Debbie Viggiano's Blog, page 9

A Shrewsbury Spree

Every Spring and Autumn Mr V and I meet up with friends who are scattered all over the UK, from Edinburgh to Cornwall.  On these occasions we love to ‘catch up’ with what’s been going on in all our lives.  Our Spring reunions usually take place in beautiful European cities, like Pisa, Florence, Venice or Prague, whereas Autumn takes us to British places never visited before.  This year the pin went into the map and came up with…Shrewsbury.
          ‘I’m leaving the office now,’ Mr V told staff last Friday afternoon, ‘and having a long weekend.’
          ‘Going anywhere nice?’ asked a colleague.
          ‘Shrewsbury,’ my husband replied.  He received an incredulous look.
          ‘You’re joking.  Aren’t you?’ asked another.
          ‘Why?  What’s wrong with the place?’ asked Mr V warily.
          ‘Well…nothing I suppose…it’s just…Shrewsbury?  Really?’
          So let me tell you about Shrewsbury.  Yes, me who flunked her History and Geography O’Levels, can’t drive without a sat-nav, and can only remember the direction of the compass by turning clock-wise and intoning Never Eat Shredded Wheat (sorry Kellogg’s, it’s not personal).
          Firstly, Shrewsbury is in the county of Shropshire and only a stone’s throw from the Welsh borders.  I discovered this just before checking into our glorious hotel, the Mercure Albrighton, a gorgeous eighteenth century manor house set in fifteen acres of manicured gardens complete with ornamental lake.  The hotel is only a short drive into the market town which is teeming with history.
          Shrewsbury is the home town of Charles Darwin who was born here in 1809.  The centre of the town is crammed with medieval buildings and cracked flagstones.  As we walked through cobbled streets so narrow the occupants could surely have leant out of upper windows and touched hands, a part of me was transported back in time.  I could almost hear the cries of, ‘Watch out below,’ as something not very pleasant was emptied from an overhanging window.  It wasn’t hard to imagine how ‘Grope Lane’, little more than an alleyway, would have been in medieval times.  The more popular version of how this lane received its name is due to it once being part of the Red Light District with the label describing antics taking place after dark.  However, the true origin of the name is actually due to folk literally having to grope their way along!
          The listed buildings were fascinating with their structure almost defying gravity.  Like a precarious pack of cards, the upper levels leant at crazy angles giving the feeling that a gust of wind could send layers of panels and beams tumbling in all directions.
          We also strolled around The Quarry, a park with tree-lined avenues hugging the river.  If you fancy a lazy boat ride, you will be sailing on the meandering waters of the River Severn.  It is also here that you can find a beautiful sunken garden called The Dingle, designed by dear old Percy Thrower (only those of a ‘certain age’ will remember Percy, and yes I’m one of them).  The garden is full of alpine borders, shrubberies, water features and spectacular bedding displays.
          From there we walked to Shrewsbury Castle, a stunning red sandstone building dating back to Norman times.  As we strolled through archways and passed ivy-clad mullioned windows that overlooked grounds full of autumn flowers, a bride exited the main entrance, radiant on the arm of her new husband.
          We concluded our day going through the doors of St Chad’s Church, a beautiful Georgian church overlooking The Quarry.  It was here that Charles Darwin was baptised.  Inside there is a circular nave with pews arranged like a maze.  Now, I’m not somebody who ‘does’ religion, but I will go into any House of God and say hello.  As I stood before the altar gazing up at the stunning stained glass windows, the most beautiful sense of peace prevailed.  It really was as if something vast and divine was wrapping its arms around me.  Mr V, born and raised a Catholic and yet about as believing as a stone, froze to the spot.  At first he looked shocked.  Moments later, simply shaken.
          ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
          He shook his head.  ‘I feel…weird,’ he whispered.  ‘Can you feel …it?’
          ‘Feel what?’ I asked innocently.
          ‘A peculiar sense of…gosh, I don’t know…something?’
          ‘Yes,’ I replied.  ‘It’s called love.’
          Mr V basked in it for half a minute before deciding he wasn’t cut out for supernatural experiences.
          ‘C’mon,’ he muttered gruffly.  ‘Let’s go and get a cup of tea somewhere.’
          Tea shops are also plentiful in Shrewsbury, as are restaurants.  We enjoyed dining at The Peach Tree, which caters for every taste including awkward wheat-free dairy-free vegetarians like me.  Located opposite Shrewsbury Abbey, this place not only serves wonderful cuisine, the diner enjoys surroundings that are a mix of Fifteenth Century splendour and stylish contemporary decor, complete with in-house pianist.  Later, if you fancy a boogie, you can walk through a beamed corridor to the Spirit Champagne Bar and Nightclub.
          Which reminds me.  Over the last three-hundred years, people have pontificated about wine.  From famous artists to politicians, my favourite quote is from Napoleon Bonaparte.  ‘In victory, you deserve Champagne.  In defeat you need it…’  So let’s crack open a bottle of bubbly and toast Shrewsbury.  Salut!

