Emma Appleton's Blog
December 1, 2013
Babies, Travel and Hummus; the guide to having it, eating it and loving it.
As I have decided to book a last minute trip to Israel in a weeks time, it reminded me of my first visit last year.
Leaving for Israel –July 2012
I’ve been sat on this plane for half an hour and it’s still on the ground. The 10am flight to Tel Aviv on the first Monday of the summer holidays and so it’s packed with Jewish families all looking forward to getting on the beach. I catch the eye of the guy squeezed in next to me, he works in Israel, like I do and we share our joint frustration at being stuck in this plane for the next five hours. My frustration is extended due to giving up my precious window seat to an orthodox Jewish girl who couldn’t possibly sit next to a non-Jewish man. So I find myself squashed between a large Englishman and the Jewish girl. I’ve noticed a social phenomenon with Jewish families; they cannot sit still on a plane and insist on standing next to their friends in the isle. It’s a plane, sit and read a book, don’t clog the isle. The worst thing about this is that the younger generation are also following this, making it a tradition passed down to siblings and children. The air crew have no control over it and instead are running out of overhead locker space due to all the black hats taking up the space of an extra bag, despite the budget airlines strict one bag rule.
I prod the guy who’s stood next to us and tell him to “sit down!” I feel irritated by this cultural oddness. I’ve also only had three hours combined sleep due to an unfortunate and non-compatible combination of partying and children in the last two days. The prospect of my window seat to catch up on sleep was like heaven. In fact the only thing I really look forward to in life recently is sleep. Every parent’s fantasy. Hours of uninterrupted sleep in clean sheets, or even the window seat of a plane is just as inviting and I’ve given it all up in a charitable gesture. I glance to my right and the Jewish girl is silently praying, sat in my window seat with a blow up cushion and a nice cosy blanket. I suspect she’s a seat hustler actually. Well at least I hope she’s praying as she rocks forwards resembling a mental patient. It would appear she’s not very happy sitting next to me either even though I gave up my seat for her. That’s gratitude for you, well I hope Gods going to pay me a good turn for this.
So what did I do exactly, that took me to war torn countries? I worked in IT, not the comfy suit wearing project management or analysis type IT, but the dirty hands on type. The user so miserable and ragey about their computer which, of course, is entirely my fault, I am singlehandedly responsible for Microsoft. I also looked after the servers and networks, which I actually love, usually because there are no users involved. Well unless the network goes down but then it’s just possible to lock yourself in the server room. The inner sanctum that mere users are too scared to venture into, a peek through the door usually accompanies a face of horror when they see the mass of cabling and equipment. Statements such as “Oh I wouldn’t know where to start” are reassuring that they will close the door behind them. The more confident amongst them may say “I hope you know what you’re doing it there” which makes me smile on the outside and think dark thoughts on the inside. And a distant memory of the devilment that has gone on behind those doors in a previous life.
I think many IT professionals crave adventure and danger in their lives. I’m sure when the zombie aftermath occurs, the people on the frontline will all be wearing Microsoft t-shirts or Dilbert funnies. Attempting to weald swords which resemble their online personas. Weapons which are too heavy for their lanky frames, their eyes blinking in the sunlight, unaccustomed to being outside.
This brings me onto my next point. Let’s get it out of the way, I’m a woman. I’m 36 married to a farmer and have 2 children. A woman. That’s right. Who works in IT.? There’s not that many of us and it can often raise such delightful comments as “oh you’re quite technical for a woman”. Yes I am, deal with it, like a woman breastfeeding in public, take a good look and move on. I know more about active directory than most IT bods I’ve ever met, so get over it or I will send the schema master to come and tombstone you. Imagine a user telling a man “you’re quite technical… for a man” and see how you feel, or even “who’s looking after your children while you’re at work?” Who’s looking after yours fuckface? Anyway feminist rant over with, I’m sure you get the picture. I love my children with all my heart, but I also love the independence of having my own identity and money, a way of preventing the resentfulness kicking in when I get to 50.
Don’t get me wrong, its not always easy, and the feeling of sat at a desk in the windowless facility on a warm summers day, knowing your children are being looked after by others is, and can be, heart wrenching, but you learn to live with it, or you would go mad. Or stay at home and feel the claustrophobic pull of the endless days and nights with no expendable income. Ok so marry rich or suck it up. The perils of the working mum, still exclusively kept for women.
Going to Israel has been on my bucket list forever, so much so I’ve managed to brainwash my oldest child into believing that he too has a lifelong ambition to go there. To me, being a parent is about giving my child the experiences of the world from a young age. Working full time, I love to cram my impossible task for perfect parenting into windows of stupidity. For example, I AM going to take them both round the supermarket. I’m not going to be like those “other” mothers with their screaming babies, nope I’m going to be that person asking their perfect children if they want hummus in their pack up.
Unfortunately, I haven’t quite managed it, instead I’ve managed to create something which has slid sideward into a duel dimension. Consequently even my own mother refuses to be included when it’s gone wrong. Now, when I’m pushing the trolley round the supermarket I take my head somewhere else. I ignore my baby chewing on a raw spring onion, giggling like something deranged and ignore my oldest when wails that he wanted whole fish, not the salmon fillet. My mother said it’s not normal. I’ve created unadjusted children who wail about whole fish, or wanting to go to Israel while in the middle of Sainsbury. They should be wailing about cheese straws apparently.
Anyway as I was saying. Arriving in Israel is uneventful really. Nothing like the horror I’ve heard of; queuing for hours with no air-conditioning while chain smoking officials ponder your passport for hours. Asking strange and often random questions like have you ever been to Syria? (well yes I have actually) I did get the working visa and fast track service which involves being driven 100m in a black BMW only to get out again and see the faces of all the people travelling with you still queuing. But being an IT bod means I’m dressed inappropriately for some VIP treatment. Instead of a sharp black suite and briefcase, I’m in casual clothes and look like my rug sack contains actual drugs and I’m being hauled off. $150 of bribery money and a 3 month working visa makes me quite concerned that I’m never going get out of the country. I queue at the car hire point and hope they don’t notice I don’t possess a photo ID for my licence or that my name is different due to never getting round to updating it to my married name two years ago. I cling onto parts of my maiden name in a hope to keep that 20 something me alive somehow, and not the respectable Mrs with a husband and children.
Hiring a car and driving through the 60s skyscraper ring road of Tel Aviv traffic is just as any imagination can take you, like Leeds in the rush hour. Just bigger, dirtier and with ruder drivers chatting on their mobile phones, chain smoking and swerving amongst the queues of traffic without a care in the world. My kind of driving the sort that invokes road rage in the UK. The urban sprawl and industrial wasteland finally gives way to gentle desert hills and a spectacular coastline as I drive north on the coast road. A winding country road takes me to the top of Haifa town and eventually to my generic 4* hotel.
It’s too warm in my room and already feel deflated at ending up in such a standard place. I’m only here for a week and Syria is threatening chemical attack any minute, a quick calculation places me at less than 200 miles from the capital, Damascus. Hmm best sleep with the window closed then. Unfortunately the heat is unbearable; it’s a hot humid sticky heat. It scorches the ground brown, giving the eye a pallet of blue sky, grey concrete and brown grass all intervened with the bright green of irrigated crops and olive groves that have stood the test of searing heat and war. It’s too hot to smoke I’m told by a waitress when I ask to sit outside and she’s right, even at night the heat is so consuming that I have a constant bead of sweat running down my face, and I look like I’ve contracted a nasty virus with hours to live.
The generic American hotel chair that I’ve been booked into by the company travel agent is making me uneasy, its like being anywhere in the world, once you walk through the doors its uniform and standard. The loud mouthed Americans having a beer sat at the bar are unnerving me, especially given the current political situation. Seriously, don’t they realise it’s not correct to voice such opinions? Especially when they won’t even venture out of their cocoon of hotel safety. I am disappointed to note that the most unnerving issue about this particular hotel is that there is no garden. I’ve never been anywhere warm without wanting to find a beer garden, but Israel in summer is so stiflingly warm that the only thing you crave is the air conditioning inside. A contradiction for British people when we are brainwashed to go outside whenever the sun shines.
Being a woman travelling alone in a foreign country has its advantages and disadvantages. If you go with your family, your other half, or a work colleague it’s different. The whole dynamic changes. Add to that a combination of a drink and a cigarette it takes it to a new level. It says, look at me I’m confident, on my own and a little reckless. Of course it doesn’t actually mean this but I think it’s a man thing. I was alone, in Israel, on the hottest night of the year, sat outside drinking a pint of beer in the stifling heat when I see a man smoking inside. I ask him if it’s ok to smoke inside. ‘Yes, you want a cigarette?’ he offers me his packet, but I show him my own Marlboros, indicating silently that, no I’m fine. ‘You like Israel?’ he asks the question, but makes it sound like a statement.
’Yes its fine’. I mumbled, but I actually wanted to say -It’s great actually. So many people from the Uk have the wrong opinion about this country, it’s like the media gives you this little window of information. All bad things about a place that’s swarming with suicide bombers on the brink of destruction. The truth is its just people getting on with, well, being people I guess. I tell him my husband is staying with me in the hotel but he’s poorly so I’ve come out on my own and carry on reading my book. I’m sure I can feel his eyes burning into my head, but when I look up he’s stirring his coffee and lighting another cigarette. Will he follow me back the 100m to the hotel and… and what exactly would he do in broad daylight? It’s that paranoia that keeps you safe. I tell him my husband is texting me and contemplate pretending to take a phone call saying where I am and I’m heading back shortly. There is no husband of course. I catch a glance of him again and he’s looking at me through a haze of smoke. So I light another cigarette, he’s not going to get the better of me, I decide.
The single international business traveller. I like to refer to myself as that, but my colleagues seem to find this amusing and laugh at my self opinionated title. These guys have more airmiles than the average pilot. When I first joined the Company I was bewildered. A strange organisation dedicated to things I have absolutely no idea about. I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent, but compared to the people I work with you would think I had special needs. They make jokes about faraday cages in their lunch hour. I have no idea, nor do I want to start thinking of faraday cages so I laugh along in an attempt to appear I know what the joke is, but the jokes on me. So I keep myself cocooned away in my windowless office next to the men’s toilets in a secret facility in a nondescript location.
I’ve rearranged my desk so if I look closely I can see a shaft of daylight but I really have no idea if it’s raining or sun shining outside. I just receive instructions from my boss who works thousands of miles away and who I have not and probably never will, meet. I’m their insurance policy, if the IT goes wrong I fix it. If it doesn’t well I don’t, and I get the feeling I’m doing an OK job. Occasionally I will get the instructions to go to some remote place in the arsehole of some country to perform tasks which take weeks to work out and hours to complete.
The service team, the ones with the millions of air miles they have a jaded aura about them. As though they have wandered aimlessly round the backstreets of Tokyo, drunk in strip bars in the USA, and most probably sat pondering life in the backstreets of most cities in the far east. They have a this same look about them, a haunted been there, seen it, want to forget it.
