Francesca Bossert's Blog, page 52

Miserable in the Mountains

I found this in the depths of my hard drive today… I gave up skiing long ago and, while reading this, I had a giggle remembering why!

*****

Oh no, it’s coming to get me! It’s long, it’s white, it’s freezing, it’s... the abominable ski-season! Living in Switzerland, barely an hour away from the bracing mountain air, the virgin slopes, the challenging black runs andall those sexy ski teachers, I know all about the ski-season. Some people send insulting letters to the weatherman if he fails to deliver snow before Christmas. Not me. I find the entire package a complete and utter bore.

Just think about it. Consider the preparations. All that bulky skiwear, all those sweaters, that thermal underwear, those heavy shoes and boots you have to cart around, and that’s before you start wrestling with skis, poles and snowboards. I have come to dread weekends during the seemingly never-ending ski-season. There’s simply no escape from this conspiracy: everyone gets all psyched up, banging on about the latest in skiing technology, how Wanker Skis are better than Wonker Skis, although Wonker’s new pink and orange carvers are like, totally cool, and whoa, wait ‘til you test the new Snitty-Snotty snowboard! Then there’s the dilemma of what the best dressed skier will be wearing this year, a tricky question since what’s “in” in one ski-station is totally “out” in another; get the wrong outfit and you’re in the dorkzone.

 

Year after year, you sit in crowded, damp après-ski cafés, soaking in the aroma of sour-sweat, listening to people with chapped lips and stringy saliva relive their ski adventure of the day, comparing ski paraphernalia and bragging about how they conquered Mount Too-Bloody High’s north-facing, bone-rattling mogul-field during the blizzard of the century.

 

It’s all supposed to be clean, healthy fun. And skiing can be fun: in March, on a weekday, when it’s warm and sunny, when there are not thousands of people bombing about on equipment they can barely control. Danger doesn’t lurk; it zips by, cuts you off, knocks you over. Migratory habits are one thing in the summer when the entire Northern Hemisphere heads for the sun: once the choice destination has been reached, everyone just lies down on a beach. But in the winter, those very same people all decide to be Tomba La Bomba on the same mountain, all at the same time.

 

Personally, I’m a cautious skier. I can control my speed, hardly ever fall and am famous for never choosing a challenging slope over an easy one. This chicken-livered strategy has proved invaluable over the years, ensuring that my technique has never improved. I am therefore never expected to rise at dawn, quivering in anticipation of being the first person to breathe-in the teeth-grinding, metallic reek of the telecabines. Warm and smug under my duvet, I let the ski-desperados squabble over being the first to carve perfect parallel turns in fresh powder.

 

Hours later, I finally venture out to meet my husband and his friends, miserably crippled in those impossibly uncomfortable contraptions called ski-boots, sweat droplets making their way slowly but irrefutably into the gusset of my underwear, struggling to keep my skis and poles from maiming chic ladies in sheepskin coats promenading dachshunds. Then I find myself muttering expletives while trying to remove my ski-gloves without the inner-lining coming out, in order to pay Weasel Man in his funny little wooden hut the ridiculous amount of money he demands for the ski-pass. By this time I can barely contain my excitement at the thought of what lies ahead: QUEUES !

 

All those interminable queues get to me. All those strangers who cuddle up to you, congealed snot and squeezable blackheads in Panavision, their rancid breath sending you scuttling down your turtleneck in search of your own comforting odours. When you finally elbow your way inside one of those flimsy, suspended, metal contraptions called “eggs”, you are rudely confronted by the etymological source of the name: skiers breakfasts die-hard.

 

So, I take a deep breath and emerge further up the mountain red-faced and light-headed, wondering how most people manage to look like the sleek characters in James Bond movies when I feel like a Bette Midler comedy. Determined not to be a grouch, I put on my best ski-bunny face and spend the rest of the day out of breath, trying to keep up with the other bum-waggling members of the party and desperately dodging the hoards of manic snowboarders, the out-of-control, flown-in-for-the-weekend, hung-over from too much partying slope-terrorists and the crash-helmeted mini-champions who hurl themselves from all sides, oblivious to one and all.

 

For a cautious skier like me, making my way down a bottlenecked intersection towards the end of the day feels like tackling mega-spaghetti junction in the rush hour with a wonky clutch. Timing is all: launch your skis a split second too soon or too late and you risk, at best, being the recipient of a stream of insults, or, at worst, fatal injuries from head-on collision. But when you’ve gotta go you’ve gotta go. Stall long enough and you’ll be flagging a ride under the stars from Weasel Man’s best-buddy in his snow-caterpillar while everyone else is consuming copious amounts of cheesy concoctions, ingesting white wine and wondering where on earth you got to.

 

So, this year I might just let them wonder. If my wallet won’t stretch to behold-my-bikini-time in the Bahamas, I’ll have to find another solution. There’s supposedly a new aqua park opening on the road to snow-city. It boasts tropical temperatures, giant waterslides and Margaritas by the pool. Cheesy? To each his own fromage.