Come Shop With Me

Earlier this week I drove to Bluewater to visit Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall.  As someone who has zero interest in cooking with a history of disastrous burnt offerings reflecting this, my family appreciate that in order to survive somebody else has to be chef.  In this case it is the supermarket.  Now the standard of convenience meals in supermarkets varies.  Asda is so-so.  Tesco slightly better.  Sainsbury’s all right.  Waitrose – very good if you’re a meat eater (I’m not).  Marks & Spencer – brilliant.  There is something for everyone.  The vegetarian shelves (note the plural) are enticing and imaginative, and there is plenty of choice when it comes to fresh vegetables to steam alongside your mains, plus lots and lots of fresh fruit, whether in a punnet or a peel-back pot.
          Anyway, rather than sound like I’m on a marketing campaign for M & S (which I’m most definitely not), I’ll instead tell you what recently happened after I walked out of their Food Hall with my four bags of shopping.  Quite by chance I discovered – in the pyjama and nightie aisle – my father.  This was quite a surprise because (a) he loathes shopping (b) he particularly detests Bluewater, and (c) he doesn’t need a new pair of pyjamas as his twenty-five-year-old paisley pair are still going strong, so why waste money?  As I bore down on Father Bryant with my four weighty bags of goodies, his face registered delight.
          ‘Ah, Debs, am I glad to see you!’
          ‘Hello, Dad.’  I kissed him on the cheek.  ‘Aren’t you with Mum?’
          ‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘or at least I was until ten minutes ago.’
          ‘Oh, where’s she gone then?’
          ‘I don’t know.  One minute she was standing beside me, and the next she’d wandered off.’
          Now the chances are that my mother did indeed inform my father of her impending departure but he simply didn’t hear.  Father Bryant has been a taddy deaf…okay very deaf…for several years.  He has a hearing aid which seems to be as much use as snow in a microwave.
          ‘Well she can’t have gone far,’ I said.
          After all, Mother Bryant walks slightly faster than a snail and has one of those walker contraptions on wheels.  It’s fireman red, fitted with a shopping basket, a seat and, if she’s having a good day, there’s a handbrake that can be deployed to stop her mowing down other shoppers.  Frankly I think it should have a bell too, but generally Mother Bryant’s ‘good days’ are few and far between.
          ‘Have you actually looked for her?’ I asked Father Bryant.
          ‘No, my sciatica is playing me up.’
          ‘Does she have her mobile phone on her?’
          ‘Yes, but the battery is flat.’
          ‘Okay, if I go off and find her, do you have your mobile phone so I can call you to say where we are?’
          ‘No, I left it at home.’
          Great.
          ‘Well I expect she’s popped to the Ladies.  You stay here in case she comes back, and I’ll quickly check the loos.’  I dumped my shopping at my father’s feet.  ‘Look after this for me.’
          I jogged to the escalator, took the steps two at a time, trotted through the Children’s Department and burst into the Ladies.  ‘Mum, are you in here?’ A number of locked doors greeted me and the occupants remained silent.  Right, not in the Ladies.  I did a swift about turn, back through Children’s Department and bounced down the escalator…to find no Father Bryant and no shopping bags.  Marvelous!  There was nothing for it, I’d have to now look for him too.
          I then systematically jogged up and down the pyjama and nightie aisles attracting the attention of a bored security guard. Oh aye?  What have we here?  Clearly that blonde impersonating Zebedee is a potential shoplifter ready to grab and run.  His eyes tried to pin me to a mannequin modelling a dressing gown, but I was too fast for him.  I sprung into the next aisle but not before catching a glimpse of him talking into his radio.
          To throw the security guard’s attention, I decided it might be beneficial to call out to my parents whilst jogging along the aisles.  Father Bryant was probably a lost cause, because of the deafness, but Mother Bryant is renowned for her bionic hearing.  Indeed, it’s the only part of her that still works properly.
          ‘Mum?’ I called as I panted along.  A startled lady moved smartly out of my way.  ‘Dad?’ I called and puffed round the corner slap into another security guard.
          ‘Do I look like your father?’ he asked. Well actually, no he didn’t.  He was black for starters and about ten years too young.
          ‘Sorry,’ I apologised, ‘I’m looking for my parents.  And four shopping bags,’ I added as an afterthought.
          At that point there was an announcement on the store tannoy.  ‘Will Mr Anthony Bryant please make his way to the Food Hall where his wife is waiting?’
          ‘Ah,’ I beamed at the security guard, ‘that’ll be my mother.’  I sped off to the Food Hall.  There was Father Bryant wandering aimlessly around the trolleys and shopping baskets, but no Mother Bryant.
          ‘Dad!’ I called.  ‘I thought I told you not to move!’
          ‘I didn’t,’ he insisted, ‘you did.’
          ‘Yes, I told you I was going to search the Ladies…oh never mind.  Where’s Mum?’
          ‘She’s not here. Did that announcement say the Food Hall or somewhere else?’
          ‘No, it definitely said the Food Hall.  Tell you what, I’ll run up and down the food aisles and I’ll find Mum in no time.’
          So once again I sped off.  Down Fruit and Veg, past Salads, down the Italian aisle, up the Indian aisle, down Chinese, up Vegetarian.  No Mother Bryant.  ‘Mum,’ I gasped.  I was in the unchartered waters of dog food and cat litter now, of which my mother surely had no need, but I dare not leave an aisle unexplored.  Perhaps I should turn up my vocal volume?
          ‘MUM!’ I fog-horned as I sped into Bakery.  And straight into a third security guard who stepped out behind the gluten-free.
          ‘Do I look like your mother?’ he asked.  They’re a right bunch of jokers these security guards.
          ‘Obviously not,’ I glared at him balefully.  ‘Now if you will please excuse me.’  I tossed my hair back and set off at a run.  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shifted my butt so fast.  As I completed my lap of the Food Hall I discovered Mother Bryant, no less, hanging onto her walker.  ‘Oh thank God,’ I gasped and sank down on the walker’s seat.
          ‘Debs, whatever are you doing here?  You’re all out of breath.  Yes, sit down, dear, have a rest.  Shall I try pushing you?  Oh look, there’s your father. I lost him half an hour ago.  I told him not to wander off, and what does he do?  Yoo-hoo!  Tony!  Tone-eeee, over here.’
          Father Bryant turned around and registered our presence.  So did the three security guards who had now converged as one.  Their expression was clear.  ‘The blonde suspect is working with two pensioners who are pretending to have lost each other.  Any minute now they’re going to climb aboard the walker and zoom off without deploying the handbrake.’
          ‘Excuse me, Madam,’ said one of the guards striding over. ‘Do you have a receipt for those four bags of shopping?’
          So there you have it.  A perfectly normal afternoon in Marks and Spencer with the parents.  Which reminds me.  An eighty-one-year-old woman was arrested for shop lifting.  When she went before the Judge, he asked her what she had stolen.  ‘A can of peaches,’ she replied, ‘because I was hungry.’  The Judge asked how many peach slices she’d eaten.  ‘Six,’ said the old woman.  ‘In that case,’ said the Judge, ‘I will jail you for six days.’  Before the Judge could bang his hammer, the old lady’s husband piped up.  ‘Your Honour, she also stole a can of peas…’

University Challenge

A couple of weeks ago my daughter plonked some paperwork on my desk.
          ‘Here you are,’ said Eleanor.
          ‘What’s this?’ I asked.
          ‘Some blurb about funding for when I go to uni.’
          ‘Oh, right.’
          Funding wasn’t required for months.  I put it in the bottom of my paperwork pile and forgot all about it.  Two weeks later I had cleared everything on top of this ‘blurb’, so settled back to have a read.  Within three seconds my heart had leapt into my mouth.
          ‘ELEANOR!’ I roared.
          My lethargic teenager appeared in the doorway.  ‘Yeah?’
          ‘Have you read this?’ I waggled the papers under her nose.
          ‘No.  Have you?’
          ‘This is your future, not mine,’ I yelped.  ‘It says here that you should be researching universities, downloading prospectus, getting yourself organized and going on open days.’  I gulped.  ‘And this was TWO WEEKS AGO.’
          ‘Stop stressing, Mum, there’s plenty of time.  Our directors will tell us when to do it.’
          ‘Actually, I don’t think they will.’  My eyes scanned the sheets of A4.  ‘They’re far too busy having diva fits about students who don’t know monologues off by heart and whether to bring back The Beano.’
          The Beano was the last show my daughter appeared in.  Since then there have been some staff changes and artistic temperaments have got in the way of too many things.  I won’t name and shame my daughter’s Theatre in this blog but, as a parent, I don’t give a stuff about whether they should re-run a show that’s already been done, but I do give several stuffs about kicking seventeen-year-olds’ bottoms and making sure they have actually started their university research and got some open days booked.  If some of them can’t be bothered to learn monologues without nagging, how are they expected to organize their future?  They need prompting.  And if you want to change prompting to spoon feeding, then so be it.
          My son went to a grammar school and staff were hot, hot, hot on ensuring students were doing everything on time.  I don’t recall once getting involved in the whole university process other than paying for train tickets for my son to visit a prospective place of study.  The students spent research time during lessons checking out universities on-line, what degree courses were suitable, and bookings for open days were made there and then.  Personal Statements were drafted under the eyes of watchful teachers, tweaked, re-tweaked and tweaked again.  But at my daughter’s college, clearly it’s a case of Get on with it yourself.
          ‘You’ve got to do this yourself,’ I regarded my daughter.  ‘Pull up a stool and I’ll help you.’
          ‘Oh, but I was watching–’
          ‘NOW!’
          Two hours later we had decided on geographical locations, sorted what universities did BA (Hons) Acting, and narrowed it down to three drama schools and five universities.  This will have to be revised again at some point as only five applications in total are permitted.  Picking up the phone, I rang the first university on our list.
          ‘Hello! We’d like to book an open day.  You’re all booked up?  No availability at all?  Do a virtual tour on-line, you say.  Terrific.’  I banged the phone down and looked at Eleanor.  ‘Well this is a promising start.  Not.’
          Eleanor slouched down in her chair and gave me the same look the pooch does when in trouble.
          ‘Sorry, Mum.’
          I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  ‘Okay. Not your fault.  As far as I’m concerned, your directors are the ones who are culpable.  Let’s just keep ringing the universities on this list and keep our fingers crossed.’
          To cut a long story short there were a few more open days up for grabs, and grab them we did.
          ‘But several of them are on a Saturday!’ Eleanor exclaimed in horror. ‘That’s my day off!’
          ‘Good heavens,’ I cried, ‘so it is.  Which also means,’ I clapped a hand to my head dramatically – oh yes, my daughter isn’t the only actress in this family you know, ‘it’s MY DAY OFF TOO.’
          I glowered at my daughter.  ‘As I keep trying to tell you, this is your future.  Now are you prepared to sacrifice a few Saturdays, or not?’
          ‘Okay,’ Eleanor grimaced, ‘keep yer hair on.’
          ‘Keep my–?’
          I pursed my lips and shut up in case I gave way to the rant bubbling just below the surface.  The next headache will be drafting the Personal Statement, which no doubt I’ll be roped into doing too.  But at least we’re now on schedule.  I can only hope my daughter’s peers are too.  Which reminds me.  How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one.  They don’t like sharing the spotlight…

Ship Ahoy!