I asked one guy where he goes on holiday, he looked at me blankly; ‘I don’t go on fucking holiday’, he says in his drawling London accent, ‘I stay at home’ what about your family? ‘fuck em, I do enough travel’. I think this is what the Company do to people, by the time they hit 50 they are a shell. They don’t see me as a business traveller; I’m playing at it with my jolly to TelAviv and my aspirations to aim higher than the usual chain hotel. Really I tell them, I don’t see the point, most people take a job with foreign travel to broaden their horizons and see the world. Surely that’s the main thing about it. Life’s too short to spend time working and sitting in a generic hotel room with its cream walls and matching chairs. I hate it when people tell me all they saw was the inside of a hotel room and their office. Isn’t it much more of a life experience to find somewhere local where the towels don’t match and the man at the bar will tell you his life story, rather than having it all perfect.
Of course our cynical man in the service department doesn’t want to go on holiday, why would he just to go to the same hotels with his wife and children. It’s sad really and I do not intend to become that person, with their jaded expression and their apparent blasé approach. Its great travelling to new countries and experiencing their culture. In fact I have a great new business idea – an international website for business travellers, a kind of dating website- so you say; I’m going to Israel and someone else is too – that same person could be sat staring aimlessly out of the window at dinner, or they could be sat with someone they have already met online having a beer and a fag and talking shite. Ok so it wouldn’t always be successful and it might end up increasing the divorce ratio, but it would be much more fun than sitting at the bar on your own listening to Americans drawling on. Or worse, having some random man stare at you all night, while the waitress asks if you’re waiting for someone, and you shake your head, so they remove the other place setting highlighting the fact that yes, you’re on your own.
When you are not on your own, having social times with work colleagues can be equally strange. You might have emailed these names on your global address list and had chat and banter, but then you are face to face with them and they are nothing like you think. The people I work with in Israel are more politically incorrect than I thought they would be and I start arguing about the problem with pork and milk and the combination of both. Personally, my opinion is it seems a sensible option when the weather is 40 degrees and you have no fridge, avoid eating both.
When you have a fridge, it’s irrelevant, but someone in the bible, could have been God said that the kid shouldn’t be eaten with its mothers milk. As someone pointed out if you eat a chicken you’re never going to eat it with chicken milk. Chicken milk? Well he has a point. My point is that when out for lunch and for dinner you have to remember that there are cultural and social situations that differ from our own traditions.
I’m told at lunch that woman drinking beer in Israel is a point of ridicule, and I think back to my problem friend in the bar last night. Clearly he wasn’t thinking about stalking me back to the hotel, merely observing the white English woman consume a whole pint of local ale is something of a public spectacle.
Going out for dinner with colleagues is a different matter, especially when wine is involved. Or perhaps it’s just me. It can ultimately leave you with a feeling of shame the next day when you meet them back in the work scenario. I once went out for dinner with a lovely Italian in Venice. He treated me to a long meal, washed down with Prosecco. The goblin had only been born two months before, after nine months of clean living I had discovered my favourite drink to suddenly be Prosecco. Well anything really I was just happy to get my body back to abuse it in anyway I felt fit. I’d mentioned my love of food and Prosecco several times during the course of the working day, the poor guy had no choice but to wine and dine me. By the end of the meal we knew everything about each other and had decided to setup a food business together. In the cold light of day, when he collected me from the hotel to take me to the airport we were distant work colleagues again. Although he did insist on waiting until I walked into the terminal building in case I decided not to get back on the flight, something I vaguely remembered telling him the previous evening. Stood outside in the cold February air smoking a cigarette informing him I never wanted to return to England. Now when we meet up accidently, he’s very cool towards me and I do just wonder what he was thinking that evening of Prosecco and food. I doubt a married mother of 2 small children offers anything more significant that a tendency to talk shit after a bottle of Prosecco. Or maybe he’s fallen deeply in love with me and has taken the silent brooding approach. I like to think that.
While on my first trip to Israel I found a new friend. I really have a tendency to do this. He’s a walking encyclopaedia on Israeli history and very passionate about his country. Did I want a tour of churches and monasteries? he asked me. Hmm no not really, I’m a Pagan. He tells me I may get “religious feelings” which has the opposite reaction from the one he was expecting. I tell him; no really, I really don’t want any of those. He then tells me that we are about 5km from the original site of the ancient city of Armageddon. Now we are talking, yes please I would love to go there. He eyes me suspiciously; clearly most people want a tour of churches and monasteries.
We go to Armageddon and it’s predictably an old ruin on a hill, in the days of the bible all the fighting took place here so he tells me, and it was the worst place to be. I drive my car down to the entrance and am mildly concerned to see the electric gates just closing. Great, I think, stuck in Armageddon with nothing but Marlboro Lights in my bag. My friend has a word and the gates open. He tells me about an ancient civilisation up in the hills of the mountain, they are so secretive he tells me, that even they don’t know what their religion is about. The ‘Dreze’ are definable by their traditional black and white outfits. He tells me that the men can do whatever they like while the women suffer inequality and submission. He tells of a town with no modern amenities, of a strict code of conduct and a society very proud of their history.
We drive to a monastery which has a high viewpoint of Israel; it’s a very hot day the sun is so scorching that even a few minutes too long stood in its heat turns my pale skin red. We stand and look over towards Jordan and can see the old town of Nazareth, its sprawl of white houses visible on the hillside. There are little hills everywhere, like ‘ladies jobbies’ he laughs while pretending to have breasts. That made me laugh, his kind brown eyes are sparkling as he laughs with me. He tells me that Jesus spoke from every hill around here and it is very holy. I have to admit, there’s a wonderful sense of wellbeing standing here looking across the vast expanse of hazy land. It’s so clear in the winter months apparently, that you can see for miles but today we just see the heat haze bubbling in the distance.
The land is white and scorched but it’s contrasted by the green of ancient olives. We head to a local restaurant that isn’t ready to serve yet, but they bring out some local food and we tuck in. It really is a hundred and one ways to use spinach, bread and onions, a strange comparison can be made in the food and the landscape around us, green and white. It is delicious, the stuffed vine leaves are full of flavour, of lemons and herbs and that first pressing of Israeli olive oil. Plenty of flatbreads are brought out, covered in green paste and sesame seeds which if I’m honest after the first one reminded me ever so slightly of dogshit.
Leaving for Israel –July 2012
I’ve been sat on this plane for half an hour and it’s still on the ground. The 10am flight to Tel Aviv on the first Monday of the summer holidays and so it’s packed with Jewish families all looking forward to getting on the beach. I catch the eye of the guy squeezed in next to me, he works in Israel, like I do and we share our joint frustration at being stuck in this plane for the next five hours. My frustration is extended due to giving up my precious window seat to an orthodox Jewish girl who couldn’t possibly sit next to a non-Jewish man. So I find myself squashed between a large Englishman and the Jewish girl. I’ve noticed a social phenomenon with Jewish families; they cannot sit still on a plane and insist on standing next to their friends in the isle. It’s a plane, sit and read a book, don’t clog the isle. The worst thing about this is that the younger generation are also following this, making it a tradition passed down to siblings and children. The air crew have no control over it and instead are running out of overhead locker space due to all the black hats taking up the space of an extra bag, despite the budget airlines strict one bag rule.
I prod the guy who’s stood next to us and tell him to “sit down!” I feel irritated by this cultural oddness. I’ve also only had three hours combined sleep due to an unfortunate and non-compatible combination of partying and children in the last two days. The prospect of my window seat to catch up on sleep was like heaven. In fact the only thing I really look forward to in life recently is sleep. Every parent’s fantasy. Hours of uninterrupted sleep in clean sheets, or even the window seat of a plane is just as inviting and I’ve given it all up in a charitable gesture. I glance to my right and the Jewish girl is silently praying, sat in my window seat with a blow up cushion and a nice cosy blanket. I suspect she’s a seat hustler actually. Well at least I hope she’s praying as she rocks forwards resembling a mental patient. It would appear she’s not very happy sitting next to me either even though I gave up my seat for her. That’s gratitude for you, well I hope Gods going to pay me a good turn for this.
So what did I do exactly, that took me to war torn countries? I worked in IT, not the comfy suit wearing project management or analysis type IT, but the dirty hands on type. The user so miserable and ragey about their computer which, of course, is entirely my fault, I am singlehandedly responsible for Microsoft. I also looked after the servers and networks, which I actually love, usually because there are no users involved. Well unless the network goes down but then it’s just possible to lock yourself in the server room. The inner sanctum that mere users are too scared to venture into, a peek through the door usually accompanies a face of horror when they see the mass of cabling and equipment. Statements such as “Oh I wouldn’t know where to start” are reassuring that they will close the door behind them. The more confident amongst them may say “I hope you know what you’re doing it there” which makes me smile on the outside and think dark thoughts on the inside. And a distant memory of the devilment that has gone on behind those doors in a previous life.
I think many IT professionals crave adventure and danger in their lives. I’m sure when the zombie aftermath occurs, the people on the frontline will all be wearing Microsoft t-shirts or Dilbert funnies. Attempting to weald swords which resemble their online personas. Weapons which are too heavy for their lanky frames, their eyes blinking in the sunlight, unaccustomed to being outside.
This brings me onto my next point. Let’s get it out of the way, I’m a woman. I’m 36 married to a farmer and have 2 children. A woman. That’s right. Who works in IT.? There’s not that many of us and it can often raise such delightful comments as “oh you’re quite technical for a woman”. Yes I am, deal with it, like a woman breastfeeding in public, take a good look and move on. I know more about active directory than most IT bods I’ve ever met, so get over it or I will send the schema master to come and tombstone you. Imagine a user telling a man “you’re quite technical… for a man” and see how you feel, or even “who’s looking after your children while you’re at work?” Who’s looking after yours fuckface? Anyway feminist rant over with, I’m sure you get the picture. I love my children with all my heart, but I also love the independence of having my own identity and money, a way of preventing the resentfulness kicking in when I get to 50.
Don’t get me wrong, its not always easy, and the feeling of sat at a desk in the windowless facility on a warm summers day, knowing your children are being looked after by others is, and can be, heart wrenching, but you learn to live with it, or you would go mad. Or stay at home and feel the claustrophobic pull of the endless days and nights with no expendable income. Ok so marry rich or suck it up. The perils of the working mum, still exclusively kept for women.
Going to Israel has been on my bucket list forever, so much so I’ve managed to brainwash my oldest child into believing that he too has a lifelong ambition to go there. To me, being a parent is about giving my child the experiences of the world from a young age. Working full time, I love to cram my impossible task for perfect parenting into windows of stupidity. For example, I AM going to take them both round the supermarket. I’m not going to be like those “other” mothers with their screaming babies, nope I’m going to be that person asking their perfect children if they want hummus in their pack up.
Unfortunately, I haven’t quite managed it, instead I’ve managed to create something which has slid sideward into a duel dimension. Consequently even my own mother refuses to be included when it’s gone wrong. Now, when I’m pushing the trolley round the supermarket I take my head somewhere else. I ignore my baby chewing on a raw spring onion, giggling like something deranged and ignore my oldest when wails that he wanted whole fish, not the salmon fillet. My mother said it’s not normal. I’ve created unadjusted children who wail about whole fish, or wanting to go to Israel while in the middle of Sainsbury. They should be wailing about cheese straws apparently.
