The time I visited Eastbourne

As I sit in front of the tele, feeling sorry for myself with the flu, wearing my fluffy jammies, slipper socks and glasses, awaiting the delivery from Hell’s Pizza (ummm how you like me now?), I am reminded of the story that I promised to tell.  No its still not the story of the last tequila debacle, I am not sure that I will ever be ready to tell that, only a select few know that story, but this is the story of a comedy of errors when I went to Eastbourne.

It started out innocently enough.  My then boyf wanted decided to cycle to Eastbourne on a tandem for charity.  There was no training involved and although he was fit, he was not really ready for that.  I was excited as I had never been to Eastbourne before, so I got on the train from Victoria, having proudly remembered to purchase my tickets online and to get them from the machine, unlike the time I went to Edinburgh where I had to pay twice.  But that is another crazy episode in the life of Nic.

So I got on the train, and settled in to begin reading the first Twilight, because my Mum the teenage librarian told me that it was good.  Now let’s be honest, the first one was good, it all went downhill from there.  I managed to get to Eastbourne and find the hotel without a hitch.  Although our hotel was full of old people who were playing bingo when I got there.  No word of a lie there.  It was such a nice day, so I decided to go down to the seaside, I had discovered a long time ago that it is not a beach, but a collection of pebbles. 

I got a deck chair and sat down to enjoy the sunshine and Twilight.  It was lovely, until I put the book down on my lap to enjoy the view and THEN OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS BITING ME!!!!! A freaking bee stung me.  God that hurt, and I had no idea if I was allergic or not, having never been stung before.  I could feel my leg swelling up and not really knowing what to do, I pulled the sting out, where it had stung me through my trousers.  And then hobbled back to the elderly hotel.  

When I checked out my thigh, it was huge and very red.  And I was now not feeling great.  So I decided to lie down for a bit, and I ended up sleeping for about 3 hours. 

I awoke to the phone, the boy and the bike telling me that they were still ages away and that I should probably have dinner on my own.

Me after the stinging, before dinner, in the days before the fringe

All good, I got up, freshened up and had a lovely walk on the pier and decided to have  dinner at a fish and chip restaurant outside.  Boyf called to say that they were not allowed to finish the race, they had made it 70 miles, but still had 7 to go, that they were getting in a van and would be back in about an hour.  I ordered my fish and chips and even ventured to have the mushy peas.  My dinner was delicious and I was really enjoying it.  Even tried the peas and they were ok.  But then a bird that was flying over, shat in them.  Yes it shat in my mushy peas.  I was not really sure what to do, so I decided that it was time to get the check.  As I texted the boyf to find out if he needed lucozade, paracetamol or anything else, he texted back to say, he just needed a beer and a hug.  Oh and they were only 10mins away.  I signalled the waitress for the cheque, you should have seen the look on her face when she clocked the bird shit.  She asked if I wanted some more.  Erh no thanks, just the cheque.

So I busted a move down the boardwalk to the park where the finish line was and was there just in time to see them come in and to congratulate them.  We stayed to help clean up and then headed back to our hotel so that he could have a shower.  Our hotel was filled with old Scottish people for some reason and when we walked in, we had to walk through them as they listened to a really old man playing an organ.  It was odd and very creepy.  We managed to find a Chinese restaurant that was open late and although it was full of a stag do, the food was good.

The next day, we soon realised that we were the only ones under 30 in Eastbourne, we walked the pier and visited the lifeboat museum, turns out the oldies were rubbing off on the boyf who bought two tea towels?

So we decided to head home.  Turns out that I am rubbish at buying train tickets, even though I had purchased an open return, it was only for the same day, so I had to buy a whole new ticket.  Then when we finally got on the dumb train, we were settled and boyf thought that someone smelt so we had to move.  We got up to get off in Clapham Junction when I realized that I had left my backpack at the other seat on the top shelf thing.  It was no longer there – after some swearing under my breath, I was told that the conductor had removed it at Haywards Heath as no one had claimed it.  I hunted down the conductor who confirmed that this was the case and called them to tell them that I was coming back to get it.  Then he kindly wrote me a note saying that I could go back for free.  So I sent boyf home with all the luggage and set off again – two hours later I was finally home.  Less than impressed though.