The last three years have been very challenging for my octogenarian parents.  Having managed to overcome a number of personal problems, they decided to book  a seventeen-day cruise around the Med.
          ‘I hope we’ve done the right thing,’ Mother Bryant said nervously, as we sat around her kitchen table drinking tea.
          ‘Of course you have,’ I assured, ‘it’s about time you and Dad had a holiday.  What better way to relax than on a lovely cruise ship!’
          ‘They’re awfully big,’ my mother gripped her tea cup anxiously. ‘It’s a wonder they stay afloat.’
          I knew what she meant.  I’d said more or less the same thing upon boarding a jumbo jet last August.  ‘How the hell is this going to get up into the air?’
          Anyway, I digress.  ‘I’m sure everything will be fine, and anyway, you’ll have Janice there to reassure you.’
          Janice is my sister.  She and her husband unexpectedly found themselves going on the cruise too when an elderly relative – who had actually booked the trip for himself and his retired wife – could no longer attend on account of the wife finding out about her husband’s mistress. Consequently the wronged wife told her husband to shove the ship where the sun didn’t shine.  Don’t ever think pensioners have dull and boring lives.  There’s a seething mass of hormones going on underneath the pacemakers and blue rinses.
          Two days prior to the cruise, my mother still hadn’t packed.  One day prior to the cruise, she declared she had nothing to wear.  Father Bryant was slightly hysterical by this point.  He’d already packed his modest thirty-year-old suitcase with shorts, t-shirts, and a tux for the evening.
          ‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded of my mother.
          An original war baby, my mother’s motto remains Never Throw Anything Away.  Consequently, her wardrobes are stuffed to bursting with clothes.  And what doesn’t squash into the wardrobe is boxed up in the attic, the garage, and possibly even my father’s potting shed.  I walked into her bedroom to find an explosion of garments everywhere and my mother looking rather vague and suggesting that perhaps she might not go on the cruise after all.
          ‘None of these clothes fit you, Mum,’ I said picking up the outfit she wore to my wedding.  Back then she was 5’2” and a hundred-and-forty-pounds. These days she hovers around the 4’ 9” mark and weighs no more than a feather.
          So a very last-minute trip took place to Bluewater shopping mall for clothes from John Lewis’s Petite range.  Once back home, Mother Bryant sank into her orthopaedic armchair.
          ‘I’m too exhausted to pack,’ she gasped.
          So Father Bryant did it for her, muttering many oaths along the way.
          The following morning, bright and early, I drove them to Southampton Docks where the MS Azura awaited.
          ‘Wow,’ was all I could say.
          It was a whopper of a ship.  One-hundred-and-fifteen thousand tonnes of metal stood majestically awaiting its three-thousand passengers.
          ‘There are an awful lot of old people getting on,’ said my mother looking horrified.  Sometimes she forgets she’s eighty-one.  ‘I hope none of them die.’  Actually, three of them did, but we won’t go there.
          ‘Have a lovely time,’ I cried, ‘and take lots of photographs.’  They didn’t.  Father Bryant had forgotten the charger to his first generation digital camera, and my mother hadn’t been able to source any Kodak film for her own camera.
          ‘Look after them,’ I murmured to my sister, who was looking more apprehensive by the minute.
          And in no time at all, they were off!  Well, it wasn’t like the Grand National you understand.  More a slow sort of drifting away, with everybody waving, Union Jacks fluttering, and the ship’s horn making everybody jump out of their skins and possibly contributing to one of the geriatric fatalities.
          Anyway, my parents arrived back in England on Wednesday earlier this week.  Mother Bryant came home slightly paler than when she’d left.  It transpired she’d spent every day in her room reading my very first novel.  I gave her the book four years ago and she never read it on account of ‘bad language and sex scenes’.  Seemingly, she now can’t get enough of it.
          ‘Why didn’t you read on the balcony and catch a few rays, Mum?’ I asked.
          ‘I didn’t want the sea breeze ruffling my hair-do.’
          ‘Did you go for a swim in the pool?’
          ‘No, I didn’t want to wet my hair-do.’
          ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get off the ship and check out all those lovely countries.’
          ‘I didn’t want the harsh sun drying out my hair-do.  And anyway, I can’t walk properly.’
          ‘But the ship has umpteen wheelchairs – you could have borrowed one!’
          ‘A WHEELCHAIR?’ roared Mother Bryant, two spots of colour staining her floury cheeks.  ‘They’re for OLD people!’
          Right.  I turned to my Father.  ‘Well at least you have a smashing tan, Dad.’
          It transpired this was mainly due to his disastrous excursion into Cadiz. Leaving Mother Bryant in her cabin, he set off, explored, and even stopped for a spot of lunch.  He then lost track of time, began to feel unwell in the intense heat, staggered about, couldn’t get back to the ship, got picked up by two policeman who thought he was having a heart attack, and ended up having a ride in a Black Maria with the bee-baw blaring.  He caught the ship by a gnat’s whisker when two burly stewards put out an emergency gangway just for him and physically lifted my father back on board. 
          ‘Well, that’s certainly a very different sort of holiday you’ve all had,’ I said giving my sister a meaningful look.
          Janice looked at me with wide eyes.  ‘It’s been…challenging,’ she replied.
          Still.  All’s well that ends well.  Which reminds me.  Passengers aboard a cruise ship were having a fab party when a beautiful young girl fell overboard. Immediately there was an eighty-year-old man in the water who rescued her. A handful of crew pulled them both out of the treacherous waters. The captain was both grateful and astonished at the old man’s bravery. That night a luxurious banquet was given in honour of the elderly hero. He was called forward to receive an award and asked to say a few words. He said, ‘Firstly, I’d like to know who pushed me…’