 (written in 2000)

Covidians: May the Snot Evade you

Good morning,

 

It seems I’ve dodged a miserable Covid Christmas by indulging in viral festivities a week early. Yep, I got run over by the Covid bus late last Wednesday morning after swaggering around my poorly husband, declaring that since I’d never had it, I was clearly Covid immune.

Well, the prickly little sucker (the virus, not my husband) pulled the rug under my Uggs at exactly 11.17 with a sudden brutal a wave of wooze. I staggered around for a few hours, trying to retain the upper hand on the bastard, but was eventually coerced horizontal. After three days of experiencing life underneath the duvet, when I awoke yesterday feeling far more myself, I thought the Covid fiesta was over. Turned out the little bugger was just tricking me, enticing me to run around with the vacuum, tackle some ironing, a mountain of laundry, and make a hearty soup, only to bonk me on the head with an encore mid-afternoon.

Meanwhile, my husband recouped in record time, and has been out golfing in the Spanish sunshine with barely a sniffle to spare. I must say that his Covid test was far less of a clear-cut statement than mine, so maybe he got a faulty version of the virus.

Today, I shall proceed with caution as I plan to be splutter and wooze free by Friday when our children arrive with their partners, looking forward to a good dose of Christmas cheer.

 

Stay healthy, good people!

 

xxx Francesca

Christmas Crackers

Ever since my son was born on December 10, 1992, I’ve made it a tradition to put the tree up just before his birthday. When he was small, I liked to put it up because it gave his parties more of a festive atmosphere when all his adorable little friends came over, got high on the sugar content of Nigella Lawson’s buttermilk birthday cake, and went completely crackers. I vividly remember one particularly wild child, already quite a strong, sturdy boy at 4, who stood on the armrest of the sofa on his tippy-toes and tried to grab the silver-wrapped chocolates I’d purposely hung out of reach on the upper branches. Inevitably, he lost his balance, fell headlong into the tree, knocking it over and causing major bauble devastation. When he emerged on all fours, clearly unscathed and laughing like a character in a horror movie, I wanted to truss him in tinsel, take him outside, and leave him there to wait for his mama.

But I’m nice, so I simply used my words through gritted teeth, put the tree back upright, and got the brush and shovel.

None of the out-of-control kids seemed to register that there even was a tree during the most memorable party of all. My son’s 18th was beyond epic, with pukey Magalie defiling my Ugg slippers while I was wearing them, and inebriated Ivan standing on the toilet in the bathroom on the lower-ground floor, opening the narrow window and propelling himself upwards and outwards into the garden with the brusque, scissoring leg movements usually reserved for underwater activities. As a result, Ivan kicked a massive hole in the toilet bowl. Moments later, not-so-smart Alex felt an urgent need to use said toilet, flushed it, and stood there like a stoned dumbass as a mixture of water and soggy toilet paper shot out of the broken bowl, inundating the bathroom as well as a good portion of the hallway.

As early as nine o’clock, my son had come to find me with a worried look on his face, saying, “Mama, they’re awful! I wish they’d all go home.”

So did I.

Getting them to go home proved problematic, not only because most of them were so off their heads they couldn’t even remember where they lived, but also because most of northern Europe was in the throes of a blizzard. Idyllic from a purely esthetic point; my garden resembled a set for a Christmas movie. But my husband, away in London on business, called me in the early afternoon to say his flight had been canceled; nothing was taking off. Since he’d promised, hand on his heart, to be back to help with the party, he took the Eurostar train to Paris, followed by the TGV to Geneva.

When he finally walked in just after one in the morning, he found me curled up in the fetal position on the living room sofa, slipperless, my eyes glazed over, my last nerve long gone. Which was hardly surprising considering I’d just spent the past six hours trying to keep some sort of control over sixty-odd beer-brandishing teenagers blasting tuneless music with rude lyrics. They’d had a grand old time, traipsing in and out of the house in their muddy, slushy shoes, rolling around in the garden making snow-drunkards, lighting their farts, and playing beer pong in the laundry room.

The cleanup operation the next day? As epic as the party itself. We practically had to mop around several comatose teenagers!

However, come to think of it, my twenty-first wasn’t exactly cups of tea and jam tarts…

Anyway, fast forward to December 9, 2016, when in keeping with tradition I got ready to put the tree up for our first Christmas in our new house. We’d moved in over the summer, and because the house needed considerable renovation, a lot of our things went into storage. Among these things were our Christmas tree and several boxes of decorations.

With both our children soon due back from the UK, I looked forward to making the place look festive for them. I’d selected the perfect spot in the living room, on the right-hand side of the huge window overlooking the pond. The garden looked like a scene straight out of the Nutcracker, with the pond covered in a shimmering sheet of ice and a featherlight sprinkle of snow.

I put on some carols, spritzed myself with Shalimar (Christmas in a bottle!), and went in search of our Christmas paraphernalia.