Anyway as I was saying. Arriving in Israel is uneventful really. Nothing like the horror I’ve heard of; queuing for hours with no air-conditioning while chain smoking officials ponder your passport for hours. Asking strange and often random questions like have you ever been to Syria? (well yes I have actually) I did get the working visa and fast track service which involves being driven 100m in a black BMW only to get out again and see the faces of all the people travelling with you still queuing. But being an IT bod means I’m dressed inappropriately for some VIP treatment. Instead of a sharp black suite and briefcase, I’m in casual clothes and look like my rug sack contains actual drugs and I’m being hauled off. $150 of bribery money and a 3 month working visa makes me quite concerned that I’m never going get out of the country. I queue at the car hire point and hope they don’t notice I don’t possess a photo ID for my licence or that my name is different due to never getting round to updating it to my married name two years ago. I cling onto parts of my maiden name in a hope to keep that 20 something me alive somehow, and not the respectable Mrs with a husband and children.
Hiring a car and driving through the 60s skyscraper ring road of Tel Aviv traffic is just as any imagination can take you, like Leeds in the rush hour. Just bigger, dirtier and with ruder drivers chatting on their mobile phones, chain smoking and swerving amongst the queues of traffic without a care in the world. My kind of driving the sort that invokes road rage in the UK. The urban sprawl and industrial wasteland finally gives way to gentle desert hills and a spectacular coastline as I drive north on the coast road. A winding country road takes me to the top of Haifa town and eventually to my generic 4* hotel.
It’s too warm in my room and already feel deflated at ending up in such a standard place. I’m only here for a week and Syria is threatening chemical attack any minute, a quick calculation places me at less than 200 miles from the capital, Damascus. Hmm best sleep with the window closed then. Unfortunately the heat is unbearable; it’s a hot humid sticky heat. It scorches the ground brown, giving the eye a pallet of blue sky, grey concrete and brown grass all intervened with the bright green of irrigated crops and olive groves that have stood the test of searing heat and war. It’s too hot to smoke I’m told by a waitress when I ask to sit outside and she’s right, even at night the heat is so consuming that I have a constant bead of sweat running down my face, and I look like I’ve contracted a nasty virus with hours to live.
The generic American hotel chair that I’ve been booked into by the company travel agent is making me uneasy, its like being anywhere in the world, once you walk through the doors its uniform and standard. The loud mouthed Americans having a beer sat at the bar are unnerving me, especially given the current political situation. Seriously, don’t they realise it’s not correct to voice such opinions? Especially when they won’t even venture out of their cocoon of hotel safety. I am disappointed to note that the most unnerving issue about this particular hotel is that there is no garden. I’ve never been anywhere warm without wanting to find a beer garden, but Israel in summer is so stiflingly warm that the only thing you crave is the air conditioning inside. A contradiction for British people when we are brainwashed to go outside whenever the sun shines.
Being a woman travelling alone in a foreign country has its advantages and disadvantages. If you go with your family, your other half, or a work colleague it’s different. The whole dynamic changes. Add to that a combination of a drink and a cigarette it takes it to a new level. It says, look at me I’m confident, on my own and a little reckless. Of course it doesn’t actually mean this but I think it’s a man thing. I was alone, in Israel, on the hottest night of the year, sat outside drinking a pint of beer in the stifling heat when I see a man smoking inside. I ask him if it’s ok to smoke inside. ‘Yes, you want a cigarette?’ he offers me his packet, but I show him my own Marlboros, indicating silently that, no I’m fine. ‘You like Israel?’ he asks the question, but makes it sound like a statement.
’Yes its fine’. I mumbled, but I actually wanted to say -It’s great actually. So many people from the Uk have the wrong opinion about this country, it’s like the media gives you this little window of information. All bad things about a place that’s swarming with suicide bombers on the brink of destruction. The truth is its just people getting on with, well, being people I guess. I tell him my husband is staying with me in the hotel but he’s poorly so I’ve come out on my own and carry on reading my book. I’m sure I can feel his eyes burning into my head, but when I look up he’s stirring his coffee and lighting another cigarette. Will he follow me back the 100m to the hotel and… and what exactly would he do in broad daylight? It’s that paranoia that keeps you safe. I tell him my husband is texting me and contemplate pretending to take a phone call saying where I am and I’m heading back shortly. There is no husband of course. I catch a glance of him again and he’s looking at me through a haze of smoke. So I light another cigarette, he’s not going to get the better of me, I decide.
The single international business traveller. I like to refer to myself as that, but my colleagues seem to find this amusing and laugh at my self opinionated title. These guys have more airmiles than the average pilot. When I first joined the Company I was bewildered. A strange organisation dedicated to things I have absolutely no idea about. I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent, but compared to the people I work with you would think I had special needs. They make jokes about faraday cages in their lunch hour. I have no idea, nor do I want to start thinking of faraday cages so I laugh along in an attempt to appear I know what the joke is, but the jokes on me. So I keep myself cocooned away in my windowless office next to the men’s toilets in a secret facility in a nondescript location.
I’ve rearranged my desk so if I look closely I can see a shaft of daylight but I really have no idea if it’s raining or sun shining outside. I just receive instructions from my boss who works thousands of miles away and who I have not and probably never will, meet. I’m their insurance policy, if the IT goes wrong I fix it. If it doesn’t well I don’t, and I get the feeling I’m doing an OK job. Occasionally I will get the instructions to go to some remote place in the arsehole of some country to perform tasks which take weeks to work out and hours to complete.
The service team, the ones with the millions of air miles they have a jaded aura about them. As though they have wandered aimlessly round the backstreets of Tokyo, drunk in strip bars in the USA, and most probably sat pondering life in the backstreets of most cities in the far east. They have a this same look about them, a haunted been there, seen it, want to forget it.
I asked one guy where he goes on holiday, he looked at me blankly; ‘I don’t go on fucking holiday’, he says in his drawling London accent, ‘I stay at home’ what about your family? ‘fuck em, I do enough travel’. I think this is what the Company do to people, by the time they hit 50 they are a shell. They don’t see me as a business traveller; I’m playing at it with my jolly to TelAviv and my aspirations to aim higher than the usual chain hotel. Really I tell them, I don’t see the point, most people take a job with foreign travel to broaden their horizons and see the world. Surely that’s the main thing about it. Life’s too short to spend time working and sitting in a generic hotel room with its cream walls and matching chairs. I hate it when people tell me all they saw was the inside of a hotel room and their office. Isn’t it much more of a life experience to find somewhere local where the towels don’t match and the man at the bar will tell you his life story, rather than having it all perfect.
Of course our cynical man in the service department doesn’t want to go on holiday, why would he just to go to the same hotels with his wife and children. It’s sad really and I do not intend to become that person, with their jaded expression and their apparent blasé approach. Its great travelling to new countries and experiencing their culture. In fact I have a great new business idea – an international website for business travellers, a kind of dating website- so you say; I’m going to Israel and someone else is too – that same person could be sat staring aimlessly out of the window at dinner, or they could be sat with someone they have already met online having a beer and a fag and talking shite. Ok so it wouldn’t always be successful and it might end up increasing the divorce ratio, but it would be much more fun than sitting at the bar on your own listening to Americans drawling on. Or worse, having some random man stare at you all night, while the waitress asks if you’re waiting for someone, and you shake your head, so they remove the other place setting highlighting the fact that yes, you’re on your own.
When you are not on your own, having social times with work colleagues can be equally strange. You might have emailed these names on your global address list and had chat and banter, but then you are face to face with them and they are nothing like you think. The people I work with in Israel are more politically incorrect than I thought they would be and I start arguing about the problem with pork and milk and the combination of both. Personally, my opinion is it seems a sensible option when the weather is 40 degrees and you have no fridge, avoid eating both.
When you have a fridge, it’s irrelevant, but someone in the bible, could have been God said that the kid shouldn’t be eaten with its mothers milk. As someone pointed out if you eat a chicken you’re never going to eat it with chicken milk. Chicken milk? Well he has a point. My point is that when out for lunch and for dinner you have to remember that there are cultural and social situations that differ from our own traditions.
I’m told at lunch that woman drinking beer in Israel is a point of ridicule, and I think back to my problem friend in the bar last night. Clearly he wasn’t thinking about stalking me back to the hotel, merely observing the white English woman consume a whole pint of local ale is something of a public spectacle.
Going out for dinner with colleagues is a different matter, especially when wine is involved. Or perhaps it’s just me. It can ultimately leave you with a feeling of shame the next day when you meet them back in the work scenario. I once went out for dinner with a lovely Italian in Venice. He treated me to a long meal, washed down with Prosecco. The goblin had only been born two months before, after nine months of clean living I had discovered my favourite drink to suddenly be Prosecco. Well anything really I was just happy to get my body back to abuse it in anyway I felt fit. I’d mentioned my love of food and Prosecco several times during the course of the working day, the poor guy had no choice but to wine and dine me. By the end of the meal we knew everything about each other and had decided to setup a food business together. In the cold light of day, when he collected me from the hotel to take me to the airport we were distant work colleagues again. Although he did insist on waiting until I walked into the terminal building in case I decided not to get back on the flight, something I vaguely remembered telling him the previous evening. Stood outside in the cold February air smoking a cigarette informing him I never wanted to return to England. Now when we meet up accidently, he’s very cool towards me and I do just wonder what he was thinking that evening of Prosecco and food. I doubt a married mother of 2 small children offers anything more significant that a tendency to talk shit after a bottle of Prosecco. Or maybe he’s fallen deeply in love with me and has taken the silent brooding approach. I like to think that.
While on my first trip to Israel I found a new friend. I really have a tendency to do this. He’s a walking encyclopaedia on Israeli history and very passionate about his country. Did I want a tour of churches and monasteries? he asked me. Hmm no not really, I’m a Pagan. He tells me I may get “religious feelings” which has the opposite reaction from the one he was expecting. I tell him; no really, I really don’t want any of those. He then tells me that we are about 5km from the original site of the ancient city of Armageddon. Now we are talking, yes please I would love to go there. He eyes me suspiciously; clearly most people want a tour of churches and monasteries.
We go to Armageddon and it’s predictably an old ruin on a hill, in the days of the bible all the fighting took place here so he tells me, and it was the worst place to be. I drive my car down to the entrance and am mildly concerned to see the electric gates just closing. Great, I think, stuck in Armageddon with nothing but Marlboro Lights in my bag. My friend has a word and the gates open. He tells me about an ancient civilisation up in the hills of the mountain, they are so secretive he tells me, that even they don’t know what their religion is about. The ‘Dreze’ are definable by their traditional black and white outfits. He tells me that the men can do whatever they like while the women suffer inequality and submission. He tells of a town with no modern amenities, of a strict code of conduct and a society very proud of their history.
We drive to a monastery which has a high viewpoint of Israel; it’s a very hot day the sun is so scorching that even a few minutes too long stood in its heat turns my pale skin red. We stand and look over towards Jordan and can see the old town of Nazareth, its sprawl of white houses visible on the hillside. There are little hills everywhere, like ‘ladies jobbies’ he laughs while pretending to have breasts. That made me laugh, his kind brown eyes are sparkling as he laughs with me. He tells me that Jesus spoke from every hill around here and it is very holy. I have to admit, there’s a wonderful sense of wellbeing standing here looking across the vast expanse of hazy land. It’s so clear in the winter months apparently, that you can see for miles but today we just see the heat haze bubbling in the distance.