So that was my chapter of disasters all within a 24 hour period.  My Mum laughed for a long time after this story.  It took me a while to get over it and the boyf didn’t last.  But it was the first and the last time I visited Eastbourne!

Feel Good NehNeh Songs

I remember when I was in my early 20's I remember taking great delight in this song...

I had just been cheated on and this was just the song that I need to belt out to say F you.

And then recently I heard this song and was reminded of how good I felt about The Corrs.  Whilst I hardly have someone begging me to get back together, I can see that this will be a song that many young girls will use this song to get over their broken hearts.

So what song do you use to get you in the F you mood?

PS:  I have done some research and Taylor Swift is definately not a rascist.

Spanx - the work of God or Devil, Discuss

I love my spanx.  They are a godsend when it comes to looking ‘smooth’ under a dress.  When I mean smooth, I mean unlumpy, they also make you drop about half a dress size.  The excess is pushed to other areas such as boobs.  Which I already have ample of; hence the need for Spanx, so that is not really necessary, just makes them bigger.

So here is why I think that Spanx are a godsend as well as the work of the devil.  When you get your Spanx of the box, they come with a cardboard insert, which has pictures of all the things that you can do in them – apparently these are fight fires, run a marathon, wash the dishes and a few others that I cannot remember.  I wash dishes, but I tend to do this with my clothes on. 

 

First comes with the getting of them on.  They are very tight and as I have discovered they will mush your organs in, so it is best to go to the bathroom as much as you can before you lever yourself into these things.  Because once you get them on, it will be difficult to get them off.  It’s up to you if you choose to wear knickers underneath them, I choose to.  Which means that it makes it harder to use the gusset hole.  Seriously Spanx a gusset hole?  We are not men, we are not going to be able to aim through that.  So that means the Spanx which I wear from just under my bra, down to my mid-thigh have to come off when I go for a wee.  Hence, get as much as you can out before you attempt to get them on.  The getting of them on, designed by the devil.

Once you have sweated with the effort of getting them on, the results are immediate, you will be able to zip up that dress and you will be able to move quite freely.  I have danced the night away in them many a time and have not been hampered at all.  This is the godsend of them.  Other slimming underwear can be very restrictive, and actually painful, but with Spanx this is not the case.  They are not painful at all, they move with you and ensure that you are able to dance the night away.  Which in my case is essential.

The getting in and out of these for the necessity of a wee is the work of the devil.  As mentioned before there is a gusset hole.  I have laughed over this hole many times with my friends.  When I have not been wearing them, we have both examined this hole, and whilst we can see the purpose for it, many of us can see that in practicality it would not work.  I am sure that there are some dedicated women among us who have perfected this, but I am not one of them and I don’t really want to walk around smelling of wee, so I prefer to remove the Spanx at this time.  So picture this if you will.  A tipsy me, in a tiny toilet cubicle, yanking down these slimmers, going for a wee and then struggling back into them.  So far there have been no mishaps, but I can predict that somewhere out there, there are some hilarious stories.

The other best bit is the end of the night.  Taking you Spanx off is similar to removing your skyscraper heels, the relief is amazing.  My skin always itches as the blood returns to it.  I always laugh to myself as I do it, at least I am by myself and there is no one there to watch that particular spectacle.

So this is my clumsy tribute to Spanx.  Spanx you have made me look better on many occasions, you have kept me in and held me tight.  You have enabled me to dance the night away and have no worry about wobbling everywhere.  I would love to see a day when I am comfortable enough with my body to not care and to go without them.  But again, not sure that this day is coming in the next we while.  I would love to foresee a day when I no longer need you, but think that our relationship is very safe for now. 