I’d been collecting Christmas ornaments since my mid-twenties, before I even got married. There were the gorgeous, antique, teardrop-shaped, hand painted baubles that had belonged to my grandmother. There was the beautiful set of glass birds my mother had given me when I moved into my first apartment. There were several unusual ornaments I’d bought during our visits to foreign countries. There was my silly Ricky Martin ornament. Most importantly, there was the funny reindeer with the lobsided smile constructed from ice-cream sticks, red ribbon and dribbles of glue that my son made in Montessori school, and the toilet roll angel with the wild, pink tinsel hair that my daughter made in first grade. There were several wonderful pasta-chains festooned with sparkles and feathers, and adorably wonky father Christmases made from sticks and buttons and scraps of fabric and wool.

But where was it all? The house wasn’t very big, yet there were several places where my husband might have stored it. Could it be in the basement? No, it wasn’t there. Maybe in the bicycle shed? Nope. In the tumble-down garden shed? Nein. It wasn’t in the attic, either.

I looked everywhere. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

“Ah”, I said to myself in a lightbulb moment, “it’s probably still in storage.”

So, I called the storage company.

“Bonjour, this is Madame Bossert! How are you? I think you have our Christmas tree and boxes of decorations! Do you think you can please pull it out for me so I can come and get it this afternoon?”

Brief silence.

“Err, I’m sorry Madame, but we do not have your Christmas affairs. Your husband came by last month to sort through all your things and to decide what he wanted to keep and that he wanted to throw away. I remember being très très surpris when he told us to throw out the tree and the boxes containing the decorations. Very surprised indeed.”

Not as bloody surprised as me.

What the heck?

 “C’est pas possible!” I told the Monsieur. “Surely not?”

But surely oui, unfortunately.

I flopped down on the sofa and burst into tears. All those special, cherished ornaments, some of them over 50 years old, thrown out like they meant nothing. All those perfectly imperfect little decorations made with such concentrated effort by my children’s tiny hands, ruthlessly discarded.

How could my husband have done something so insensitive?

I gave him hell for it, I really did. I was so angry. Now, of course, I’ve long come to terms with what he immediately recognized as a terrible mistake. I can visualize what happened, because my husband is a neat freak, he likes everything to be organized, tidy and clean (which is a massive plus 99,99% of the time!). Stressed out at work, he only had a limited amount of time to spend at the storage company. He drove there focused on being one hundred percent efficient. He switched to robotic mode and got the job done. He didn’t think. To him, at that moment, all that irreplaceable family treasure was just junk in dusty old boxes held together by layers of crisscrossed packer’s tape. Basically, he’d left part of his brain at the office.

He felt terrible.

2016 is the only year we didn’t have a tree set up for my son’s birthday. That weekend, my husband and I went to a nearby garden center and spent loads of money on a big new tree and on loads of beautiful new decorations that will hopefully, one day, be handed down to our children.

Of course, with all the terrible things constantly happening in the world, losing a reindeer made of ice-creams sticks, an angel made of toilet rolls, and a few sparkly pasta-chains is no biggie. The story has become a bit of a family joke, as in, “Haha, do you remember when Papa put Christmas in the rubbish?”, whereupon we all shake our heads and turn to look at my poor husband with WTF faces.

Even if it sucks to no longer have those lovely ornaments, when I look back at that unfortunate incident I can only smile. The weird thing about the moments in life when things go slightly wonky is that they often turn into funny memories. I mean, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have my feet vomited on, or the toilet explode, or the decorations chucked out, or, or, or, but at the same time, those little bouts of chaos etched those events onto my mental map. How boring would it be if life was just one long beige cocktail party? Often, it’s just a matter of taking a step back and cocking your head until you find the funny angle.

Besides, it’s impossible for me to harbor resentment towards the man who, when his flight home was canceled all those years ago, could easily have kicked back in a swanky London hotel with a glass of wine and a good meal. Instead, he crossed half of Europe on two trains during a snowstorm after a full-on day of work, just because he’d promised to be home.

And those crazy parties? Such wonderful Christmas crackers! 

The Sashay

Years ago, while I was working on a book, I bought a pair of gorgeous, high-heeled, hot pink mules. 

They were a silly impulse buy, designed for someone else’s lifestyle, and someone else’s feet. You see, after the birth of my children, my relatively easygoing size 41s morphed into square, constantly grumpy size 42s. From one day to the next they refused point blank to be smushed into anything that wasn’t flat, wide and designed for comfort. Today they might tolerate a butter-soft, extra-wide ballerina, or maybe a flat, suede boot, to be worn on very special occasions, and even then, only under duress. 

That’s if I can find a pair in my size.

With eight-centimetre heels, those hot-pink mules were far too high for me. They were also far too narrow, and at least half a size too small. But I fell in love with them, and thought they’d look cute with rolled-up jeans. Maybe they’d stretch? Maybe I’d learn to walk in heels again? Maybe it really was just a matter of forcing myself to wear “real” shoes? And maybe if I wore them around the house, I’d get used to them? Also, maybe they’d help me reconnect with the cute little sashay I’d had in my twenties?