The land is white and scorched but it’s contrasted by the green of ancient olives. We head to a local restaurant that isn’t ready to serve yet, but they bring out some local food and we tuck in. It really is a hundred and one ways to use spinach, bread and onions, a strange comparison can be made in the food and the landscape around us, green and white. It is delicious, the stuffed vine leaves are full of flavour, of lemons and herbs and that first pressing of Israeli olive oil. Plenty of flatbreads are brought out, covered in green paste and sesame seeds which if I’m honest after the first one reminded me ever so slightly of dogshit.
To do... Or to be?
It has been a lovely weekend. A good ending to a dire week. Well take away the fact that I have become 'unhinged' by the end of the corporate whore and left strangely liberated. Freedom of the mind, I prefer that phrase. Or to coin my sister Charlotte 'unplugged from battery of the matrix'. The best thing you can take from the accusations of others is the comfort of the company of friends. So that's just what I did.
Bonfire Night was spent at a good friends house, staggering distance from the farm. The children run excitedly round the garden in the dark, anticipating the fear of the fireworks. Prosecco flows like water, my choice of music is berated, the politeness of good friends is the best. It's not polite. Ok so its probably inappropriate to play chav dubstep to octogenarian grandparents. They don't get it, and Brixton is a million miles away from country living, but I blame the bus I had to catch on Friday night. Chase & Status further corrupted my mind.
We watch the fireworks from the warm safety of my friends conservatory, and as the children wander off with their dads, we are sat, left to ponder the world. The solidarity of good female company, in the darkly lit room, we are no longer satisfied with the 'hot men' conversations. Now we question the meaning of existing. What is life about really? Do we even know who we are anymore?
My friends mother places the salient question. Are you doing or being? What does that even mean? I can't answer at first, it's not something you want to question too much or you will wake up and realise your dreams. And realise you aren't living the dream, just the expectations of society. Are you doing what is expected of you in life, or being who you are? Ok, my friend said, enough procrastinating. Own the conversation. Don't quote in the third person. Fine, but its difficult to do so. Life is fluid. Surely, I say, this is a conversation you have with yourself much earlier in life, when you are in your early 20's and working out your place in life. But I realise, life is constantly changing, to define yourself as one person and stick with that opinion for the rest of your life. How dull. People enter your life for a reason sometimes, and the influences of others make you change. I cannot answer the questions, I don't think I do know who I am anymore. Is this a mid-life crisis?
My husband is the perfect answer to this question. He is a farmer. He is being a farmer, not just doing a job. He owns it 100%. Its his passion, his obsession and importantly, a way of life. A lifestyle choice. Not just a job. He wouldn't change his life, he doesn't constantly search for the true meaning like I do. And I respect that, hours spent listening to music alone in his tractor. He doesn't have the wanderlust to escape from being a farmer.
I joke to him that before he met me, he hadn't travelled any further than Goole. He denies this, he claims I opened his mind. Did I really? Yet even after the experiences he has had, he returns back to his tractor, has chats with his farmer friends about such topics as mole baiting, drain maintenance and hedge cutting. He talks about 'old ewes' and 'tups', no mention that he once saw suspected WOMD on the road to Iraq. As though he has never left. I, on the other hand constantly strive to have stranger experiences. Why do I? Why can I not just be satisfied with the life I have? I would love to live a hundred existences, to experience everything life has to offer.
I want to return to Syria, help the refugees. I want to go to Asia and eat street food. I want to visit my sister in Ghana just for the weekend. Why? Why do I find such solace sitting alone in an airport departure lounge on my way to a war torn country? Why am I such a gypsy? How many places can I visit before I finally return home to my farm and family and realise everything I need is right here? I don't think I ever will, no matter what I want to be. It's always more interesting to chase the alternative, to live on a knife edge of uncertainty.
Certainly the best writing comes from the pain and angst of frustration. It is not satisfying to just write about my character staring at a view, admiring the sunset, they need to have heart breaking dilemmas and thoughts running through their minds at that very moment. And therein lies the clarity. I can finally answer the question. I am, like a typical Gemini, experiencing as much as I can though doing and being. For me, there is no black or white answer to my friends question. It would be, by its very definition, far too boring just to be either.
Bonfire Night was spent at a good friends house, staggering distance from the farm. The children run excitedly round the garden in the dark, anticipating the fear of the fireworks. Prosecco flows like water, my choice of music is berated, the politeness of good friends is the best. It's not polite. Ok so its probably inappropriate to play chav dubstep to octogenarian grandparents. They don't get it, and Brixton is a million miles away from country living, but I blame the bus I had to catch on Friday night. Chase & Status further corrupted my mind.
We watch the fireworks from the warm safety of my friends conservatory, and as the children wander off with their dads, we are sat, left to ponder the world. The solidarity of good female company, in the darkly lit room, we are no longer satisfied with the 'hot men' conversations. Now we question the meaning of existing. What is life about really? Do we even know who we are anymore?
My friends mother places the salient question. Are you doing or being? What does that even mean? I can't answer at first, it's not something you want to question too much or you will wake up and realise your dreams. And realise you aren't living the dream, just the expectations of society. Are you doing what is expected of you in life, or being who you are? Ok, my friend said, enough procrastinating. Own the conversation. Don't quote in the third person. Fine, but its difficult to do so. Life is fluid. Surely, I say, this is a conversation you have with yourself much earlier in life, when you are in your early 20's and working out your place in life. But I realise, life is constantly changing, to define yourself as one person and stick with that opinion for the rest of your life. How dull. People enter your life for a reason sometimes, and the influences of others make you change. I cannot answer the questions, I don't think I do know who I am anymore. Is this a mid-life crisis?
My husband is the perfect answer to this question. He is a farmer. He is being a farmer, not just doing a job. He owns it 100%. Its his passion, his obsession and importantly, a way of life. A lifestyle choice. Not just a job. He wouldn't change his life, he doesn't constantly search for the true meaning like I do. And I respect that, hours spent listening to music alone in his tractor. He doesn't have the wanderlust to escape from being a farmer.
I joke to him that before he met me, he hadn't travelled any further than Goole. He denies this, he claims I opened his mind. Did I really? Yet even after the experiences he has had, he returns back to his tractor, has chats with his farmer friends about such topics as mole baiting, drain maintenance and hedge cutting. He talks about 'old ewes' and 'tups', no mention that he once saw suspected WOMD on the road to Iraq. As though he has never left. I, on the other hand constantly strive to have stranger experiences. Why do I? Why can I not just be satisfied with the life I have? I would love to live a hundred existences, to experience everything life has to offer.
I want to return to Syria, help the refugees. I want to go to Asia and eat street food. I want to visit my sister in Ghana just for the weekend. Why? Why do I find such solace sitting alone in an airport departure lounge on my way to a war torn country? Why am I such a gypsy? How many places can I visit before I finally return home to my farm and family and realise everything I need is right here? I don't think I ever will, no matter what I want to be. It's always more interesting to chase the alternative, to live on a knife edge of uncertainty.
Certainly the best writing comes from the pain and angst of frustration. It is not satisfying to just write about my character staring at a view, admiring the sunset, they need to have heart breaking dilemmas and thoughts running through their minds at that very moment. And therein lies the clarity. I can finally answer the question. I am, like a typical Gemini, experiencing as much as I can though doing and being. For me, there is no black or white answer to my friends question. It would be, by its very definition, far too boring just to be either.
October 5, 2013
You're insane! - But it's my character, not me, honestly!
This week has been hellish. Well, maybe a little more strange than usual, to say the least. I was told I was insane by my absolutely NOT normal manager. I replied, no not insane, it's the creative genius that comes with opening that part of your mind when writing.
I suspect a lot of writers have that bordering insanity, whether its anxiety at a bad/mediocre review, or a worry about their storyline. I have yet to experience writers block, indeed I appear to find inspiration to write on a daily basis. If I ever found myself staring blankly at the screen, I would take it as a sign. I'm free! thank god! The characters have left me alone at last.
So these characters, where do they come from? I have been asked this question a few times, and have been unable to give a concise answer. Friends nudge me, oh they can see my character in my people. Now, I didn't think that was the case.
The women in my books so far, Nicole Shaw and Anna Morgan are fictional people, not based on anyone I know personally. Poor Libby doesn't even have a surname yet! I'm sure there must be traits of me in Nicole, but no, she's like my quiet friend. Apart from her love of good food, Italy and gorgeous dark haired men. I'm more likely to relate to Anna, she's more confident and career focused, but even that isn't strictly true of me either. Libby? well she discovers she's a lesbian so I'm not sure.
I went to see a medium a few months ago, when I started writing "Just Tell Me" and I couldn't stop thinking about the people, the story had taken over my life. I felt the real emotions of my characters when they went through their story, I thought I was cracking up. Maybe I should have just got professional help back then. Daniel MacIntyre had become real to me, and I needed some assurance I wasn't going crazy. So I went to see a fortune teller, because that clearly would reassure me. She told me I was channelling the spirit world into my books and that the people were telling their story through my writing.
Ok, so that sounds crazy. Not insane though, just crazy. Well not as crazy as when an actual man called Daniel MacIntyre appeared on my Twitter feed. That was really freaky.
I started to see coincidences in my real life to my creative one. But post writing. I had to admit, It was time to stop for a while and get a grip. What makes some people obsessed over stories? is it an escape from real life? My real life doesn't seem that bad though!
Maybe the fortune teller is right. Are the characters actual entities or just figments of a vivid imagination? As adults we are encouraged to be sensible and leave our inner child in the past. Who knows? but I do know writers are a little bit insane so I guess I've found my niche in life.
I suspect a lot of writers have that bordering insanity, whether its anxiety at a bad/mediocre review, or a worry about their storyline. I have yet to experience writers block, indeed I appear to find inspiration to write on a daily basis. If I ever found myself staring blankly at the screen, I would take it as a sign. I'm free! thank god! The characters have left me alone at last.
So these characters, where do they come from? I have been asked this question a few times, and have been unable to give a concise answer. Friends nudge me, oh they can see my character in my people. Now, I didn't think that was the case.
The women in my books so far, Nicole Shaw and Anna Morgan are fictional people, not based on anyone I know personally. Poor Libby doesn't even have a surname yet! I'm sure there must be traits of me in Nicole, but no, she's like my quiet friend. Apart from her love of good food, Italy and gorgeous dark haired men. I'm more likely to relate to Anna, she's more confident and career focused, but even that isn't strictly true of me either. Libby? well she discovers she's a lesbian so I'm not sure.
I went to see a medium a few months ago, when I started writing "Just Tell Me" and I couldn't stop thinking about the people, the story had taken over my life. I felt the real emotions of my characters when they went through their story, I thought I was cracking up. Maybe I should have just got professional help back then. Daniel MacIntyre had become real to me, and I needed some assurance I wasn't going crazy. So I went to see a fortune teller, because that clearly would reassure me. She told me I was channelling the spirit world into my books and that the people were telling their story through my writing.
Ok, so that sounds crazy. Not insane though, just crazy. Well not as crazy as when an actual man called Daniel MacIntyre appeared on my Twitter feed. That was really freaky.