You and Me, We Story

A long time ago when I was just a wee nipper, a travelling priest came to visit our Catholic primary or intermediate school.  He spoke about how in the culture that he was living in, I really for the life of me cannot remember where he was missioning, that it was the custom to sit and tell stories upon meeting a new person.  He said it was through story telling that you learnt about a person’s life, their past, their future and their families.  He said that the direct translation of the words that they used was ‘You and Me, We story’.

I often think of this travelling priest and just how right he was, now that I am traveller myself, however not a priest.  Often when I meet a new person we sit telling stories about our families (maybe this is just a traveller thing), about the places we have visited, the people who are important to us, the things that we have done and want to do.  Without sounding cheesy, our hopes, dreams, loves past and present, and what we want for our future.

So at this stage when I am constantly meeting new people here are a few of the funny stories that I have been telling or have recently remembered.

• ·         My friend Elissa is currently visiting London and staying with me.  The very first time I met Elissa, I was in my parent’s pantry, I was probably about 17.  It was late at night and I was in my jammies and back then my hair was white blonde.  My sister and brother both have very dark hair.  Elissa, came in with my sister and Paula introduced her to me.  She began to speak to me very slowly.  ‘How a r e  y o u?’  ‘I’m fine’ I replied.  She then asked me how I liked it here.  At this point my sister stepped in and said umm what are you doing?  Elissa and I were both looking very confused.  Is this not your Scandinavian exchange student? She asked.  Ummm no this is my sister, not my host sister, my actual sister, Paula replied.  From that time on I have been known to her as the Scandi sister and we joke about it often.  There are numerous facebook posts in Scandinavian that we have to Google translate and lots of Ja’s. 

• ·         The time I was walking back from the train, and as I neared our road, my Dad was pulling out in his ute.  He beckoned to me to come and talk to him.  I was wearing what was a trendy satchel at the time.  It was full of my heavy uni books.  As I stepped out to begin to run to him, the bag swung forward and the momentum caused me to fall.  He of course drove to me, pulled over and got out to help me.  However, just before he got there, a very kind lady pulled over to help as well, when my Dad went to pick me up off the pavement, she batted him away with her handbag and basically told him to get lost.  I had to kindly explain that he was my Dad, and she got embarrassed and left before I could thank her.  But I still laugh about her batting my Dad away.  I still have a scar on my elbow from the experience.

• ·         When I was at high school, we were playing Petanque on the field.  My friends and I thought that it would be a fun idea to play Braveheart with the boules.  I was holding a boule in my hand when my friend ran to me with one also in her hand.  My little finger got bashed between the boules and it broke, it really hurt.  Even my doctor was laughing at me, he reckoned it was possibly the one and only injury from Petanque.

• ·         My parent’s pantry is the stuff of legends, my friends love going in there, I love going in there.  I used to love shutting myself in there, and when Sam who was about two at the time, would toddle past, I would jump out and scare the living daylights out of him.  He would jump in the air and shake.  I would be in fits and he would have a giggle too.  Then we would both get in there and scare Nana.  But the best pantry story was when my parents were away one weekend.  My besties were over and for some reason I had to pop out.  My friend Sandie was driving me somewhere, possibly to the supermarket.  When we got back, the pantry had moved to the living room to decorate it.  There were candy canes on the curtain rods, there were statues holding muesli bars and just food everywhere.  It was hilarious.  Thankfully my parents saw the humour as we were finding food for the next few days.

There are of course many more of these stories, the best ones of course are not publishable.  But I guess that the point is that to get to know someone you get to hear their stories.  If you know them long enough you get the juicy ones.   One of my friends often says to me – Nic keep living it, we love hearing the stories, remember I am married and have a baby now, I am living vicariously through you.  So I keep living a life that creates stories that people want to hear.  Which brings me to the cheesy ending and the moral, just like every story should have – Live it so that when you are old, you can amaze your grandkids with what you have done!