So I wore them around the house. Except I didn’t go “around” the house. I just sat in front of my computer for five hours a day, struggling to get the story I had in my head onto the page, with the pink mules dangling seductively off the tips of my toes, à la Carrie Bradshaw.

Seductively?!

Here’s the thing: Carrie Bradshaw had perfect little feet. Her cool shoes matched her cool words. My clodhoppers just wanted out. And my brain whirled endlessly, stuck in panic mode for two, endless years.

I didn’t sashay. I fell flat on my face.

The hot pink mules left my wardrobe long ago. I gave them to a friend with smaller feet and outstanding sashaying skills. They lived a long and glamourous life with her, going to fancy restaurants, travelling to faraway places, dancing under glitter balls in New York, London, Paris, Verbier, and were last seen in the piano bar of a fancy hotel in Capri.

As for that manuscript, it lives in a drawer in my desk. It has a good title and might have been decent if only I’d been able to get out of my own way.

Strangely enough, one of the minor characters in the book, an elderly, feisty Sicilian lady called Signorina Giuseppina, has recently started waking me up in the middle of the night. Giuseppina has a deep, gravelly, smoker’s voice and a surprisingly high-pitched giggle. Born in the mid 1920s in the seaside village of Cefalù, she was a staunch advocate for women’s rights. She showed her rebellious streak early on by opening a scandalous little boutique selling lingerie and swimwear, and she was proud of having been the first woman in Sicily brave enough to wear a bikini on the beach in the early 1950s. She had plenty of friends but lived alone, collecting boyfriends like they were shells on the beach. Giuseppina never married, but something tells me she might have been in love with a married man. She had a canary called Adriano Celentano, grew her own vegetables, swam in the sea all year round, made a killer Cassata, and loved to get all dressed up and take to the dance floor in the village square whenever there was a “ballo liscio”.

I bet Signorina Giuseppina had a world class sashay and that she’d have rocked my hot pink mules, don’t you?

Maybe one day, when I’ve finally finished the manuscript that I’m working on, I’ll find out. Giuseppina sounds like she might be cool to hang out with for a year or two!

I’m not sure how to end this, so I’ll simply leave you with a fun song from 1983 called Talking in Your Sleep by the Romantics that I hadn’t thought about in years until it popped up in my head right now, just when I needed it. Ooh, my sashay was killer back then! Do you remember this song? 

 

The Age of Random

 (Including a very silly video about how to make your bed)

Last night, as I lay under my duvet waiting for my sleep-aid supplement to take effect, I came across an article in The Guardian about a TikTok trend aimed at teaching people how to structure their days. It appears that some people don’t really know what to do when they first wake up, or maybe they need some cutely presented guidance about how they might set up a daily routine. Maybe there are people out there right now gazing helplessly at their screens, eagerly awaiting instructions from some gorgeous young Influencer who is currently experiencing a glitch on her scheduled publication of how to fold a tea-towel. They’re all feeling loooooosssssstttt (spoken softly, with a long hiss on the S and an added echo, like in that old TV series that was good for a while but never really went anywhere) when it comes to doing…well, anything, apparently!

Which strikes me as kind of cute, really. I think my sister, V, should get in on this trend ASAP because she’s the most organized person I have ever met in my life, and her tea-towel folding skills are off the charts. Actually, all her skills are off the charts. And she makes lists concerning other lists. The woman is phenomenal. Also, she always looks phenomenal. She has four kids, too!

I have no problem at all with people seeking a Mother Hen figure to understand how to organize their day. Clearly, this Tik Tok thing must really be a “thing” because even my mushy old brain remembered it overnight. It’s struck a chord that’s now stuck in my head, pinging a high-pitched note over and over (LAAAAAAA??!!!), and here I am writing about it right after filming myself giving the world a daft Ted Talk about changing our bedsheets. I mean, I’m mega camera shy! So, what on earth came over me?

 

I’m guessing the article spoke to me because I’m also rather random when it comes to daily chores. In fact, I’m quite random in everything I do, really. I’m not an organized person who rolls out of bed upon awakening and flits gracefully towards the bathroom, swathed in a pretty silk robe. Are you? Let me know in the comments.

Personally, I need to lie there for a bit in my old white cotton pjs, asking myself whether I slept well, and if I did, was it because I took this sleep aid supplement or that sleep aid supplement, and depending on which one I took, how does my brain feel.

Usually, at this point, the curious part my brain doesn’t quite know how it feels about anything just yet, because it’s always running roughly half an hour behind schedule first thing in the morning. When I eventually sit up, reach over to grab the blackout curtain and drag it to one side to see whether it’s another sunny day – which it often is at the moment! We’re in Spain! -  I then move on to checking the operational state of my knees, hips and bumps a daisy, which I’m pleased to report are all doing relatively well these days because my body likes being Spanish. Then I’ll place my feet on the floor and inevitably feel a strange numbness in the sole of my left foot that always disappears after about 8 steps, so I don’t bother about it too much. I’m just mentioning it in case you might have noticed something similar going in with your feet, and if there is, we have something to discuss in the comments.