I started to see coincidences in my real life to my creative one. But post writing. I had to admit, It was time to stop for a while and get a grip. What makes some people obsessed over stories? is it an escape from real life? My real life doesn't seem that bad though!
Maybe the fortune teller is right. Are the characters actual entities or just figments of a vivid imagination? As adults we are encouraged to be sensible and leave our inner child in the past. Who knows? but I do know writers are a little bit insane so I guess I've found my niche in life.
September 29, 2013
The Art of Seduction
Well, I've had a strange week. Before I continue with why, just remember I AM a respectable 37 year old mother of two, married etc. Honestly! I like the countryside, growing vegetables and cooking great food. I love riding my horse, oh and OK writing erotic novels. Clearly, I protest too much, but a girl has to try.
I have equally respectable friends in my village, we have village events and fetes and fund raising - all the predictable stuff. However, every quarter we have a night out in York which we have called "The Ten Years Younger Club".
Last time was quite debauched, my friend even doesn't remember the taxi ride home. I think it could possibly be my fault really, I bought more Prosecco than we needed, and in fact was almost nearly arrested for drinking it from the bottle while waiting for our taxi. I say nearly, because when the police stopped we all tried to look very respectable and scared. I mean, we are not the binge drinking generation and I will never ever flash my knickers and collapse in a heap of girly giggles. Nope, far too respectable.
I will however, locate gorgeous men in any situation, and, being an outrageous flirt (after Prosecco) I have a guilty pleasure. I take their photo - I ask them first of course and then later we have a giggle and rate the guy. The last one was gorgeous, tall and dark with piercing eyes.
I decided he was my Edward and told him I was going to write a book based on him, well I omitted it was about erectile dysfunction!
I treat it as research, so it's fine isn't it? Yes OK it's a bit mean and only something a group of 40 something woman could get away with. Oh and me. But I suspect I lead the village ladies astray somewhat.
This strange nocturnal activity has earned me a reputation with my closest friend, and so the other day I received a serious email from her.
Her sister is 38, single and looking for a man. Can she join us on the "Ten Years Younger Club"? Yes of course, as long as she adheres to the rules (drink Prosecco, look respectable and lust after hotties?)
My friend insists - yes yes of course she will and she continues the real reason she wants her to join us. She emails me again in more detail:
"However I want a favour, tell me if you feel uncomfortable but you seem to have a skill at this, will you help her find a man?"
The penny drops and actually I think this is fab. Give me two glasses of Prosecco and my reasonable flirting skill raises a few levels. It would appear my friends sister has, well, she has zero skill. Flirting is an art, you need to practice to get skilled at it.
She's quite shy too apparently, and I think its a great idea. My friend wants to rate the guys though, a little like blind date.
I thought some more, maybe I should make it a bit more official - you know, advertise it on social media - the location etc. and actually see if anyone turns up who fits her requirements.
My business head turns the start of an idea, but before I take it too far I realise that the role I am considering isn't that far off being a Madame!
Erm.... I wanted to grow old gracefully wearing a headscarf and wellies while picking leeks NOT pimping out single ladies to unsuspecting victims
I have equally respectable friends in my village, we have village events and fetes and fund raising - all the predictable stuff. However, every quarter we have a night out in York which we have called "The Ten Years Younger Club".
Last time was quite debauched, my friend even doesn't remember the taxi ride home. I think it could possibly be my fault really, I bought more Prosecco than we needed, and in fact was almost nearly arrested for drinking it from the bottle while waiting for our taxi. I say nearly, because when the police stopped we all tried to look very respectable and scared. I mean, we are not the binge drinking generation and I will never ever flash my knickers and collapse in a heap of girly giggles. Nope, far too respectable.
I will however, locate gorgeous men in any situation, and, being an outrageous flirt (after Prosecco) I have a guilty pleasure. I take their photo - I ask them first of course and then later we have a giggle and rate the guy. The last one was gorgeous, tall and dark with piercing eyes.
I decided he was my Edward and told him I was going to write a book based on him, well I omitted it was about erectile dysfunction!
I treat it as research, so it's fine isn't it? Yes OK it's a bit mean and only something a group of 40 something woman could get away with. Oh and me. But I suspect I lead the village ladies astray somewhat.
This strange nocturnal activity has earned me a reputation with my closest friend, and so the other day I received a serious email from her.
Her sister is 38, single and looking for a man. Can she join us on the "Ten Years Younger Club"? Yes of course, as long as she adheres to the rules (drink Prosecco, look respectable and lust after hotties?)
My friend insists - yes yes of course she will and she continues the real reason she wants her to join us. She emails me again in more detail:
"However I want a favour, tell me if you feel uncomfortable but you seem to have a skill at this, will you help her find a man?"
The penny drops and actually I think this is fab. Give me two glasses of Prosecco and my reasonable flirting skill raises a few levels. It would appear my friends sister has, well, she has zero skill. Flirting is an art, you need to practice to get skilled at it.
She's quite shy too apparently, and I think its a great idea. My friend wants to rate the guys though, a little like blind date.
I thought some more, maybe I should make it a bit more official - you know, advertise it on social media - the location etc. and actually see if anyone turns up who fits her requirements.
My business head turns the start of an idea, but before I take it too far I realise that the role I am considering isn't that far off being a Madame!
Erm.... I wanted to grow old gracefully wearing a headscarf and wellies while picking leeks NOT pimping out single ladies to unsuspecting victims
September 24, 2013
Server Room Seduction, continues....
So what happened next? Quite a lot, I need to break it down into little snippets while I remember the sordid details.
Well I returned to my desk and waited for the emails to come through, but there wasn’t any. Doubt crept into my mind, maybe he hadn’t meant for that to happen and I replayed the scene in my head. Maybe he had just come into the room to ask for an update and I had pounced on him. I even sent myself a couple of test messages, in case the exchange server had somehow died. It hadn’t and I left the office, feeling slightly rejected, confused and well, let’s face it, sexually frustrated.
Never had a man had this effect on me, it was all consuming. My mind drifted to the feeling of his hands on my skin, the touch of his lips and I wondered if it would happen again. It was also ridiculous, he was a geeky surveyor. Maybe I had a surveyor fetish? A new line of seduction, perhaps all I needed was every lover to discuss vacant units over a printed floorplan and I would be theirs.
I played the scene in my head. Anyway, who does that? What kind of person kisses a stranger in the office like that? OK so he wasn’t exactly a stranger, I’d told him things I perhaps shouldn’t have done, but that was all on e-mail, not real life.
The weeks of walking into the office, anticipating an email from Dan were over. I didn’t know what had gone so wrong but I knew one thing. I was wrong about the kiss, one was not enough and the frustration wouldn’t leave me. The week dragged on and I resisted the urge to go to the 5th floor, my previous excuses to walk up the stairs had now gone. I had a new assistant starting and had to be composed and professional and I tried to push Dan from my mind. It was too much, I couldn’t face seeing him, knowing he hadn’t e-mailed me and I wasn’t going to make the first move.
It was Friday afternoon and I was sat starting out of the window, playing with my hair not thinking of Dan. Honest. My email pinged and my senses jumped into action when I saw it was from Dan Turner.
Emma
I’m just curious and I want you to tell me the truth. How turned on were you when I kissed you?
I understand if you don’t want to answer me.
Dan
I read his email and my heart jumped into my mouth. At that moment I didn’t know what to reply. I mean, come on. How many times can you be sat at your desk and get an email like that from the hottest guy ever. Who emails people at work messages like that anyway? Well it certainly hadn’t happened to me before. I didn’t know what to say, I felt as though he had the upper hand and what exactly did he expect me to say? I couldn’t reply.
The geeky surveyor had just jumped a notch up in my estimations, and I had no idea what to say to his email. I deleted it and sat quietly at my desk. Colour ran into my cheeks and I knew the answer. The answer was, incredibly turned on. But how was it possible to feel like this by a simple email, a few words. I wasnt telling him that, what did he expect? He had really caught me. I also realised the truth, it was a pure fantasy in both our heads, brought together by one kiss. He couldnt even muster the courage to have a proper conversation with me, yet he could walk into the inner sanctum of the server room and kiss me! the cheek of it. But I wanted more. Where would it end?
Server Room Seduction is a full erotic novella and will be available on Amazon soon. Log onto www.emmaappleton.com for more details.
Well I returned to my desk and waited for the emails to come through, but there wasn’t any. Doubt crept into my mind, maybe he hadn’t meant for that to happen and I replayed the scene in my head. Maybe he had just come into the room to ask for an update and I had pounced on him. I even sent myself a couple of test messages, in case the exchange server had somehow died. It hadn’t and I left the office, feeling slightly rejected, confused and well, let’s face it, sexually frustrated.
Never had a man had this effect on me, it was all consuming. My mind drifted to the feeling of his hands on my skin, the touch of his lips and I wondered if it would happen again. It was also ridiculous, he was a geeky surveyor. Maybe I had a surveyor fetish? A new line of seduction, perhaps all I needed was every lover to discuss vacant units over a printed floorplan and I would be theirs.
I played the scene in my head. Anyway, who does that? What kind of person kisses a stranger in the office like that? OK so he wasn’t exactly a stranger, I’d told him things I perhaps shouldn’t have done, but that was all on e-mail, not real life.
The weeks of walking into the office, anticipating an email from Dan were over. I didn’t know what had gone so wrong but I knew one thing. I was wrong about the kiss, one was not enough and the frustration wouldn’t leave me. The week dragged on and I resisted the urge to go to the 5th floor, my previous excuses to walk up the stairs had now gone. I had a new assistant starting and had to be composed and professional and I tried to push Dan from my mind. It was too much, I couldn’t face seeing him, knowing he hadn’t e-mailed me and I wasn’t going to make the first move.
It was Friday afternoon and I was sat starting out of the window, playing with my hair not thinking of Dan. Honest. My email pinged and my senses jumped into action when I saw it was from Dan Turner.
Emma
I’m just curious and I want you to tell me the truth. How turned on were you when I kissed you?
I understand if you don’t want to answer me.
Dan
I read his email and my heart jumped into my mouth. At that moment I didn’t know what to reply. I mean, come on. How many times can you be sat at your desk and get an email like that from the hottest guy ever. Who emails people at work messages like that anyway? Well it certainly hadn’t happened to me before. I didn’t know what to say, I felt as though he had the upper hand and what exactly did he expect me to say? I couldn’t reply.
The geeky surveyor had just jumped a notch up in my estimations, and I had no idea what to say to his email. I deleted it and sat quietly at my desk. Colour ran into my cheeks and I knew the answer. The answer was, incredibly turned on. But how was it possible to feel like this by a simple email, a few words. I wasnt telling him that, what did he expect? He had really caught me. I also realised the truth, it was a pure fantasy in both our heads, brought together by one kiss. He couldnt even muster the courage to have a proper conversation with me, yet he could walk into the inner sanctum of the server room and kiss me! the cheek of it. But I wanted more. Where would it end?
Server Room Seduction is a full erotic novella and will be available on Amazon soon. Log onto www.emmaappleton.com for more details.
September 23, 2013
Server Room Seduction. A new genre of Romance?
