit. And the thing is, you’re going to binge watch, why not do it and cycle at the same time?

Music! Music is SO important. Plan it out carefully. I warm up for about 8 minutes on the bike and then speed up for another 10 or 15 minutes or so while catching up on a podcast or watching Netflix. Then I whack on my Exercise play list.

Choose your most favourite, getting on the dance floor, mad out of your head dancing tunes. Start with one that isn’t too fast moving and then choose ones that get quicker and quicker before bringing you back down.

I’m going to share with you my playlist, which is working well for me at the moment… I’d love to hear what tracks get your heart racing.

[image error]

GOD I love the Britney one. ‘You gotta work, bitch’ she croons in my ear. ‘You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You want a Maserati? You better work bitch You want a Lamborghini? Sippin’ martinis? Look hot in a bikini? You better work bitch.’

Crude but it works for me. The Eminem one is good when I’m pounding on the treadmill and need to just keep going. The Malo one is BONKERS and is for peak work out point when I’m truly in the zone. ‘Lightning Bolt’ and Elvis Costello’s ‘Pump it Up’ is also on there, as well as some Pearl Jam of course.

It doesn’t matter what you choose, but it must make you feel up and happy – ready to take on the day.

So Why Exercise When It’s Horrible?

I’m not gonna lie. Exercise is always going to be hard. It will make you look tomato red, and sweaty, and slightly mad. It hurts, sometimes for days afterwards. Being out of breath for an extended period of time is awful.Of course everywhere you look you will find research on how good exercise is for you. ‘Exercise is better than a pill at beating Heart Disease‘ for example. It’s not that I didn’t know any of that, I just wasn’t interested. Blah Blah I’d think.

But then I went to the gym. Ran with Dog. Started doing push ups at home. Let me tell you what happened.

And as I said before, and I’ll say again, if I can do it – honestly, anyone can. I was surprised to find that even the most hardened of gym bunnies have said to me when questioned that they didn’t enjoy exercising. Absolutely none of them wake up and say ‘Hooray! I get to exercise today!’ None of them. It’s not just the old, fat ones like me who hate exercise.

The reason people do it is because of how bloody brilliant it can make you feel.

I woke up this morning and immediately swore. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ I said.

‘What?’ said Rob.

‘I’ve got to go to the gym today.’

‘Oh dear. Sorry I can’t go with you this time, I’ve got a sore throat,’ he said smugly.

I moaned the whole morning. But I went. I had the hairy leg issue, the awkward Ms Chic encounter and I thought I was going to have a heart attack on the treadmill. Honestly, I did. I always get this chest pain When running, which is apparently something to do with my inter-costal muscles bouncing around, but it felt like a heart attack.

Stupidly, I had a blow dry the day before and it was ruined at the gym. No matter what configuration I put my hair in, the sweat still ruined it. In the mirrors of the gym my tubby reflection and grim face stared back at me, ‘you can just stop, you know,’ a little voice kept whispering.

But.

Oh yes but.

When I finished I walked towards the door of the gym. The sun was absolutely flooding in and I could see the blue, blue sky. The 2018 Remaster of Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ started to pound in my ears and in my head I was telling myself, ‘fucking yes! I did it.’

People looked at me oddly as I danced out of the gym, hairy-legged, and dripping with sweat, with the biggest grin on my face but I didn’t care.

I shaved my legs the second I got in the shower.

Exercise gives you a sense of achievement. Every time you go you will be a little stronger and be able to run a little further.

Don’t compare yourself to others. Focus on yourself.

Stronger means if you fall you are less likely to break anything. You don’t have to ask other to help you lift things. You can manhandle your children more easily. You can punch anyone who might attack you. You walk taller. Being able to run a little further means your heart and lungs are working better.

Exercise gives you time just for yourself. You can’t think about anything else except how godawful this exercise is and how much longer it will last for. You don’t think about work, or kids, or partner, or money, or family, bills. Worries you’ve been mulling over often get mysteriously solved when you put them in the back of your mind, girding your loins as you approach the climbing machine.

Exercise helps with middle-aged rage. It really does. Something to do with the hormones released. You can’t be angry if you’re knackered. Personally it sorted (for the most part) my anxiety and hypochondria.

After exercise you can walk into the sun, strong and powerful, the best music in your ears knowing you don’t have to do it again that day. And yes, if you do it often enough, it does make you feel a bit high.

What do you all think? do you exercise – what gets you off the sofa? What music gets you going?