Drama Queens and Castings Take Two

Last Saturday my daughter and I wept for England in the graveyard of a London church.  It was awful.  Really emotional.  Which is saying something when the funeral was nothing more than a bit of acting, and the ‘deceased’ was a carpet of fake turf and two bags of compost from B&Q.
          ‘Eleanor to Make-Up,’ came the call, as my daughter was chivvied onto a collapsible stool.  A make-up artist, tools strung around her torso in a multi-pocketed apron, began whizzing brushes all over my daughter’s naked face.  After three hours of standing around doing nothing, suddenly it was all go, go, go!
          ‘Sorry to do this,’ the make-up artist apologised as she turned Eleanor’s face grey, ‘but we need you looking really rough.’
          ‘I thought I looked rough already,’ Eleanor lamented, her complexion stripped of its usual glamourous cosmetic layers.
          ‘Not nearly rough enough, but don’t worry,’ the make-up artist assured as she added the appearance of tear-streaked mascara to Eleanor’s cheeks, ‘we’re getting there.’  Next a dab of pink powder to rim her eyes for that super-sore I’ve-been-crying-for-dayslook.  The whole thing was topped off with dabs of rose powder around the nostrils to give the appearance of a hooter that had recently seen more tissues than a Kleenex factory.  ‘Perfect,’ the make-up artist stood back, ‘you look absolutely dreadful.’
          ‘Awful,’ I agreed, standing from my viewing position, ‘but in the nicest possible way,’ I assured the make-up artist.
          ‘Eleanor to the graveside!’ came another shout.  ‘Now then,’ said a blonde director by the name of Jo, who I later found out worked for Saatchi and Saatchi.  She was surrounded by a crew of ‘gofers’, cameraman and a soundman. ‘I want you to look shocked, horrified, you name it, and to say, “We didn’t mean it…not like this.”  Others were directed to stand close to the grave...the distraught parents – who had only met that morning – along with a group of actor school friends (who were more interested in talking about the recent X-Factor auditions), and finally crowd people.  The director looked about.  ‘We need more crowd people.  Excuse me,’ she looked at me, ‘can I borrow you for a moment?’
          ‘Me?’ my mouth dropped open.
          From her position beside the grave, Eleanor’s red-rimmed eyeballs met mine.  She gave me a warning look.  Absolutely not!  Say no!
          ‘Well I’m not sure, I don’t have any acting exp–’
          ‘That’s fine,’ said Jo, ‘I just need you to look miserable for a couple of minutes.’
          ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ I smirked and took my position by a tree.  After all, my kids were always telling me my expression was one of either disgruntled or miserable.  I could sense Eleanor’s alarm.  Her embarrassing parent was now going to be in an advert.  Why couldn’t I have just remained on the other side of the camera being an embarrassment over there, well out of sight of the fake headstones?  I studied the props from my tree position.  They were very realistic.  Even from this short distance they looked like lichen-covered concrete slabs and polished granite.  The giveaway was behind them, wooden spoons and other gimmicks holding them upright and in place.  The inscriptions were very unique.  Whoever had been tasked to make them had amused themselves whilst toiling away.  1509-1979 ~ Here Lies a Goddess and I’ll be back…as Rain Man.
          And speaking of rain, a flurry of ominous looking clouds were gathering.  The morning had started off in a blaze of sunshine and I had optimistically worn a cotton dress.  As a stirring wind whipped through the fake graveyard, polystyrene headstones took off and my thin dress flapped about my bare legs.  I shivered and took solace knowing that the director had assured the scene wouldn’t take long.
          Forty-five minutes later I was still standing there and absolutely frozen.  The heavens had opened and a gofer had been dispatched for a dozen black umbrellas.  Crew members were now erecting what looked like a pop-up marquee to protect equipment.
          ‘Do not move,’ came the instruction, ‘we don’t want to lose position.’
          One by one, the actors turned blue.
          ‘And…action!’
          ‘We didn’t mean it…not like this,’ Eleanor sobbed.
          ‘Keep repeating it, leaving a gap of a few seconds.’
          ‘We didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this.’
          From my tree, I stifled a yawn, shivered and maintained an expression of abject misery.  Which was extremely easy by this point.
          ‘Excellent,’ said Jo.
          Thank God, I heaved a sigh, and made to move towards my bright pink coat laying under the pop-up marquee (which naturally I’d been banned from wearing as it was too cheerful in colour – the coat that is, not the marquee).
          ‘Nobody move!’ the director ordered.  ‘We’re now going to do close-ups on faces.  Eleanor, get ready to say your lines again.  Just keep repeating them over and over, as before.  And…action!’
          ‘We didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this.’
          ‘Sniff,’ said the director, ‘now shake your head.  More tears please!’  The make-up girl was summoned and blew crystal something-or-other in everybody’s faces.  There were howls of complaint as eyes stung and watered.  ‘Do NOT wipe those tears!  And…action!’
          ‘We didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this…we didn’t mean it…not like this.’  Snort, sniff, shudder, shake.
          I clung to my tree for warmth and thought longingly of hot chocolate, jeans and a sweater.
          ‘Well done everybody,’ said the director, ‘the next bit will be shot in a house.’
          Everybody sighed with relief.  The house turned out to be the director’s own home, a beautiful revamped Victorian terrace in trendy Islington complete with an ecstatic young beagle to greet us all.  After hot cups of tea, everybody got into position.  Eleanor sat on the stairs with a laptop for a prop, appearing to pick up a stream of abuse from a cyber-bully.  From the depths of my handbag, I discreetly pulled out my iPad.  How exciting – I’d be able to show the family how it was all done! The sound man was hanging off the staircase with a vast fluffy microphone on a boom stick, and there were huge lights shining all over the place.
          ‘And…action!’
          I held my breath and started filming.
          Five minutes later Jo gave the thumbs up.  ‘That was wonderful.  Thank you very much for coming along today.’
          ‘Guess what, guess what!’ I said excitedly to Eleanor as we headed home in the car.
          ‘What?’
          ‘I managed to film a bit of you on my iPad.  Reach onto the back seat and grab my handbag.  Have a look and tell me what you think!’
          Eleanor made a long-arm and grabbed the iPad.  She leant back and pressed the play button.
          ‘Brilliant, Mum.’
          ‘Is it good?’ I grinned.
          ‘If you like that sort of thing.’
          We ground to a halt at some red traffic lights.  ‘Why, what’s wrong with my filming?’
          ‘Look,’ my daughter showed me.
          ‘Oh,’ I said in disappointment, ‘I didn’t press the red button properly.’          ‘Mm,’ Eleanor agreed, ‘so consequently, when you thought you were pressing stop, you instead pressed start. 
          I stared in dismay at my epic piece of filming…peoples’ feet, flashing wooden floorboards, somebody’s handbag – ah, mine – the legs of a coffee table, and a beagle’s bottom.  Oh well.  Which reminds me.  Did you hear about the young lad who landed his first part in a play?  He was playing the part of a man who’d been married for thirty years.  ‘Keep at it, son,’ said the boy’s dad, ‘and maybe one day you’ll get a speaking part…’