Perception is a flick of the hair

A week ago I was sitting in the sun, enjoying my voddy and lemonade, chatting to some friends.  We got on to complaining about our hair.  One by one we all stared at each other in amazement, you see I had always been envious of these girls, their hair and well, them in general always looks so effortless and beautiful, and they thought that of me.

See this is the thing, we all make a massive effort to make it look easy and well for myself, lately I have taken to twisting my hair up in a bun as it’s in desperate need of a cut that I neither have the time or the money to sort out.  One of the girls looked at me in disbelief and said, but your hair is always immaculate – hmmmm only because it’s so unwieldy it needs to be restrained (might have been reading too much 50 Shades of Grey!).  She was so amazed that some hours later she was still looking at me saying, ‘I can’t believe that you can twist it up so easily’.  Whilst I was looking at her lovely shiny locks that were straight and beautiful thinking the same thing.  

I guess this is it, we are all so busy worrying about what we look like to others, that we forget that actually most of us are beautiful, some of my friends are in fact stunning.  But we are also normal down to earth people.  We have lives, that mean that we cannot spend 3 hours getting ready in the morning.  God what time would I have to get up if that was the case, my mornings are about maximising my time with my eyes closed and snuggled up under the covers.  We all have jobs to do, friends to see, dinners to cook, exercise to complete and one million other things to sort out.

My own beauty routine has taken a turn for the worse over the last few weeks; I have actually left the house without make up.  I remember making a decision a few years ago not to leave the house without makeup, and for the most part I have stuck to it.  It has been a busy and tiring time for me recently, I seem to have come out the end of it though.  Make up made a return on Friday.  Yay.  My mother and my sister routinely go without makeup, not even mascara sometimes.  I remember for my sister’s wedding, that she was concerned about the amount of makeup that she would have to wear as she wanted to still look like herself.  For the record she looked stunning so there was nothing to be concerned about there.

It always amazes me when I make an effort the reaction that I get.  I remember vividly in the days where I rarely wore makeup to work (early 2000’s were dark days…) and getting dressed up for a work dinner – straightening my hair, putting on makeup and wearing a skirt.  Many of the managers were stunned, one even asking me if I had a sister that worked here (with a glint in his eye!).   Another time at my fav local for my birthday, we held a tube party, where you dressed up like a tube station.  I went as Victoria, Queen of course.  I put my hair up, donned a crown, and wore an lbd and some killer heels.  As I emerged from the taxi, a barman that worked there, who was at best a man of few words and at worst mute, wolf whistled me and made some comment about how different I looked. 

 

All of this begs the question then, why, if I know that this is the reaction that I get, given my current single status, do I not make this level of effort all the time.  The simple answer is because it is exhausting.  Given that for the most part I hate getting up early, it is not going to happen on a normal work day.  On the weekends depending on what is happening, I might make more of an effort but not often.  I am the wash and wear kind of girl.  I truly believe that if men had any idea what we have to go through with waxing, moisturising, conditioning, plucking, potions and lotions, they too would agree that it should be a sometimes not an everyday occasion.  And there is the argument that if I made the effort everyday what would I do on a special occasion.

So there it is, I guess that we are all a bit clueless to just how cute we actually are, we all have the same struggles when it comes to finding the time to look after ourselves properly, and I hate getting up early, even if it means time to make myself look good.  Here’s to another week of wash and wear hair.

Enough is Enough

Lately I have not had a lot of time for the people who are important to me.  I have been so very busy with work, with being social, with the gym, with, well everything.  I have referred to as Miss Busy, Busy Bee and Miss Crazy Busy.  And it has been stressing me out, I have been trying to fit way to much into my life.  I have been stressing about how I am going to afford my visa, how much I work, do I need a new job, when will I grow up, when will I move home, and a whole host of other things that I have no real consequence but added to all of this other stuff, are leading me down the path to a total meltdown.

Then this came up on my news feed.

And it stopped me dead in my tracks (ok only for about two secs, but it did stop me).  It’s easy to think that you are the only person who feels like they want the world to stop or fuck off for a while.  I have come to regard my room as my sanctuary.  I like to hibernate in there for long periods of time on the weekend and get very annoyed when my Saturday morning sleep in is disrupted.