I’m feeling no need to describe the five minutes after getting out of bed, because I’m guessing all of us have a similar routine, right? Again, feel free to enlighten me in the comments, but I’d appreciate everyone keeping all topics relatively genteel.

Anyway, I’ll then get dressed, often retrieving something I wore the day before that I simply took off as I went to bed and dropped onto my “discarded clothes chair”, which is located in the corner beside my wardrobe. Unless they need washing, my clothes tend to pile up on this chair for a couple of days, and then I’ll have a crisis and put everything away. What do I wear most days? I tend to go for a look that’s relaxed, cute and comfortable. Today I’m wearing jeans with daisies embroidered on them from the knee down. I bought them in Anthropology years ago, and found them on my chair this morning. I’ve paired them with an an old white linen shirt from Zara which I actually found in my wardrobe and not on my chair. If it’s a tad chilly I’ll just throw a big soft crocheted fringed shawl over my shoulders because I do enjoy rocking a little Stevie Nicks boho-glam vibe, you know what I mean?

Sometimes, if I feel like I’m looking a bit too rough, or my rosacea has been having a disco party overnight, I’ll put on a little makeup before I go down for breakfast, just so I don’t scare away the bunnies, the birdies, my husband or any house guests. But before I can sit down to breakfast I have about twenty minutes worth of supplements to take in order to keep me looking and feeling my best as an untweaked 62-year-old recovering from a neck ligament sprain, two messed up gluteus medius’, funky knees, a wonky right ankle, traces of Lyme disease, an auto-immune disease, as well as a number of other minor boring things stemming from having been active all my life and now bravely venturing into my 6th decade.

Breakfast tends to consist of gluten-free muesli with berries and a massive cup of tea with a good splash of oat milk, whereupon I then move on to far more important things, such as coffee. After breakfast I’ll be heading back upstairs to make the bed, unless my husband beats me to it, which he often does (come to think of it, he’d make the ultimate Organize Your Day TikToker), because chances are I’ll get distracted and gaze out of the window for an hour or so, admiring the leaves falling off the poplar trees at the bottom of the garden, and smiling fondly at the heron strolling across the field beyond (it’s actually a golf course, but I’m not posh, not really, I promise). I’ll turn on my computer and check my website’s analytics for random visits, as well as my KDP account for sales of my romantic comedy, Just Like a Movie (LOL!), and then probably scroll the Internet for a while, reading about all the terribly upsetting things taking place all over the planet and wondering why a small minority of bad people are allowed to make a large majority of good people’s lives a living hell.

I’ll get depressed for a while and go for a walk, before returning to my desk and wondering how the heck I’m going to move the action forwards in the novel I’m currently working on, because it has so many themes that need layering into the story that it feels a bit like I’m trying to structure a big bowl of cooked spaghetti.

I’ll play with my cooked spaghetti for four or five hours, occasionally glancing out of the window and wondering whether I’m allowed to go and play outside for a while, because this is hard and maybe it’s not really worth doing because so many people write books and everyone is cleverer than me and they’re also now all publishing fabulous prose willy-nilly on Substack. And maybe I should too, but I’ll probably just look silly, so maybe I should just start making videos about random stuff like making my bed, or do makeup tutorials, but I’m mega shy so I doubt that’s about to become my new creative venture. Today’s video popped out of me randomly, because I’m a random person. I’m a shy free spirit.

And anyway, I love playing with my cooked spaghetti novel.

Which is what I’m going to do now. So, I’ll leave you to enjoy my video about making my bed.

Love,

Francesca

PS: I’m beginning to suspect one of our current house guests spiked my tea this morning because I also made my first ever makeup tutorial right after I made the video about making my bed. Would you like to see that one, too?

PPS: as you can see from the photo at the top of the page, I also went in the pool today. FOR TEN MINUTES!!!! It was cold! But cryotherapy is brilliant according to that fabulous older lady taking part in Strictly Come Dancing this year, and I put my towelling banana poncho on as soon as I come out. A hot shower, a cup of tea and I’m ready to…?

Actually, I’m not quite sure. Maybe there’s somebody on a social media platform somewhere who might give me some sort of clue?

 

 

 

HOW I MAKE MY BED, WHAT I WEAR, AND BASICALLY A RANDOM DAY IN THE LIFE OF MOI

 

Last night, as I lay under my duvet waiting for my sleep-aid supplement to take effect, I came across an article in The Guardian about a TikTok trend aimed at teaching people how to structure their days. It appears that some people don’t really know what to do when they first wake up, or maybe need a little cutely presented guidance about how they might set up a daily routine. Maybe there are people out there right now, gazing helplessly at their screens, eagerly awaiting instructions from some gorgeous young Influencer who is currently experiencing a glitch on her scheduled publication of how to fold a tea-towel. They’re all loooooosssssstttt (spoken softly, with an added echo, like in that old TV series that was good for a while but never really went anywhere) when it comes to doing…well, anything, apparently!