After I briefly blogged about my reluctant muse, a few people asked me about him, and it got me thinking. Despite the embarrassment of him running away from me in Tesco whenever I saw him later, it’s worth the shame to finally get the tale out. Here is the story. In its glory. There are some raunchy bits in it, so you have been warned.
Ok well, it was a few years ago now. I think it could have been six or seven, it doesn’t matter. I was just out of a long term relationship and certainly not looking for anyone special. I have always been the marrying type, and part of me yearned, for once, not to be. A little like Nicole in "Just Tell Me" when really my alter ego was screaming "Just Fuck Me".
So, I was about 28 and at a loose end. I was working in Leeds as an IT contractor, looking after the network and PCs for a largish property company. On the fourth floor of a 70s office block, the fifth floor was designated for the directors and the surveyors. My desk was tucked away in the corner, near the accountants and it gave me the freedom to browse what and when I wanted. Remember, this was in the days before Facebook, so really there wasn’t anything worth browsing for.
Now at this point, there’s something you need to know, something I hadn’t told anyone else about. I had been getting e-mails from a user called Dan Turner and he was quite amusing for a mere user. You see, us IT professionals have a strict code of conduct when it comes to fraternising with the user community. We just don’t do it. They are not the same as us, any attempt at friendship is just a ploy for preferential treatment, but Dan was different. And the strange thing was, I didn’t even know who he was or what he looked like, just that he was a surveyor on the 5th floor. His emails were light and entertaining and we shared an interest in the same music and films, so I allowed him the privilege of email discussion without the usual irony and sarcasm which flows between IT geeks.
It was hot that summer and I had to spend endless time walking up and down the stairs to the fifth floor carrying boxes of computer parts. I remember walking up the stairs behind him with a box of switches and I noticed his shoes. Silly thing to notice but it was just at the right eye height. They were good shoes, black and shiny. He opened the door for me and our eyes met, and bloody hell, it was like he could see into my soul. A small smile danced on his lips as I brushed past with my box of switches and my stomach flipped in a nervous reaction. Trust me, all you need to know at this stage was he was gorgeous. He was mid 30s, short dark hair and brown eyes, about 6ft and his suit fitted him perfectly.
I muttered my thanks and ran to the confines and safety of Server Room 2. The cool, air conditioned windowless room was the inner sanctuary of the IT department. Only a few choice people knew the key code, users could only wonder as to the devilment that occurred behind those doors. Two racks of black HP servers and a UPS powerful enough to keep the whole of Leeds charged for a week. It was the days before virtualisation, when everything needed a server. I stood and let the air conditioning blow my hair, it wasn’t as long as it is now, but still below shoulder length, dark and naturally curly. I felt slightly sweaty from running up the stairs, and meeting that gorgeous man.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I automatically checked my email. It was a time when the novelty of getting email on your phone was still fresh. Email, on your phone! It was from Dan Turner
Emma.
Are you staying in that room for the rest of the day?
Dan
I actually thought it was a bit creepy at the time that he had noticed me from a distance. I was going to reply back but my phone buzzed again
Emma.
I think my computer isn’t working, I need some help.
Dan.
I laughed and replied
Dan.
ok, I guess it’s good to put a name to a face at last, where do you sit?
Emma
He told me and I walked back out into the busy office and headed towards his desk, expecting a middle aged beardy surveyor.
It was only as I approached that I realised the gorgeous man from earlier was actually Dan. I composed myself as I stood next to his desk and his eyes glanced over me, the slightest hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Emma”. He just spoke my name and I must admit, that was it, I sort of melted into a gibbering wreck. Just the way he said my name. A question on his lips as he spoke. I felt awkward, this was Dan? Yet the Dan I had been joking with on the e-mail had no resemblance in my head to this stunning individual sat at his desk. I looked at his IT problem and had to kneel down to see what he was showing me. Our hands almost touched but I couldn’t, I couldn’t even look at him. I laughed and walked away. I had to get away, this was terrible. My nerves were shot and I sat back down at my desk. Another email popped up on my screen.
Emma.
you ran away, something wrong?
Dan
I felt unnerved, but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel intrigued. But, he was a geek. A gorgeous, attractive geeky man.
I was definitely interested in Dan. I just didn’t want a relationship, and I had never been the type of woman to have sex with a stranger, I need the mental connection first to truly feel that the sex is worth it. Trouble is, when you have worked so hard developing that connection, the sex is great and inevitably a relationship follows. This time I didn’t want any of this, I just wanted, well hot sex.
The weeks passed by, Dan and I continually chatted on e-mail, some days in excess of 20 emails a day and I occasionally made it to the 5th floor where I tried my best to look relaxed and cool. I found myself making excuses to visit the 5th floor and often stood in Server Room 2 looking blankly about, wondering what the hell I was actually doing. It felt a little obsessive, and I certainly had to admit I was fascinated with Dan. It was strange, we had formed a strange friendship through email and yet I had hardly spoken to him. Somehow the voice in my head which read his emails didn’t assimilate to the gorgeous man sat at his desk on the 5th floor.
Meanwhile the emails were taking a more suggestive tone. Mainly led by me. My online personality was, I discovered, a little wilder than the real life version. Only a little, the truth was the same. He sometimes joined in but still, it was mainly me. When I look back now, I still cringe, that poor man. The weeks flew by, he was just as geeky as ever and I knew some of the messages were a little too much for him, but I couldn’t help it.
I could almost see his eyes widen as I pressed send on some of the more suggestive ones. When he told me he was shy and quiet in real life, I thought he was joking. I couldn’t imagine someone as hot as him was an actual geek. It just wasn’t possible, I rationalised as I told him some antics from a recent weekend, clubbing and dancing and drinking all night. When he told me he couldn’t dance, I thought he was joking. When he said he had no idea about fashion, again I thought he was joking. And so it continued. I wasn’t going to ask him out for a drink, neither was he and we carried on. It was driving me crazy. I wanted him, and yet I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye, what kind of strange goings on was this? It wasn’t normal, nor doing anything for my sex drive. Nothing was ever going to happen between us, and I tried to keep the tone pleasant and friendly. I had told him things I don’t anyone else knew about me, he was a friend on the e-mail but a stranger in real life. It was confusing, I didn’t understand it anymore.
It was one day in September when the power went off. I was sat at my desk, and the sudden sound of electricity draining matched the sounds of users moaning as their computers suddenly failed. I don’t get it, users spend so much time whinging about working, when they get the chance to skive they come across all awwww about it. Get a grip you foolish user people with your spreadsheets and your risk assessments. The office was plunged into natural light, for once the glow of the electric lights had gone, just left with a strange twilight feeling.
I knew I had to go to the Server Room 2 to gracefully switch off the servers and so I walked up the stairs in the dark, all I could actually think about was meeting Dan the opposite way. I couldn’t see him when I reached the 5th floor and I felt a little disappointed, he had emailed me earlier and he hadn’t mentioned he was going out, which he often tended to do. I opened the server room 2 door, glad to see some light was being produced by the backup lights, and wedged the door open as I sat down at the console. I quickly initiated a shutdown on all the main servers when I heard the door close behind me. I knew it was him, I just knew it, all my senses were on alert.
“Hi Emma” he smiled at me, and for once I didn’t feel nervous round him, the air was charged with meaning as he stood in front of me. The half light was enough to see the look in his eyes. I barely smiled as I stood up and he stepped towards me. I felt the wall behind me and he ran his hand down my face. The first time he had ever touched me. His hand was like fire on my bare skin. My breathing was shallow, I could hear myself swallow.
He ran his hand over my hair, and surprised me when he wrapped it round his hand and gently pulled me towards him, leaning down to kiss me. I still had my eyes open and he watched me as he placed the kiss gently on my lips. My arms automatically wrapped round his neck. I had gone from never touching him, to a moment of intimacy in seconds; I could feel the urgency rushing through my body. I needed this man, I could feel how hard he was as I pushed myself closer to him and a small moan escaped from his mouth. His tongue gently teased mine, I wanted to feel his lips over my body, yet it was just a kiss. A kiss that brought me to the brink of orgasm.
The electricity fired back to life, and I stepped away as the harsh light hit the server room. Suddenly I felt embarrassed again to be near him, it was as thought the subdued light of the power cut had lowered my inhibitions. As though he shared my nervousness, he quickly left as I turned to switch the servers on. His kiss was still on my lips, and I could feel my body tingle in excitement. I wanted this man. Would one kiss be enough to satisfy my craving for him?
I returned to my desk, expecting an email from him, but there was nothing.
Do you want to know what happened next? why he ran away from me in Tescos only a few weeks later, please let me know if you are reading it!
Ok well, it was a few years ago now. I think it could have been six or seven, it doesn’t matter. I was just out of a long term relationship and certainly not looking for anyone special. I have always been the marrying type, and part of me yearned, for once, not to be. A little like Nicole in "Just Tell Me" when really my alter ego was screaming "Just Fuck Me".
So, I was about 28 and at a loose end. I was working in Leeds as an IT contractor, looking after the network and PCs for a largish property company. On the fourth floor of a 70s office block, the fifth floor was designated for the directors and the surveyors. My desk was tucked away in the corner, near the accountants and it gave me the freedom to browse what and when I wanted. Remember, this was in the days before Facebook, so really there wasn’t anything worth browsing for.
Now at this point, there’s something you need to know, something I hadn’t told anyone else about. I had been getting e-mails from a user called Dan Turner and he was quite amusing for a mere user. You see, us IT professionals have a strict code of conduct when it comes to fraternising with the user community. We just don’t do it. They are not the same as us, any attempt at friendship is just a ploy for preferential treatment, but Dan was different. And the strange thing was, I didn’t even know who he was or what he looked like, just that he was a surveyor on the 5th floor. His emails were light and entertaining and we shared an interest in the same music and films, so I allowed him the privilege of email discussion without the usual irony and sarcasm which flows between IT geeks.
It was hot that summer and I had to spend endless time walking up and down the stairs to the fifth floor carrying boxes of computer parts. I remember walking up the stairs behind him with a box of switches and I noticed his shoes. Silly thing to notice but it was just at the right eye height. They were good shoes, black and shiny. He opened the door for me and our eyes met, and bloody hell, it was like he could see into my soul. A small smile danced on his lips as I brushed past with my box of switches and my stomach flipped in a nervous reaction. Trust me, all you need to know at this stage was he was gorgeous. He was mid 30s, short dark hair and brown eyes, about 6ft and his suit fitted him perfectly.
I muttered my thanks and ran to the confines and safety of Server Room 2. The cool, air conditioned windowless room was the inner sanctuary of the IT department. Only a few choice people knew the key code, users could only wonder as to the devilment that occurred behind those doors. Two racks of black HP servers and a UPS powerful enough to keep the whole of Leeds charged for a week. It was the days before virtualisation, when everything needed a server. I stood and let the air conditioning blow my hair, it wasn’t as long as it is now, but still below shoulder length, dark and naturally curly. I felt slightly sweaty from running up the stairs, and meeting that gorgeous man.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I automatically checked my email. It was a time when the novelty of getting email on your phone was still fresh. Email, on your phone! It was from Dan Turner
Emma.
Are you staying in that room for the rest of the day?
Dan
I actually thought it was a bit creepy at the time that he had noticed me from a distance. I was going to reply back but my phone buzzed again
Emma.