Eat Here Diet Home

     Last Sunday Mr V had a mad moment.  It was ‘mad’ because it didn’t have anything to do with Manchester United, who had recently been signed by Manchester United, who was rumouredto be signed according to the Red Café forum, or anything to do with Alex Ferguson – the latter of whom my husband still sorely misses.  Nope, it had nothing to do with any of that at all.  Instead my husband turned to me and said, ‘Do you fancy me taking you out to lunch?’
          Mr V found himself talking to thin air – I was already in the car, engine turned over, revving expectantly, not daring to procrastinate in case the telly went back on and a sudden football match just happened to be playing somewhere in the country with a TV camera trained on the players.
          ‘Don’t you want to spruce yourself up a bit?’ my husband asked as he climbed into the passenger seat.
          ‘Nope,’ I said reversing the car smartly backwards and heading out to the main road.  ‘These shorts and tee are decent enough, and I have some lippy in my handbag.  I’ll put some on when we arrive at–’ I paused and glanced at my husband.  ‘Where exactly are we going?’
          ‘Ah, now that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,’ he smiled indulgently.
          ‘Ooh, is this some sort of fabulous last-minute surprise?’ I asked, suddenly anxious about the shorts and tee.  My brain did a quick check through which month we were in.  Was it our anniversary?  Or Mr V’s birthday?
          ‘No, I just fancy us having a drive out.  Let’s drive to the countryside.’
          I bulked.  My husband’s words reminded me of my grandparents many moons ago doing a similar thing on a Sunday afternoon.  I wasn’t quite ready to emulate my grandparents.  More and more recently I’ve noticed my husband slowing down somewhat.  The days of having a brisk walk have turned into an amble.  He’s exchanged powering down the ski slopes for strolling around a golf course.  And here we were suddenly tootling off for ‘a drive’.
          ‘We’ll go to Westerham,’ I said as the car steamed along the M25, ‘there are some nice restaurants there according to my sister.’
          ‘Oh no, not there, I really like the idea of getting lost in leafiness.  Come off at the next junction,’ said my husband.
          ‘But that’s Sevenoaks, I’m not sure how leafy–’
          ‘Yes, yes, quick, take a left before you drive past it.’
          So we took a left.  And drove, and drove, and drove a bit more.  There was indeed lots of leafiness but not a restaurant in sight.  As pavements disappeared and roads became little more than lanes thickly edged with trees, my stomach let out a huge rumble.  We’d been driving for about forty-five minutes now.
          ‘At this rate we’re going to miss lunch altogether,’ I complained.  ‘And look,’ I pointed to a sign, ‘we’re now heading towards Westerham.  I knew we should have stayed on the motorway.’
          ‘But isn’t this wonderful?’ said my husband contentedly.  ‘I just love driving out and getting lost.  It clears the mind.’
          I stared grimly through the windscreen concentrating on the meandering narrow road which was doing nothing for my mind whatsoever.  We were in the heart of National Trust walking land.  I’d much have preferred to be out there, hiking boots on, with pooch straining at her lead.
          ‘Fantastic houses round here,’ Mr V pointed towards an ancient low-slung building with higgledy-piggledy windows and a crooked slate roof.  ‘Full of English charm.  That place wouldn’t look remiss on a box of chocolates.’
          At the thought of chocolates, indeed any form of sustenance, my stomach let out another growl of hunger.
          ‘I’m stopping at the first restaurant we come across,’ I warned, as a pub swung into view.  Result!
          ‘It’s a pub,’ Mr V protested.
          ‘Yes, but with a bit of luck it will also have pub grub.  If we don’t stop and eat soon, I’ll faint.’
          I swung the car through a pair of rustic gates.  The wheels crunched over golden gravel, and I slotted the car into the last available parking space.  The place might be in the middle of nowhere, but it was clearly popular – the car park was packed.  To the side was a large woodland garden made all the more bucolic by a huge golden sun pouring its warm rays onto cream parasols dotted around wooden trestle tables.  Terracotta tubs exploded with geraniums, lavender and giant daisies while bees buzzed lazily around them.  I passed a sign that said ‘Dogs Welcome’ and was astounded to see a number of dogs sitting obediently at the feet of families who were tucking into Sunday lunch al fresco.  I offered a silent prayer of thanks heavenwards that we hadn’t brought the pooch along.  Glancing around, the doggy crew consisted of well-behaved Labradors and Retrievers.  There was absolutely no way the folk here were ready for an over-excited food-obsessed beagle hell-bent on mugging the waitress for a platter of roast beef and Yorkshire pud.
          Inside we were shown to a table-for-two and given menus which boasted all the produce was fresh and locally sourced.  With great gusto, we duly tucked in, which just goes to show that sometimes my husband’s mad moments are really quite delightfully sane and civilised.  Which reminds me.
          A husband and wife were dining out.  Having finished their mains, they decided to have ice-cream for dessert.  ‘What flavours of ice-cream do you have?’ asked the husband.  ‘Let me think,’ said the new waitress in a hoarse voice, ‘there’s vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.’  Trying to be sympathetic, the husband asked, ‘Do you have laryngitis?’  ‘No,’ replied the new waitress with some effort, ‘just…um…vanilla, strawberry and chocolate…’     

Drama Queens and Castings

Recently my daughter attended an audition for an anti-bullying advert.  The pre-requisite was to look no older than a fifteen-year-old girl, and to look as plain as possible.
          ‘What?’ shrieked Eleanor.  ‘No make-up at all?  Not even a little bit?’
          Her angst was visible.  This was a teenager who carefully applied cosmetics to her skin like an artist using a palette of rainbow paints.  There is no beauty blog my daughter has not studied, and no cosmetic department store in our local shopping mall that Eleanor has not scrutinised.  When we recently visited Canada, the only bit of sight-seeing my daughter was passionate about was the inside of a MAC shop.  And for the uninitiated MAC is nothing to do with an Apple laptop and everything to do with eyes, lips, face, nails, skincare and ‘tools’.  Oh yes, didn’t you know there are umpteen different implements on the market to apply one’s make-up?  Gone are the days where you simply use a trowel, like me.  Anyway, I digress.
          ‘Do you want this casting or not?’ I asked irritably.
          ‘Oh yesss,’ Eleanor sighed and put her hands together in apparent prayer, ‘I want this casting more than anything.’
          ‘Then do as your agent advised.  The director doesn’t want the aggravation of licencing fees with genuine fifteen-year-olds, and why you’ve been chosen to audition.  You might be seventeen, but you don’t look it.  Just think, there is an upside to the continuous cycle of you being turfed out of Fifteen Certificate films at the cinema.’
          ‘Well I’m definitely wearing spot cover up,’ said my daughter defiantly.
          We left for London with my daughter wearing some ‘barely there’ concealer and the palest of pink lip glosses.  On arrival at the American Church on the Tottenham Court Road, we were shown to a waiting area.  There were a number of teens waiting, including a six-foot-tall willowy blonde.  We smiled and gave her the once over.  She glared back at us and did the same.  She looked about nineteen but had tied her hair into a ponytail to knock some years off.  She stomped off to do her audition looking as if she was chewing on a wasp.
          ‘The only thing that one has in common with a fifteen-year-old,’ said the assistant to us, ‘is bad attitude.’  She smiled kindly at Eleanor.  ‘You’re next.  Come with me.’
          Eleanor went off on rubber legs looking incredibly anxious.  Ten minutes later she was back, a big grin on her face.
          ‘How did it go?’ I asked, getting up and greeting her.
          ‘Okay, I think.’
          ‘Were you nervous?’  I asked, leading the way out of the building and back into late summer sunshine.
          ‘More than words can say.’
          ‘What did you have to do?’
          As we headed back to the car, Eleanor took me through the audition.
          ‘I was given a mobile phone and instructed to look like I was picking up a series of text messages, which I then had to read to camera.  There was no script.  It was all improvisation.  Having once been bullied myself at school, I found myself re-enacting a long-ago thread from a tormentor on Facebook.  It was quite surreal, and I found myself getting right into it.  I even filled up and did some rather embarrassing lip tremble.’
          ‘Sounds like you did a great job,’ I said.  As we got into the car, I slung an arm around her and gave her a hug.
          Forty-eight hours later the call came through to say the audition had been a success.  Now whether this good news went to my daughter’s head I just don’t know.  Let’s just say some very diva-like behaviour followed a few days later, so much so that my husband took her mobile phone away as a punishment.
          ‘Oh dear Lord,’ I muttered, crossing myself fervently, ‘not the mobile phone.’
          ‘You’ve cut me off from THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN MY LIFE,’ Eleanor roared, ‘GIVE THAT BACK TO ME!’
          ‘When you apologise,’ said Mr V.
          It never fails to amaze me that such a small gadget has such power in teaching a stroppy teenager some manners.
          ‘I’m seventeen!  This is outrageous!  You can’t treat me like this!  In fact, if you don’t give it back to me,’ Eleanor warned, ‘I’ll–
          ‘Yes?’ my husband demanded.
          And with that Eleanor opened her mouth and screamed.  And screamed, and screamed.  I was reminded of an older version of Violet Elizabeth Bott who lived next door to William, hero of the books by Richmal Crompton and made into several televised series.  I clung on to the mobile phone for dear life as Eleanor’s reverberating tonsils threatened to shatter the mirror, several windows, and sent the cat and dog running for cover.  We were subjected to an amazing floor show.  From, ‘Somebody help me,’ accompanied by blood-curdling I’m being murdered screams, to heart-wrenching sobs of ‘Nobody understands me.’  I’ll say this, she’s an amazing actress, and I’ll eat my hat if she’s not on the red carpet one day.  As for the confiscated phone, it was returned twenty-four hours later when my daughter finally managed to squeeze out three little words between clenched teeth.
          ‘I am sorry.’
          Since then peace has reigned.  For how long is anybody’s guess.  Which reminds me.  What is a teenager?  Somebody who can never remember to walk the dog, but never forgets a phone number…