Which strikes me as kind of cute, really. I think my sister, V, should get in on this trend ASAP because she’s the most organized person I have ever met in my life, and her tea-towel folding skills are off the charts. Actually, all her skills are off the charts. And she has lists about other lists. The woman is phenomenal. Also, she always looks phenomenal. She has four kids, too!

I have no problem at all with people seeking a Mother Hen figure to understand how to organize their day. Clearly, this Tik Tok thing must really be a “thing” because even my mushy old brain remembered it overnight. It’s struck a chord that’s now stuck in my head, pinging a high-pitched note over and over (LAAAAAAA??!!!), and here I am writing about it right after filming myself giving the world a daft Ted Talk about changing our bedsheets. I mean, I’m mega camera shy! So, what on earth came over me?

 

I’m guessing the article spoke to me because I’m also rather random when it comes to daily chores. In fact, I’m quite random in everything I do, really. I’m not an organized person who rolls out of bed upon awakening and flits gracefully into the bathroom, swathed in a pretty silk robe. Are you? Let me know in the comments.

Personally, I need to lie there for a bit in my old white cotton pjs, asking myself whether I slept well, and if I did, was it because I took this sleep aid supplement or that sleep aid supplement, and depending on which one I took, how does my brain feel.

Usually, at this point, the curious part my brain doesn’t quite know how it feels about anything just yet, because it always runs roughly half an hour behind schedule first thing in the morning. When I eventually sit up, reach over to grab the blackout curtain and drag it to one side to see whether it’s another sunny day – which it often is at the moment! We’re in Spain! -  I then move on to checking the operational state of my knees, hips and bumps a daisy, which I’m pleased to report are all doing relatively well these days because my body likes being Spanish. Then I’ll place my feet on the floor and inevitably feel a strange numbness in the sole of my left foot that always disappears after about 8 steps, so I don’t bother about it too much. I’m just mentioning it in case you might have noticed something similar going in with your feet, and if so, it might give us something to discuss in the comments.

I’m feeling no need to describe the next five minutes, because I’m guessing all of us have a similar routine after rolling out of bed, right? Again, feel free to enlighten me in the comments, but I’d appreciate everyone keeping all topics relatively genteel.

Anyway, I’ll then get dressed, often retrieving something I wore the day before that I simply took off as I went to bed and dropped onto my “discarded clothes chair”, which is located in the corner beside my wardrobe. Unless they need washing, my clothes tend to pile up on this chair for a couple of days, and then I’ll have a crisis and put everything away. What do I wear most days? I tend to go for a look that’s relaxed, cute and comfortable. Today I’m wearing jeans with daisies embroidered on them from the knee down. I bought them in Anthropology years ago, and found them on my chair this morning. I’ve paired them with an an old white linen shirt from Zara which I found in my wardrobe, not on my chair. If it’s a tad chilly I’ll just throw a big soft crocheted fringed shawl over my shoulders because I do enjoy rocking a little Stevie Nicks boho-glam vibe, you know what I mean?

Sometimes, if I feel like I’m looking a bit too rough, or my rosacea has been having a disco party overnight, I’ll put on a little makeup before I go down for breakfast, just so I don’t scare away the bunnies, the birdies, my husband or any house guests. But before I can sit down to breakfast I have about twenty minutes worth of supplements to take in order to keep me looking and feeling my best as an untweaked 62-year-old recovering from a neck ligament sprain, two messed up gluteus medius’, funky knees, a wonky right ankle, traces of Lyme disease, an auto-immune disease, as well as a number of other minor boring things stemming from having been active all my life and now bravely venturing into my 6th decade.

Breakfast tends to consist of gluten-free muesli with berries and a massive cup of tea with a good splash of oat milk, whereupon I then move on to far more important things, such as coffee. After breakfast I’ll be heading back upstairs to make the bed, unless my husband beats me to it, which he often does (come to think of it, he would also make the ultimate Organize Your Day TikToker), because chances are I’ll get distracted and gaze out of the window for an hour or so, admiring the leaves falling off the poplar trees at the bottom of the garden, and smiling fondly at the heron strolling across the field beyond (it’s actually a golf course, but I’m not posh, not really, I promise). I’ll turn on my computer and check my website’s analytics for random visits, as well as my KDP for sales of my romantic comedy, Just Like a Movie (LOL!), and then probably scroll for a while, reading about all the terribly upsetting things taking place all over the planet and wondering why a small minority of bad people are allowed to make a large majority of good people’s lives a living hell.

I’ll get depressed for a while and go for a walk, before returning to my desk and wondering how the hell I’m going to move the action forwards in the novel I’m currently working on, because it has so many themes that need layering into the story that it feels a bit like I’m trying to structure a big bowl of cooked spaghetti.