I think my computer isn’t working, I need some help.
Dan.
I laughed and replied
Dan.
ok, I guess it’s good to put a name to a face at last, where do you sit?
Emma
He told me and I walked back out into the busy office and headed towards his desk, expecting a middle aged beardy surveyor.
It was only as I approached that I realised the gorgeous man from earlier was actually Dan. I composed myself as I stood next to his desk and his eyes glanced over me, the slightest hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Emma”. He just spoke my name and I must admit, that was it, I sort of melted into a gibbering wreck. Just the way he said my name. A question on his lips as he spoke. I felt awkward, this was Dan? Yet the Dan I had been joking with on the e-mail had no resemblance in my head to this stunning individual sat at his desk. I looked at his IT problem and had to kneel down to see what he was showing me. Our hands almost touched but I couldn’t, I couldn’t even look at him. I laughed and walked away. I had to get away, this was terrible. My nerves were shot and I sat back down at my desk. Another email popped up on my screen.
Emma.
you ran away, something wrong?
Dan
I felt unnerved, but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel intrigued. But, he was a geek. A gorgeous, attractive geeky man.
I was definitely interested in Dan. I just didn’t want a relationship, and I had never been the type of woman to have sex with a stranger, I need the mental connection first to truly feel that the sex is worth it. Trouble is, when you have worked so hard developing that connection, the sex is great and inevitably a relationship follows. This time I didn’t want any of this, I just wanted, well hot sex.
The weeks passed by, Dan and I continually chatted on e-mail, some days in excess of 20 emails a day and I occasionally made it to the 5th floor where I tried my best to look relaxed and cool. I found myself making excuses to visit the 5th floor and often stood in Server Room 2 looking blankly about, wondering what the hell I was actually doing. It felt a little obsessive, and I certainly had to admit I was fascinated with Dan. It was strange, we had formed a strange friendship through email and yet I had hardly spoken to him. Somehow the voice in my head which read his emails didn’t assimilate to the gorgeous man sat at his desk on the 5th floor.
Meanwhile the emails were taking a more suggestive tone. Mainly led by me. My online personality was, I discovered, a little wilder than the real life version. Only a little, the truth was the same. He sometimes joined in but still, it was mainly me. When I look back now, I still cringe, that poor man. The weeks flew by, he was just as geeky as ever and I knew some of the messages were a little too much for him, but I couldn’t help it.
I could almost see his eyes widen as I pressed send on some of the more suggestive ones. When he told me he was shy and quiet in real life, I thought he was joking. I couldn’t imagine someone as hot as him was an actual geek. It just wasn’t possible, I rationalised as I told him some antics from a recent weekend, clubbing and dancing and drinking all night. When he told me he couldn’t dance, I thought he was joking. When he said he had no idea about fashion, again I thought he was joking. And so it continued. I wasn’t going to ask him out for a drink, neither was he and we carried on. It was driving me crazy. I wanted him, and yet I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye, what kind of strange goings on was this? It wasn’t normal, nor doing anything for my sex drive. Nothing was ever going to happen between us, and I tried to keep the tone pleasant and friendly. I had told him things I don’t anyone else knew about me, he was a friend on the e-mail but a stranger in real life. It was confusing, I didn’t understand it anymore.
It was one day in September when the power went off. I was sat at my desk, and the sudden sound of electricity draining matched the sounds of users moaning as their computers suddenly failed. I don’t get it, users spend so much time whinging about working, when they get the chance to skive they come across all awwww about it. Get a grip you foolish user people with your spreadsheets and your risk assessments. The office was plunged into natural light, for once the glow of the electric lights had gone, just left with a strange twilight feeling.
I knew I had to go to the Server Room 2 to gracefully switch off the servers and so I walked up the stairs in the dark, all I could actually think about was meeting Dan the opposite way. I couldn’t see him when I reached the 5th floor and I felt a little disappointed, he had emailed me earlier and he hadn’t mentioned he was going out, which he often tended to do. I opened the server room 2 door, glad to see some light was being produced by the backup lights, and wedged the door open as I sat down at the console. I quickly initiated a shutdown on all the main servers when I heard the door close behind me. I knew it was him, I just knew it, all my senses were on alert.
“Hi Emma” he smiled at me, and for once I didn’t feel nervous round him, the air was charged with meaning as he stood in front of me. The half light was enough to see the look in his eyes. I barely smiled as I stood up and he stepped towards me. I felt the wall behind me and he ran his hand down my face. The first time he had ever touched me. His hand was like fire on my bare skin. My breathing was shallow, I could hear myself swallow.
He ran his hand over my hair, and surprised me when he wrapped it round his hand and gently pulled me towards him, leaning down to kiss me. I still had my eyes open and he watched me as he placed the kiss gently on my lips. My arms automatically wrapped round his neck. I had gone from never touching him, to a moment of intimacy in seconds; I could feel the urgency rushing through my body. I needed this man, I could feel how hard he was as I pushed myself closer to him and a small moan escaped from his mouth. His tongue gently teased mine, I wanted to feel his lips over my body, yet it was just a kiss. A kiss that brought me to the brink of orgasm.
The electricity fired back to life, and I stepped away as the harsh light hit the server room. Suddenly I felt embarrassed again to be near him, it was as thought the subdued light of the power cut had lowered my inhibitions. As though he shared my nervousness, he quickly left as I turned to switch the servers on. His kiss was still on my lips, and I could feel my body tingle in excitement. I wanted this man. Would one kiss be enough to satisfy my craving for him?
I returned to my desk, expecting an email from him, but there was nothing.
Do you want to know what happened next? why he ran away from me in Tescos only a few weeks later, please let me know if you are reading it!
September 22, 2013
Dare me to kiss that man in exchange for cake?
My sister is back from Ghana. I love her, she is beautiful, good fun and it's great to catch up with her. She is also very annoying, and after 24 hours in her company I tend to switch off. Just agree with her and she will shut up, my inner voice is unnerved by her blatant honesty of the world. And she steals my wine and cigarettes. but that's OK, because, she keeps reminding me, I am a corporate whore. I work with other corporate slaves. She is lucky, she doesn't need two weeks a year to escape from her life, she tells me as she reaches over to take another Marlboro from my packet. I tell her I am sure there was some loose change in my bag earlier and she looks at me wide eyed. I haven't stolen your money she whispers but I know that look.
So we spend the day wandering around York with my two small children, the Boy and Goblin. I am still nursing a hangover from the beer festival, and her words of "wisdom" soak through me.
"We need to go to Nandos" she states, quickly followed by "But you will have to pay".
I sigh, I have never been to Nandos, it's really not my scene, like Pizza Express. More importantly I don't take the Goblin anywhere she has to sit still for longer than five minutes. When the boy was that age we made a point of taking him out for dinner, in the hope it would educate him. It resulted in tense dinners spent attempting to control a slippery, noisy octopus with an obsession for Parma Ham. Don't get me wrong, we have taken my son to some of the best restaurants in Europe now, but not Goblin. She's at that difficult age, but with that glint in her eye and her ability to tantrum constantly, well we just don't go out in public anymore.
"It's OK, I will help" my sister is just desperate for Nandos chicken and I let her talk me into it. An hour later, my chicken is barely touched. My five year old son announces he doesn't like the chicken and the littlest one just screams at the sight of it. Unimpressed at being tied up in the high chair, she starts to make feral sounds. Aware that she is annoying the other customers with her growling and squealing I give up and escape the plastic surroundings, in favour of the York Food Festival.
My sister is delirious at this point and I leave her to polish off the leftovers. A child in each hand, I wander happily down to the tempting stalls of food. Goblins temper is pushed to the limits as I ponder the freshly smoked kippers and she can bare it no longer.
She throws herself onto the floor. Meanwhile, the boy sees the crepes and Nutella stall.
"I just want Nutella mummy" he repeats, oblivious to his sisters inhuman reaction. People walk past, old women don't even tut, they comment - "oh dear" and "she looks like a handful". I too want to walk past, I pick her up but the wriggling becomes an uncontrollable battle. Eventually, I have no choice but to grab her by the hand while she is still screaming and walk away. One small child covered in Nutella and the other hung off my arm like a deranged creature from a fantasy woodland.
I eventually get back to the car and fasten the children into their seats. The only place where they are truly controllable - a car seat and the promise of chocolate cake. My sister appears, like she has been secretly following me, or more likely she can smell the cake. We sit in the car.
It only take a moment for her to notice the hot man sat in the adjacent vehicle. She winds the window down and stares across at him, catching his eye. Poor guy, he's probably just waiting for his girlfriend to return from M&S on a Saturday afternoon. He looks away and my sister giggles.
"He is hot. Dare me to offer him my cake in exchange for a kiss". she says in a voice which is just too loud. "do you think he would kiss me, here in this car park right now?" He hears her and has only what I can describe as fear in his eyes, why he doesn't just drive off is lost to me.
I cant bear it any longer and I drive away, he catches my eye and I just hope I never have to bump into him. What must he have thought? two women, with two small children in the back blatantly discussing his possible seduction. I look back at my children, the boy is happily engrossed in his chocolate cake, while the goblin is silently giggling in glee. God help me.
So we spend the day wandering around York with my two small children, the Boy and Goblin. I am still nursing a hangover from the beer festival, and her words of "wisdom" soak through me.
"We need to go to Nandos" she states, quickly followed by "But you will have to pay".
I sigh, I have never been to Nandos, it's really not my scene, like Pizza Express. More importantly I don't take the Goblin anywhere she has to sit still for longer than five minutes. When the boy was that age we made a point of taking him out for dinner, in the hope it would educate him. It resulted in tense dinners spent attempting to control a slippery, noisy octopus with an obsession for Parma Ham. Don't get me wrong, we have taken my son to some of the best restaurants in Europe now, but not Goblin. She's at that difficult age, but with that glint in her eye and her ability to tantrum constantly, well we just don't go out in public anymore.
"It's OK, I will help" my sister is just desperate for Nandos chicken and I let her talk me into it. An hour later, my chicken is barely touched. My five year old son announces he doesn't like the chicken and the littlest one just screams at the sight of it. Unimpressed at being tied up in the high chair, she starts to make feral sounds. Aware that she is annoying the other customers with her growling and squealing I give up and escape the plastic surroundings, in favour of the York Food Festival.
My sister is delirious at this point and I leave her to polish off the leftovers. A child in each hand, I wander happily down to the tempting stalls of food. Goblins temper is pushed to the limits as I ponder the freshly smoked kippers and she can bare it no longer.
She throws herself onto the floor. Meanwhile, the boy sees the crepes and Nutella stall.
"I just want Nutella mummy" he repeats, oblivious to his sisters inhuman reaction. People walk past, old women don't even tut, they comment - "oh dear" and "she looks like a handful". I too want to walk past, I pick her up but the wriggling becomes an uncontrollable battle. Eventually, I have no choice but to grab her by the hand while she is still screaming and walk away. One small child covered in Nutella and the other hung off my arm like a deranged creature from a fantasy woodland.
I eventually get back to the car and fasten the children into their seats. The only place where they are truly controllable - a car seat and the promise of chocolate cake. My sister appears, like she has been secretly following me, or more likely she can smell the cake. We sit in the car.