Roundabouts and L-Plates

Two weeks ago my son couldn’t drive.  Today, he can.  I’ve just realised those first two sentences sound like an advert.  Two weeks ago my son couldn’t drive.  Today, he can, thanks to Loopy Laura’s Learners.  Or some such other similar name.  Actually, I’m tremendously grateful to the driving instructor who devoted five days of his life (not to mention risking his life) to take my son through a course of intensive six-hour driving sessions.  On the morning of the test, Robbie couldn’t face any breakfast and went to the front door shaking like a jelly.
          ‘This is madness,’ he said.  ‘I have thirty hours’ driving experience and am about to take my test.  I’m nowhere near ready for this.’
          ‘Stop being silly,’ I said bossily.  ‘In an hour’s time you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.  Tell you what, to give you some realincentive to pass, how about we buy a car afterwards – providing you pass, of course,’ I added.
          Excuse me? piped up my brain.  Why are you making wild promises like this?  I swatted the voice away.
          ‘Car shopping?’ Robbie looked amazed. ‘Do you mean it?’
          ‘Absolutely,’ I said firmly, while my brain politely told me I was off my rocker.  Your son spends ninety-per-cent of his time in London.  Where would he park a car?  And why would he even need one?  He lives two minutes around the corner from his uni! 
          ‘Fantastic,’ Rob beamed and perked up considerably.  ‘In that case, bring it on!’
          He went off to greet his instructor.  I watched anxiously from the window.  My son appeared to be shaking slightly and visibly veering between terror and determination.  Eventually he put the car into gear and carefully set off.
          An hour later the phone rang.
          ‘Hi, Mum,’ said my son in a miserable voice.
          ‘Oh, darling,’ I gripped the handset and braced myself for bad news.  ‘How did it go?’
          ‘Terrible,’ he croaked.  ‘I stalled going out the test centre, exited a roundabout too quickly, stalled at some traffic lights, and later I stalled at a junction.’
          My heart sank.  ‘Ah, well.  Never mind.’
          ‘But the good news is,’ said Robbie perking up, ‘somehow I passed.’
          ‘No!’
          ‘Yes!  I can’t believe it.’
          ‘Well done!’
          ‘I was so happy I asked my driving instructor if I could give her a hug.’
          ‘And what did she say?’
          ‘She said no.  But I hugged her anyway.  So did you mean what you said about going car shopping?’
          ‘Sure,’ I quavered, while one half of my brain started to do frantic sums, and the other half simply sneered.
          Which is how, two hours later, I found myself prowling around a second-hand Micra on a local dealer’s forecourt.
          ‘Lovely little runner,’ said the salesman, hoisting up his trousers.  A huge beer belly pushed against a tight shirt.  The last button was doing a sterling job trying to stay on the shirt, and pale flesh peeped through a gap in the material.  ‘Why don’t you take it for a test drive?’ he urged my son.
          ‘Thanks,’ Rob beamed.
          ‘I’ll have to sit with you,’ he said, ‘company policy.  But your mum and sister are welcome to come along too.’
          I gulped.  The thought of getting into a car with a newly qualified driver wasn’t something that appealed.  I looked at my daughter questioningly, but she was oblivious, busily texting a friend.
          The salesman produced a key to the car.  It was a two-door jobbie.  ‘After you,’ he pulled back the passenger seat for me to get in.
          ‘Oh, er, no.’
          ‘No?’  The salesman raised his eyebrows.
          ‘No?’ asked Robbie, looking hurt.
          ‘Um, only because I get car sick.  In the back,’ I added lamely.
          ‘Not a problem,’ said the salesman affably, and squeezed his bulk into the rear of the Micra.
          Eleanor, sylph-like, slipped in beside him.  The front seat clicked back into position.  Offering a silent prayer heavenwards, I got in.
          ‘So,’ said the salesman cheerily as he fought to do up his seat-belt, ‘exactly how long have you been driving, young man?’
          ‘I passed my test two hours ago,’ said Rob proudly.
          ‘Right,’ the salesman squeaked, ‘well take it steady.’
          I glanced into the wing mirror on my left and caught sight of the salesman’s face.  It had paled considerably, and sweat was beading on his forehead.
          Rob popped the gear into first, found the bite on the clutch, and slowly the Micra crept forward.  We were exiting the garage forecourt onto a very busy main road.
          ‘Take your time,’ I murmured to Rob.
          ‘I’m fine, Mum,’ Rob assured, ‘just so long as we don’t come to any roundabouts.  They’re really not my thing.’
          ‘Well I hate to be the one to point this out,’ said the salesman, ‘but there’s a roundabout coming up – a big one.’
          ‘Oh help,’ said Rob.  His complexion now matched the salesman’s and it was debatable who had the most sweat on their forehead.  As the roundabout loomed, my armpits broke into a gushing mess.  ‘What shall I do?’ Rob quaked.
          ‘Turn left,’ I commanded, sounding a whole lot more confident than I felt, ‘left lane, that’s it.  Don’t forget to indicate.  Slow down.  All clear.  Go. Yes, now.  Well done.’  My hands were clutching the sides of my seat as the Micra neatly flowed into the traffic and exited the roundabout.  There was an audible sound of three people exhaling with relief.  The fourth person was oblivious and still texting.
          ‘Where to now?’ asked Rob.
          ‘Keep going left,’ I said feeling quite weak.  I really wasn’t enjoying this experience at all, and the sooner we got back to the garage the better.
          ‘This isn’t going to be a very long test drive,’ said Rob in disappointment.
          ‘It’s enough to get the feel of the car,’ I assured, ‘and could you move over to your right a bit only,’ my voice rose an octave, ‘you’re about to knock the wing-mirror off a parked car.’  I shrank down into my seat as we sailed past a stationary vehicle with a millimetre to spare.
          ‘My instructor was always telling me to move over,’ said Rob with a smile.
          ‘Very often?’ asked the salesman.
          ‘All the time.’
          ‘Ha ha,’ the salesman laughed nervously.
          We returned to the garage with the Micra intact.  The salesman and myself got out, our shirts stuck to our damp backs.  Only Eleanor remained unaffected by the whole experience.  Done with texting, she wedged her mobile phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
          ‘You drive just like one of my friends,’ she informed her brother.
          ‘Really?’ asked Rob looking quite chuffed.
          ‘Yeah.  Really badly.  My friend had only been driving a week when she wrapped her car around the college gates.  The car was a write-off.’
          ‘Okay,’ I glared at Eleanor, ‘enough of that.’  I turned to the salesman.  ‘Thank you very much.  We’ll go away now and have a chat about it.’
          ‘Sure,’ said the salesman, pulling a large cotton handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and giving his forehead the once over.
          So we thought about it, and instead bought something else.  My son is now the proud owner of a Citroen C1.  Which reminds me.  A newly qualified driver was driving his car along the motorway, when his mobile rang.  Answering, he heard his mother’s voice urgently warning him to drive carefully.  ‘I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on the M25.  Please be careful!’ said the mother.  ‘It’s not just the one car,’ said her son, ‘it’s hundreds of them…’