I’ll play with my cooked spaghetti for four or five hours, occasionally glancing out of the window and wondering whether I’m allowed to go and play outside for a while, because this is hard and maybe it’s not really worth doing because so many people write books and everyone is cleverer than me and they’re also now all publishing fabulous prose willy-nilly on Substack, so maybe I should just start making videos about making my bed, or do silly makeup tutorials, but I’m mega shy so I doubt that’s about to become my new creative venture. Today’s video popped out of me randomly, because I’m a random person. I’m a shy free spirit!

And anyway, I love playing with my cooked spaghetti novel.

Which is what I’m going to do now. So, I’ll leave you to enjoy my video about making my bed.

Love,

Francesca

 

PS: I’m beginning to suspect one of our current house guests spiked my tea this morning because I also made my first ever makeup tutorial right after I made the video about making my bed. Would you like to see that one, too?

 

 

 

On Friendship

When I wrote Just Like a Movie I didn’t just set out to write a romance. Sure, I had my Ricky Martin crush thing going on, and Ricky inspired the gorgeous Emilio Caliente, a dream character to write. But I also wrote the book as an ode to some of my best friends. I wanted to give back to some of the women who have had a positive influence in my life, who are always there for me, with whom I never feel judged. These women are precious. They shine for me. They know who they are.

One of my closest friends moved to Ibiza in the 90s, and through her I met many other women who also felt a particular connection with the island. I had these women in the forefront of my mind when I wrote Celeste, Laura and Kirsten in Just Like a Movie. Because of my bond with these women, their book personas had to be fully rounded. They all had had to have their own happy ending.

I had many adventures in Ibiza with my girlfriends over the years, including once being hit on by a British popstar on the roof terrace of a club called The Pink Pussy, which became The Purple Banana in the book (of course it did!). I didn’t like that British popstar, there was nothing Emilio Caliente-ish about him at all, in fact I found him ultra-creepy. Thankfully, when he became a little too sticky, my friend had my back and off he scurried/strutted.

 

Billie, Emilio’s manager, is a real piece of work. She’s a tutti-frutti of all the mean girls/women I’d encountered in my life. Since I have a hard time sticking up for myself in real life, I enjoyed really sticking it to her!

 

Friendships are fragile if not treated with loyalty and kindness, with love and respect. We all have our flaws, our little insecurities, so there are bound to be friendship hiccups and hurdles over the years. I’ve had my fair share of disappointments and misunderstandings, and I know my girlfriends feel the same way towards me. We have our lives, we do our best, but we are who we are. There aren’t many women I feel I can call anytime and speak to about anything. But I have a few, and they mean the world to me.

 

Are you still close with many of your childhood friends? Have most of your friendships withstood the test of time?

Book Review: Mr Wilder and Me, by Jonathan Coe

 

Mr Wilder and Me, written by Jonathan Coe, is a quirky, engaging read about the life of Hollywood film director Billie Wilder. Brimming with humanity, it touches on friendships, the dreams of youth, finding purpose in life, remaining curious, and struggling to remain relevant as we age in a world obsessed with youth. It is about kindness, regret, about coping with hardship without becoming bitter, and finding pleasure in simple things. There is heartbreak and tragedy, and revenge, too, when Wilder, no longer deemed bankable by Hollywood, finally secures German financing to make “Fedora”, a film nobody really believes in. Wilder’s Holocaust survival and Jewish heritage is revisited in the novel.

 Born Austrian, Wilder left Germany for America via France to escape the Nazis, losing track of his mother in the process, a tragedy that haunted him for the rest of his life.

 Billie Wilder’s charisma really shines throughout the novel, with his unique wit showcased by funny quotes and anecdotes backed up in the bibliography at the end of the book.

 The story is narrated by Calista, a Greek woman who is now middle aged, and who revisits her time spent working as an interpreter for Wilder after meeting him by chance over dinner in a restaurant while on holiday in Los Angeles back in 1977, when she was 21.

Over that initial dinner, Wilder and Diamond discuss finalizing the filming of “Fedora”, a movie about an ageing actress living as a recluse on a Greek island. After dinner, they offer Calista a job as an interpreter for the initial period of filming in Greece, but once this part of the production is completed, keep her on for the remainder of the shoot. Calista travels to France, England and Germany, meeting celebrities and film stars, and thanks to her close relationship with Wilder and Diamond, she is privy to all kinds of fascinating conversations. Her insights and observations drive the narrative, her youth giving it a fresh and innocent touch.

 Calista’s own story is lovely too; I enjoyed watching her evolve and pursue her musical dreams, but what I really admired was how the author used Calista’s voice to weave in so much fascinating information about the film industry, while also evoking the tragic backdrop of Wilder’s personal story.

 I loved it.

 What books have you read recently that you would recommend?

#jonathancoewriter

HASTA LA VISTA, UNICORN!

Today is a big day for me. Actually, last Friday was the real big day, but today I got to see the result of what was done on Friday. I also got to finally wash my hair… although I ended up going to the hairdresser after all, but I’m getting ahead of myself because I’m overexcited.