It only take a moment for her to notice the hot man sat in the adjacent vehicle. She winds the window down and stares across at him, catching his eye. Poor guy, he's probably just waiting for his girlfriend to return from M&S on a Saturday afternoon. He looks away and my sister giggles.
"He is hot. Dare me to offer him my cake in exchange for a kiss". she says in a voice which is just too loud. "do you think he would kiss me, here in this car park right now?" He hears her and has only what I can describe as fear in his eyes, why he doesn't just drive off is lost to me.
I cant bear it any longer and I drive away, he catches my eye and I just hope I never have to bump into him. What must he have thought? two women, with two small children in the back blatantly discussing his possible seduction. I look back at my children, the boy is happily engrossed in his chocolate cake, while the goblin is silently giggling in glee. God help me.
September 21, 2013
Hot men at York Beer Festival?
Ok seriously, so what did I expect? In my eternal search for romance in unusual places, I decided to accept an invite from a geeky computer nerd to the beer festival.
Problem is, I don't actually like beer. Well, there is a time and place for it, but an afternoon of sampling the hoppy malty flavours wasn’t on my to-do list. They would have cider surely? Then I could drink pints of fizzy refreshing cider, imagining it was Prosecco. And that was the first fail of the day. Apparently, traditional cider makers frown upon the fizzy variety, preferring strange cloudy potent liquid. It tastes vaguely of apples, but actually looks more like tramp wee.
The table of geeks sniggered as I sipped my glass of cloudy flat liquid, and I was slightly scowled at when I walked up to the small stall in the corner. The lesser spotted "foreign beers". I gratefully topped my glass with some Munich Bier. Finally! Something fizzy and fun, which didn't instantly make me want to sit in an old timber framed coaching inn, staring meaningfully into the flames of the roaring fire.
I knew the day would take a turn for the strange and unusual at about 3pm when I got a text from my sister. She is back from Ghana and tells me she will be at the beer festival in an hour. The day was doomed. I looked at my happy work colleagues, the collection of geeky men who had attempted to grow beards just for the beer festival. Their happy faces when they sampled another taste of real ale. The comfortable air of men happy in the afternoon sun, talking about VMware and pork pies.
My sister floated into the festival. I spotted her straight away, she is stunningly beautiful, and her long dark hair and intense green eyes instantly attract attention. She walks with self-confidence and people just notice her. Its only when you spend longer than 20 minutes in her company that you realise, she is totally crazy. Her ideas on life are just from another planet. I introduce her to my table of geeky computer guys and they instantly stop talking as she lights a cigarette and stares at their beards.
"I don't even like beer" she announces "I'm having cider"
I try to talk her out of it, and the IT geeks visibly relax, she is unaware that she has just lost valuable credibility points and she saunters off, returning a moment later with an entire pint of tramp wee. I stifle a laugh as I sip my Munich beer and watch her face as she tries to finish the insipid apple water. "What the fuck is this?" she spits out her first mouthful.
The day wears on and she rants about the world, how we corporate slaves are like plugged into the matrix and she has unplugged herself from the battery. She is a free thinking individual; she doesn't need the shackles of a corporate job holding her back from her life. She makes me go and buy her a 20' sausage because "I don't have any money now I paid the £5 entry fee". Ok, dear sister, here is a sausage, courtesy of the corporate machine you detest so much.
My dysfunctional work colleagues disappear from the table, there is nothing for them to say, no words left. She glances around the festival, and tells me to go and get some more beer and when I return she will fill the table with hot men. I raise my eyebrow as I take the glasses to be refilled, wondering who and how she is going to fulfil her statement. When I return, the table is in fact completely empty. I scan the area and spot her talking to two men so I wander over. "I thought you were going to fill the table with hot men" I ask, glancing at the two uncomfortable looking men stood in front of us.
She shrugs her shoulders, and we are invited to join a table of what I can only describe as middle aged, balding corporate men. Later she informs me it really was the best she could do, and we should have left the beer festival at the first opportunity, as clearly there would be an abundance of hot men elsewhere. There wasn't, we went home and watched Family Guy instead.
Problem is, I don't actually like beer. Well, there is a time and place for it, but an afternoon of sampling the hoppy malty flavours wasn’t on my to-do list. They would have cider surely? Then I could drink pints of fizzy refreshing cider, imagining it was Prosecco. And that was the first fail of the day. Apparently, traditional cider makers frown upon the fizzy variety, preferring strange cloudy potent liquid. It tastes vaguely of apples, but actually looks more like tramp wee.
The table of geeks sniggered as I sipped my glass of cloudy flat liquid, and I was slightly scowled at when I walked up to the small stall in the corner. The lesser spotted "foreign beers". I gratefully topped my glass with some Munich Bier. Finally! Something fizzy and fun, which didn't instantly make me want to sit in an old timber framed coaching inn, staring meaningfully into the flames of the roaring fire.
I knew the day would take a turn for the strange and unusual at about 3pm when I got a text from my sister. She is back from Ghana and tells me she will be at the beer festival in an hour. The day was doomed. I looked at my happy work colleagues, the collection of geeky men who had attempted to grow beards just for the beer festival. Their happy faces when they sampled another taste of real ale. The comfortable air of men happy in the afternoon sun, talking about VMware and pork pies.
My sister floated into the festival. I spotted her straight away, she is stunningly beautiful, and her long dark hair and intense green eyes instantly attract attention. She walks with self-confidence and people just notice her. Its only when you spend longer than 20 minutes in her company that you realise, she is totally crazy. Her ideas on life are just from another planet. I introduce her to my table of geeky computer guys and they instantly stop talking as she lights a cigarette and stares at their beards.
"I don't even like beer" she announces "I'm having cider"
I try to talk her out of it, and the IT geeks visibly relax, she is unaware that she has just lost valuable credibility points and she saunters off, returning a moment later with an entire pint of tramp wee. I stifle a laugh as I sip my Munich beer and watch her face as she tries to finish the insipid apple water. "What the fuck is this?" she spits out her first mouthful.
The day wears on and she rants about the world, how we corporate slaves are like plugged into the matrix and she has unplugged herself from the battery. She is a free thinking individual; she doesn't need the shackles of a corporate job holding her back from her life. She makes me go and buy her a 20' sausage because "I don't have any money now I paid the £5 entry fee". Ok, dear sister, here is a sausage, courtesy of the corporate machine you detest so much.
My dysfunctional work colleagues disappear from the table, there is nothing for them to say, no words left. She glances around the festival, and tells me to go and get some more beer and when I return she will fill the table with hot men. I raise my eyebrow as I take the glasses to be refilled, wondering who and how she is going to fulfil her statement. When I return, the table is in fact completely empty. I scan the area and spot her talking to two men so I wander over. "I thought you were going to fill the table with hot men" I ask, glancing at the two uncomfortable looking men stood in front of us.
She shrugs her shoulders, and we are invited to join a table of what I can only describe as middle aged, balding corporate men. Later she informs me it really was the best she could do, and we should have left the beer festival at the first opportunity, as clearly there would be an abundance of hot men elsewhere. There wasn't, we went home and watched Family Guy instead.
September 10, 2013
"Banned topic of Conversation" I need to eat Pork Pie!
I work in an office full of men. Perfect inspiration for writing hot romance? Unfortunately no. Not those type of men. Well unless you wanted to read about dysfunctional over grown teenagers with gaming obsessions and imaginary girlfriends. Actually, thinking about it, I take it all back; the IT Crowd got it right.
For a short time, we had a sheet on the wall entitled: "Banned Topics of Conversation"
This included food, prosecco and hot men (that’s not entirely my fault, honestly!)
So now the geeky conversations are usually limited to whether you would want to maim and kill or kill and then maim and which flavour of pork pie to purchase from the butcher. Ok so that’s food related, but we are fighting the system and pork pie is never going to on the banned list. Its a Friday treat.
You see its not just any old pork pie. This type of pie you would travel to purchase, its buttery pasty merges with the meaty chunks and just the right amount of jelly. Get it when its still fresh from the oven and the juices run down your chin, the tactile qualities of the pie fill your senses with pleasure. Its pure unadulterated food porn. Sometimes the dilemma is, pork and black pudding pie or indeed the contemporary chilli pork pie. Too radical for some peoples tastes, chilli? With pie? The shudder goes round the office.
For a short time, we had a sheet on the wall entitled: "Banned Topics of Conversation"
This included food, prosecco and hot men (that’s not entirely my fault, honestly!)
So now the geeky conversations are usually limited to whether you would want to maim and kill or kill and then maim and which flavour of pork pie to purchase from the butcher. Ok so that’s food related, but we are fighting the system and pork pie is never going to on the banned list. Its a Friday treat.
You see its not just any old pork pie. This type of pie you would travel to purchase, its buttery pasty merges with the meaty chunks and just the right amount of jelly. Get it when its still fresh from the oven and the juices run down your chin, the tactile qualities of the pie fill your senses with pleasure. Its pure unadulterated food porn. Sometimes the dilemma is, pork and black pudding pie or indeed the contemporary chilli pork pie. Too radical for some peoples tastes, chilli? With pie? The shudder goes round the office.
September 8, 2013
Spartan Race aftermath
I never knew Ripon mud was so.... well sticky really. And I never knew I could feel pain in so many different places at once. We survived the Spartan Race, my 59 year old mother must try harder next year - I shouted at her as she was stumbling through the mud. Part of me wanted to leave her and make a decent bid for the finish line, but the rational part of me remembered that Prosecco and Marlboro Light promise. She knows me too well.
No matter how hard you prepare for a sports events, there is always the niggle in the back of your mind when you drive to the event. I am not going to be able to do this, I should have trained harder, everyone else will be so much better than me. A little like writing books, the demon in your head telling you to stop, because its crap. Except the different between extreme sports and writing is mud. The blood, the sweat and the tears, well its all the same.
So back to the Spartan Race. We climbed over walls, ran up hills, scaled ropes in the forest, crawled under barbed wire with our heads barely visible through the muddy water. We carried buckets and strange army type boxes over barren army wasteland. Jumped over fire. Fought men with big sticks. Did a total of 60 press ups for forfeiting the monkey bars.
I should be proud that I did all this, the mud is still stuck to my body even though I had a bath when I got back. However the lasting memory for me of the Spartan Race has got to be.... the total amount of hot men doing the race. OMG! I am signing up for next year, and the Tough Mudder.
No matter how hard you prepare for a sports events, there is always the niggle in the back of your mind when you drive to the event. I am not going to be able to do this, I should have trained harder, everyone else will be so much better than me. A little like writing books, the demon in your head telling you to stop, because its crap. Except the different between extreme sports and writing is mud. The blood, the sweat and the tears, well its all the same.
So back to the Spartan Race. We climbed over walls, ran up hills, scaled ropes in the forest, crawled under barbed wire with our heads barely visible through the muddy water. We carried buckets and strange army type boxes over barren army wasteland. Jumped over fire. Fought men with big sticks. Did a total of 60 press ups for forfeiting the monkey bars.
I should be proud that I did all this, the mud is still stuck to my body even though I had a bath when I got back. However the lasting memory for me of the Spartan Race has got to be.... the total amount of hot men doing the race. OMG! I am signing up for next year, and the Tough Mudder.