Whitstable Walkies

A few years ago – well, a few decades ago actually – the family had a Golden Labrador called Sandy.  I know.  Not a terribly original name.  He was a great big bundle of joy who always greeted us with a smile – anybody who didn’t know him thought he was snarling – and he always brought you a gift…a shoe…a slipper…a disgruntled cat…anything to convey welcome home.  Sandy was a family member in every way, and when we packed up the car and headed off to the seaside for a day out, naturally our dog came too.  I will never forget the look on his face when he saw the sea.  Back then dogs were allowed on beaches with no restrictions and ours, unrestrained by a leash, took off to investigate.  Like King Canute desiring to master the waves, Sandy planted his paws wide and fired off a round of deep baritone barks.  As if obeying him, the waves retreated.  Satisfied he was master of all, he wagged his tail.  Seconds later the waves changed direction and rolled onto the shingle.  Sandy gave one terrified yelp and turned and ran back to us.  He couldn’t figure out this seething expanse of water.  But after half an hour or so, he relaxed and delighted in dashing into the foam and splashing about.  It is because of that long-ago dog’s reaction to the sea that I determined, all these years later, that our own pooch should enjoy a day out on the coast.
          ‘Our dog is thirteen-years-old,’ I said to my husband with a sense of time running out, ‘and she still hasn’t seen the sea.  We said we’d take her to the coast last summer, and the summer before that, and the one before that, and we haven’t.   This summer is nearly over.  So shall we go today?’
          ‘What makes you think the dog is going to appreciate the sea?’ asked Mr V.
          ‘I just know she will,’ I smiled, remembering Sandy’s beach exploitations.
          ‘Okay.  Let’s do this,’ said Mr V heaving himself off the sofa and turning the telly off.
          Result!  Inside the boot of the car were a number of towels ready to dry off a wet pooch, also a pouch of dog food and a large canister of drinking water.  Our hound positioned herself on the back seat of the car next to our daughter, and we set off.
          ‘Where exactly are we going?’ asked Eleanor, holding on to the dog’s lead.
          ‘Whitstable,’ I replied, programming the Sat Nav.  ‘It won’t take long.’
          ‘With your mother driving, that’s debatable,’ muttered Mr V.  ‘And I’d just like to say–’ but his words were drowned out by the dog.  Barking shrilly, she stood up on her seat and, wobbling precariously, pushed her nose against the glass to anxiously peer out.  I knew exactly what she was saying.
          ‘Are we going to the vet?  Oh dear Lord, we’re going to the vet.  I just knew it.  I said to myself as I hopped into the car, they’re taking me to the vet.  And they know I hate the vet.  It makes me so nervous.’
          As we headed onto the motorway, the car was filled with the obnoxious smell of dog fart.
          ‘Oh my God,’ Eleanor choked, one hand fluttering up to her nose, ‘someone open the windows.’
          The dog responded to Eleanor’s request and shoved a paw on the electric window button.  As we filtered into the middle lane at seventy-miles-per-hour, the car was filled with the deafening rush of wind that threatened to perforate everybody’s ear drums.  The dog stuck her head out the window, barking hysterically, ears flapping like two flags in a gale force wind.
          ‘SHUT THE WINDOW,’ Eleanor yelled over the din, as I manoeuvred the car back into the inside lane, frantically stabbing at the window controls on the driver’s door.  The dog’s window shot up, nearly garrotting her, just as the other three windows whizzed down.  The dog’s barking went into overdrive.
          ‘Okay, so we’re not going to the vet.  It’s the wrong route.  You’re taking me to the kennel instead, aren’t you?  How dare you!  I spent two weeks in that kennel while you were in Crete, and then you chuffed off to Canada for another two weeks.  You’ve only been back five minutes and you’re putting me in the kennel again.  What sort of dog owner are you?  It’s outrageous.’
          ‘This was a big mistake, Debbie,’ yelled my husband over the racket, and for goodness sake sort out those windows!’  As all four windows finally snapped shut, pooch released another volley of putrid parps.  ‘Big mistake,’ Mr V repeated, tucking his chin into his chest and pulling his t-shirt up over his nose.
          One hour later we arrived in Whitstable with a splitting headache from all the incessant barking, and lungs that were desperate to inhale fresh sea air rather than the whiff of rotten eggs.
          ‘Well, isn’t this nice,’ I said, determined that the day would be salvaged, ‘and just look at that sea!’
          The three of us stared at a swirling mass of grey water under a matching sky.  Eleanor huddled into her hoodie.
          ‘I’m cold.’
          ‘Nonsense!’ I retorted, zipping up my jacket and boggling silently at some holiday makers cowering against windbreakers in their swimming costumes.  ‘Look!’ I said to the dog, ‘it’s the sea!’
          ‘She’s not interested,’ said Mr V.
          ‘Course she is,’ I said, grabbing hold of our beagle’s head and forcing her to look at the waves.  ‘Come on, let’s go and explore the beach.’
          But our dog had other ideas.  Her head swivelled one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees, and her eyes lit up on people eating a picnic.
          ‘Now we’re talking,’ she barked.  ‘Food...food...food.’
          ‘I’m hungry,’ said Mr V, inhaling deeply.  The sea air always whets the appetite.  Shall we get some fish and chips?’
          ‘Yum,’ said Eleanor and I together.’
          ‘Yum,’ barked the dog, and hauled us off to the chippie.
          After a spot of bother with Mr V only having a tenner in his wallet and holding up a queue of twenty Hell’s Angels, we emerged from the chippie clutching our parcels of hot fish and chips. In due course we settled ourselves down on a wooden bench with matching trestle table, and tucked in.
          ‘What about me?’ barked the dog.
          ‘What about the dog?’ asked Mr V.
          ‘I fed her just two minutes ago.’
          Pooch then went into the mother of all tantrums barking her disgust at us stuffing our faces with fish and chips, sucking in her cheeks and doing her best to impersonate a starving hound.  Her tactics didn’t go unnoticed.
          ‘Somebody shut that ruddy dog up,’ said a bottled blonde at a nearby table.
          ‘Oh no,’ Eleanor whimpered, ‘that woman over there is giving us filthy looks.  Do something, Mum.’
          Why is it always left to me to do something?  I gave the dog a chip.  That quietened her for, ooh, half a second.
          More outraged looks were being tossed our way.  The bottled blonde was working her way through a bottle of wine and clearly at the ‘punchy’ stage.  Her tattooed partner wore a brow-beaten expression and shrugged helplessly.  As if sensing trouble in the air, our pooch redoubled her barking efforts.
          ‘I want another chip.  Want, want, want, gimme, gimme, gimme.’
          Bottled blonde had slung the last of her wine down her neck and was standing up.  Her gaze was upon us.  If looks could kill, we were shortly to be goners.
          ‘I’m done.’ I leapt up, bundling all the fish and chip paper together.  ‘C’mon, let’s go for a walk.’
          ‘You’d have thought that dog would have lost her voice by now,’ said Mr V hastening after me.
          ‘No chance,’ said Eleanor, tossing her own defiant look back at the bottled blonde.
          And so we walked.  We strolled past beach huts painted in bright colours, walked alongside tourists, dodged around mothers pushing buggies, smiled at children hanging on to pets’ leads (none of which barked – the dogs, not the kids), watched surfers in wet suits, teenagers in sailing boats, breathed deeply of the salty sea air, and did our best to ignore the pooch…who was still barking and not remotely interested in the sea.
          After a couple of wind-blown hours, we clambered back into the car feeling exhilarated.  Pooch flopped down on the seat with a tired groan.  Seconds later she was fast asleep.
          ‘Thank the Lord,’ said Mr V, ‘peace at last.’
          From the back seat a silent parp wafted towards us.
          Which reminds me.  How do you keep a dog from smelling?  You hold your nose…