But it did get me thinking, what has caused this post it note to be something that most of my friends ‘liked’ and reposted?

Are we a generation that is trying to fit everything in and are forgetting to stop and appreciate ourselves and what we have.  Is this something that only woman feel?  I looked back at my week.  Friday night I had a friend’s birthday at my fav pub, oh, that’s right, only after a few work drinks to celebrate a major contract we had won.  Saturday it was running and gyming, followed by dinner with a really fun new friend and one of my fav people at my fav pub, Sunday was movies and an unexpectedly fun dinner (when I should have been at the gym), Monday was a work function till 8pm, then heading to the other side of the city for a friends gig, Tuesday was my night off when I should have been in the gym, but ended up having wine with friends and then vegeing on the couch, oh the guilt.  Wednesday was work pub quiz, Thursday is work event in Euston and tomorrow will be a concert in Hyde park in the pissing rain.  Phew, I feel exhausted just writing and reading that back.  No wonder I am feeling like hiding underneath the covers. 

So why have I subjected myself to two garden parties in the torrential rain this week?  Why have I suited up for beekeeping, when I could have really used the time to be organising the massive European conference that I am neck deep in?  Why have I avoided the gym and felt so awful about it?  Why will I be attending my second working breakfast of the week tomorrow?

Because I feel that someone will think less of me if I don’t.  At work I might be branded lazy if I don’t keep up the gruelling pace set by everyone trying to outdo each other.  My friends might be hurt if I don’t keep up with them, and god knows that I need them to stay sane.  I go a bit nuts if I don’t see my bestie for more than a few days.  It’s amazing how some people keep you so grounded and are able to balance out your nuttiness.  Over the last month it’s been really hard, there was a period of about two weeks when we didn’t see each other, and I felt like I had lost a limb.  I was so happy to see them again and catch up, we text most days, but it’s not the same as a hug and a good chat over a drink or two. 

And there is also the severe FOMO that I suffer from.  Fear of Missing Out is a great motivator.  What if I don’t go to the work event and then miss out on making a great contact that could see my life better in the future?  What if I don’t have drinks with friends and miss out on meeting someone really fun?  Or having the best night of my life?  What if I don’t attend the class and miss out seeing something really cool happen to the bees?

This phenomenon seems to be a recent event and unique to our generation.  We are constantly being encouraged to love every minute of our lives, YOLO – which I hate by the way, who thought that shit up, is bandied about far too often.  You can sleep when you are dead, you should go mental when you are young and experience everything that is open to you.  The thing is, I have experienced a lot more than many people that I know.  At 25 I owned a home and was in a long term serious relationship.  Tick.  That didn’t work out so I decided to travel the world, but the bugger about that is, the more you see the more you want. So half tick.  I was once the youngest female supervisor of a claims department, so my career was pretty cool.  Tick.  I have seen more concerts than most people I know, I was horrified when a nice man I met the other day told me he had only ever been to one concert. So Tick.  I have bungee jumped.  Tick.  So surely I and the world should now give me a break and let me be? 

The thing is these days woman are expected to do more than the generation before them.  We are expected to be working mothers.  I can’t wait to be a mum, but at the same time I know it’s going to be bloody hard work.  Working, caring for children, cooking dinner, keeping house, paying bills, all the kids activities, ensuring something is left over for me, and most likely holding down some kind of relationship with whoever fathers these kids!  And finding time for my friends who as noted above keep me sane.  Looking back at previous generations, they seem like simpler times.  Don’t get me wrong they had their own set of issues to deal with, desperate housewives and all.  But I can’t help but feel we have gone too far in the other direction.  Is there not a happy medium where a woman can feel that she has done enough and that she is enough?

But I guess that is the point of the post it.  Right now it’s very likely that I am enough, I have enough and that I have done enough.  If only I had two seconds to recognise it.