About 12 years ago I bumped my head really hard on the iron bar that goes underneath the horse’s bottom when they’re traveling in a horse trailer. The trailer was empty, but the bar was in place, and I was picking my horse up from a veterinarian clinic after he’d had an operation. I bent down underneath the bar of the trailer to grab my horse’s leg protections, totally misjudged the distance when I stood up, and hit the centre of my forehead really hard. I saw ALL the stars. My forehead split open. There was blood everywhere, and the vet had to take care of me for a good hour before I was in any state to load my horse and embark on the two-hour drive home. To be honest, I probably shouldn’t have driven at all, but I just wanted to get out of there.

Anyway, I made it back with the horse, and developed a huge bruise on my forehead that gradually turned into all those amazing colours that come with all the best bruises. But for some stupid reason, I didn’t see a doctor about it. I guess horsey people tend to take better care of their horses than of themselves…

Over time, the bruise solidified and turned into a calcification. I literally grew a round lump of bony protection right in the centre of my forehead. I joked I was turning into a unicorn. Or a rhinoceros. But on the inside, I wasn’t laughing.

The bump stabilized for a while, but I think I walked into a window at some point, and disturbed the area, and it got bigger, to the point where whenever I looked at myself in the mirror it was all that I could see. I became increasingly self-conscious and hated having my photograph taken. It also hurt if ever I had to lie face-down or lean my forehead against something.

Here is a recent photo of where you can see my bump. Yuck.

Over the years, I asked a few doctors about it, but none had any solutions, apart from scary talk of major plastic surgery. Randomly, about two months ago, I saw a doctor for something totally different, mentioned my bump, and he told me to call doctor so-and-so, who referred me to another doctor who specializes in maxillofacial surgery, who saw me very quickly and told me it was no big deal at all. After all these years of feeling crap about myself!

I had the operation under a general anesthesia last Friday, and the stitches came out this morning. The bump is gone! The scarring is minimal since I only had four stitches! Basically, the surgeon made a small incision, split the calcification, took it out, and then literally polished my skull! The whole procedure was quick and painless; I was out of hospital a few hours later and didn’t even need paracetamol the next day.

I have a tiny STERIStrip to keep it dry for two more days, which is why I had to have my hair washed at the hairdresser (I have bad neck issues and can’t lean over a bath or tilt my head backwards) and am happily channeling a slight Kelly McGillis “Top Gun” vibe, but I can already see and feel that the result is amazing.

 Of course, I’m a little conflicted about writing about this when there is so much horrendous suffering going on in the world right now, but we can’t just shut down and walk on the dark side.

 Maybe my experience can help someone else find a doctor for a similar problem. Also, if you bump your head hard, please see a doctor, because if I had seem one immediately, maybe I wouldn’t have turned into a unicorn/rhinoceros.

 

Inspiration: My WIP

This post is taken from a prompt on social media from my wonderful coach, Nicola Washington @toomuchsocial, as part of a seven day share for authors in the process of writing a book.

Day One :

WHY:

Why are you writing this book?

What is the inspiration that lies behind it?

Was it a moment of inspiration or a slow burn over time?

What is your book’s “origin story”?

This is what I came up with:

******

The inspiration for my WIP has been slowly burning for decades. I’ve been trying to either snuff out the embers or get the fire out of my brain and onto the page for a long time.

I think my grandmother played a great role in the origin of this WIP. Nana was a strong woman, not because she was naturally strong (she was shy, and never wanted to cause any trouble), but because she had no choice. Imagine: she gave birth to my uncle in a Liverpool hospital all alone during an air raid. All the doctors and nurses ran to shelters and left her there in advanced stages of labour while the bombs rained down. While I know it happened to millions of women all over the world, the fact that it happened to my Nana makes the horror of what she endured very vivid.

 Two or three years later, a couple of months before the war ended, her husband was killed when the merchant ship he was stationed on was torpedoed, and my grandmother was left all alone to raise two small children.

 

Nana came from a poor background; all she has was her widow’s pension. But she was clever, and proved to be an astute businesswoman. She worked hard, took impressive risks, developed her own business in retail fashion, and did well.

 

Although her achievements went completely over my head as a child, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to really admire her strength and resilience.

 I was very close to her, and was with her when she passed away, twenty years ago.

While I’ve been lucky enough not to have to cope with terrible loss and financial difficulty as an adult, I have been affected by trauma experienced by family members and close friends. I’ve witnessed women struggle, trying to keep families afloat, putting up with terrified men dealing with anxieties in all kinds of weird ways. I’ve seen couples try to keep up appearances, hiding shame, hiding mental issues, struggling with guilt. I’ve seen women working all hours, without recognition, to keep families afloat.  

These issues affect me deeply, which is why I struggle to write about them, even in the context of pure fiction.

******

I was amazed by how much insight and clarity doing this exercise brought me.

Have you ever taken part in something that helps you organise your thoughts?