A Canadian Affair

Having recently had a meeting with my accountant, it was agreed that I could use a planned trip to Canada under the heading of Business.
          ‘Obviously you are looking at research for your next novel, yes?’ my advisor peered at me through his spectacles.
          ‘Obviously,’ I nodded my head vigorously, and gulped.  What if I had a brain freeze and couldn’t think of a single thing to write?  I had a schedule covering Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver which, naturally, my fictional heroine would also be visiting.  So what was driving her to do such a trip?  Um, um, well, er, she was running away of course!  From what or whom were mere details.  I decided to scribble down ideas and a rough plot while on the long flight from Heathrow to Montreal.
          ‘So,’ I said to my children as our jumbo jet waited for take-off (the kids had gate-crashed my business trip upon finding out the destination was Canada), ‘my heroine is running away from some personal problems.’  I pulled out my iPad and opened up Notes.
          ‘What specifically is she running away from?’ asked Eleanor.
          ‘I don’t know yet.’
          ‘Couldn’t she just stay at home and stick her head under the pillow like normal people?’ asked Robbie.
          ‘No.’
          ‘Why not?’
          ‘Because it would make for boring reading.’
          ‘What’s her name?’ asked Eleanor, flicking through a selection of movies on the little screen in front of her.
          ‘Good question.  Care to make a suggestion?’
          ‘Petunia,’ said Eleanor, selecting The Other Woman as her chosen flight movie.
          ‘No, that doesn’t work.’
          ‘What about Fatima?’ suggested Robbie.
          ‘I have nothing against the name Fatima, but as my heroine is a bog-standard Brit with no trace of Arabic origin, I think an alternative name would be more apt.’
          ‘Oh, okay, what about Jemima,’ said Robbie wickedly, ‘fritefly porsh, eh what?’
          ‘Oh for…– can we be serious for just one moment?’ I appealed.
          ‘Miss Piggy,’ said Eleanor warming to the task.  ‘And she could be running away from Kermit.’
          ‘Thank you, children,’ I pursed my lips as my fingers started to tap out some opening words, ‘I shall call my heroine…Bethany.’
          By the time we were half way across the Atlantic Ocean, Bethany had changed to Suzie, Samantha, Amanda, Belle and Philly, and she was running away from a man called Harry-Ted-Jack-Steve-Josh.  It would be fair to say that the only drama going on with my characters was a massive identity crisis.  Frustrated, I snapped the iPad shut and picked up my Kindle.  There were over seventy novels waiting to be read.  So far this year, I’ve managed to read just one.  Sighing with happiness, I selected JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy and began to read.
          ‘Want to play chess?’ asked my son.
          ‘No, thanks,’ I murmured, deep in storyland.  My tummy tensed as I read with mounting horror about the collapse of Barry Fairbrother in a public car park.  Two neighbours, who happened to be at the scene, jumped into the ambulance with the dying man as paramedics fought–
          ‘Want to play cards?’
          ‘No, thanks,’ my eyes flicked backwards and forwards looking for the lost sentence.  Ah, there it was.  Oh, dear Lord.  Barry Fairbrother was indeed a goner.  As the news of his unexpected and sudden death rippled through Pagford, it was greeted with mixed reactions.  Krystal Weedon, teenager from the local sink estate and daughter of a heroin-addled prostitute, was devastated.  Barry Fairbrother had been her mentor, encouraging her to believe that with education and hard work she’d one day escape her roots for a better life.  But on the other side of the borough border, self-satisfied Shirley Mollinson was absolutely delighted.  Councillor Barry Fairbrother’s passing meant his seat was up for grabs.  And who better to fill the dead man’s shoes than Shirley’s son–
          ‘Want to play Scrabble?’
          ‘No, thanks.’
          And who better to fill the dead man’s shoes than Shirley’s son, Miles Mollinson.  But Miles’ wife, Samantha, wasn’t so chuffed.  She hated Pagford with a passion, and everything to do with the Council.  If her boring husband was expecting help with his campaigning leaflets, he was on his own.  Samantha was far more interested in pretending she was nineteen again and studying her daughter’s poster of rock-star Jake, who had chiselled cheekbones and rippling muscles and–
          ‘Wanna play I Spy?’
          ‘No!’
          ‘I’m bored.’
          ‘Watch a movie.’
          ‘I have.’
          ‘There are ten movie options.  Choose another one.’
          ‘The rest are rubbish.’
          I sighed and cast about for a piece of paper.  Pulling out the sick bag from the seat in front of me, I shoved it in my Kindle and snapped it shut.’
          ‘Why have you put a sick bag in your Kindle?’ my son frowned.
          ‘I need a book mark.’
          ‘Oh my God!  Ha ha!  It’s a Kindle, Mum.  Duhhhh!’ Robbie put one finger to his temples and made a swivelling motion.  ‘Why are you so ditzy?’
          Exasperated, I pulled the sick bag out and shoved it back into the seat pocket in front of me.  ‘It was simply a force of habit from reading paperbacks.  Not to mention being driven dotty by your constant interruptions.  Right, now that you have my undivided attention, what do you want to do?’
          ‘Okay, no need to get narky.  Keep your hair on.’
          ‘I’m not being narky, I just–’
          ‘Go back to reading your book.  I’m going to listen to some music.’
           And with that my son plugged himself into the music channel.  Tentatively, I picked up my Kindle.  I’d barely read the next sentence, when there was a tap on my arm.
          ‘I’m bored,’ said Eleanor.
          I was glad when we finally reached Montreal.  What a great city!  From Mont Tremblant and karting, to climbing four-hundred-and-thirty-two steps to the top of Mount Royal to gaze upon spectacular views, there was a wealth of things to do, see, taste and touch.  From Montreal we travelled to Toronto, went giddy at the top of the CN Tower, walked along the waterfront with its amazing yachts, shopped in designer outlets and drove to the mesmerising Niagara Falls.  Then on to Vancouver to bounce across the Capilano Suspension Bridge, walk among treetops, stroll around Whistler, cycle Stanley Park and see grizzly bears on Grouse Mountain.  One thing is for sure, right now my fictitious multi-named heroine is totally in love with a new country rather than her handsome hero.  He needs to distract her with some serious wooing.
          Which reminds me.  When Harry-Ted-Jack-Steve-Josh finally captures the heart of Suzie-Samantha-Amanda-Belle-Philly, she’ll say he took her breath away.  A few years down the line she’ll probably find him just plain suffocating, but fortunately romance novels always end before the following happens:
Before falling in love - She says she loves the way he takes control of situations.
After falling in love - She calls him a controlling, manipulative egomaniac.
Before falling in love – She says it’s like Saturday Night Fever.
After falling in love – She says it’s more like Saturday Night Football.
Before falling in love – ‘Don’t stop…’
After falling in love – ‘Don’t start…’
Before falling in love - The Sound of Music…
After falling in love - The Sound of Silence…
Before falling in love – He says, ‘Is that all you’re having?’
After falling in love – He says, ‘Maybe you should just have a salad, honey.’
Before falling in love - Turbo charged…
After falling in love - Jump start…
Before falling in love – He says, ‘We agree on everything!’
After falling in love – He says, ‘Doesn’t she have a mind of her own?’
Before falling in love – She says, ‘You’re my idol.’
After falling in love – She says, ‘You’re just idle…’