Perkily Purple

When I was about 13, my mother finally caved into my whining and let me go to London, on my own on the train. I will never forget that feeling. The song in my head was Georgie Girl and this was back in the day when there was no such thing as a personal hi-fi, and phones lived in big red boxes and took tuppenses and ten penny pieces.

One of the things I wanted to do most was hang out in a boutique called Miss Selfridge. They did the best (affordable) make up with great packaging, and I wanted eye shadow. The one I bought that day was purple, and it was called Berry Wogan. It didn't come with a brush so you had to smudge it on with your finger tip and the resulting mess was very pleasing, to my eye.

I've worn purple eye shadow ever since and some of the names have stuck with me forever. There was Bluebirds Over, Beautiful Iris, Plum Perfect, and Papal Purple to name four. I remember sitting at a funeral five years ago with my Step Father in law trying to make sense of another senseless premature exit and making crass remarks to cover my sense of loss. I whispered to him that at my funeral, no one would be allowed in the church, unless they were wearing purple eye shadow. He is a lovely, gentle man, and he agreed that this would be a brilliant (note, lowercase b) idea and that he would certainly play along. So that's the deal. No purple, no pew.

But don't dash out into the cold January sales and buy up the cosmetics counter just yet. Darling is on his way back from the airport, the house is clean warm and tidy, the snow has melted and I can see the shoots from the bulbs I planted pushing up through the ground. And strangely, thinking about it, the flowers will be mostly purple. Perkily purple... why didn't I get a job as an eye shadow namer? It would have been practically perfect.

Frogs

Back here where I come from we have an Elder Statesman who very efficiently and generously keeps us villagers up to date with all the local news, social and political. He does this wearing a PCC hat, but in truth, its more like voluntary community service. Having been snowed in for a week, I could hardly believe my eyes when todays e-mail notices warned of flooding, with a tongue in cheek editorial note warning of plagues of frogs. I am particularly sensitive to this idea as I travel in the knowledge that somewhere in my pre-frontal cortex there is a box of frogs which lies doggo for most of the time, but leaps into action if nudged. However the snow is melting and nothing could compare with the horror and suffering in Haiti at the moment. The hungry and thirsty there are becoming desperate and angry and I cannot imagine how it would feel so be so violently and terrifyingly dispossessed, or worse.

So yes Nick, when I say 'I can't take anymore!' you are right to answer 'Oh yes you can...' Of course I can. This is nothing.

Private Jet vs Cabin Fever

Hmmm. Girl 13 has just e-mailed me to say Darling is in a private jet somewhere over the Nevada desert. As the person charged with Keeping The Home Fires Burning why do I find the contrast between our days somewhat irritating. Having been comprehensively snowed in for over a week, I have started each day, not with a prayer or yoga, but by cancelling anything and everything in my diary. And in one or two cases, this has been dispiriting, to say the least. I have managed not to bite my lower lip and cry, but only because there is no one here to see me and sympathise, so it would be a waste.

However, today I achieved one good thing. I told a lie, sucessfully. Without flinching or blushing.

I blamed the snow for the fact that I had failed to return my sailing club forms and managed to blag my way onto Ken's very popular Laser racing course. This may not score particularly highly against a private jet to Vegas, but when you are a bottom feeder you have to exist on detritus.

Without coming over all bitter and twisted, I'm not sure who's zooming who out there, but I damn well hope they're loving it. And that Lady Luck smiles on them.

*STOP PRESS* They lost a mint on the craps tables after the David Copperfield magic show in which Darling was called up onto the stage, asked to expose his boxer shorts (which we all know will have been immaculately ironed by Yours Truly) and had a car lowered onto him. A bit like home really then. Except you are more likely to be t-boned by a car skidding on ice than have one lowered onto you.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

I live on the top of a steep hill. There are three roads in or out,and none of them are passable in the ballet shoe that masquerades as my car which is currently parked in a snow drift outside. The Bin Men and Recycling gang (who I note made it up here for their Christmas tip) have also failed to rock up. The resultant Monument of Twenty First Century Shame outside on the roadside will shortly and undoubtedly get classified as the Eighth Wonder of The World. I anticipate coachloads of Japanese tourists arriving any day now, camcording the hell out of my boxes of Quality Street tins (5) cans, bottles, newspapers and milk cartons. Perhaps, if they are lucky I will go out there like Rhys Effans in the film Notting Hill and raise my arms in triumphant recognition of what we have achieved of late. After all, it wasn't all me. If it was, I wouldn't be able to move from my specially made bed for Obese People and would have to make do with posting gory images of me having my bed sore dressings changed on YouTube.

As it is, this last week of enforced captivity (yesterday doesn't count, I was in a borrowed car and had to dash back) has meant that I have spent a bonkers amount of time sitting at my lapdog. And far from feeling guilty (as I do about the recycling) I have really enjoyed it. I have downloaded some toptastic tunes, read loads, chatted with friends on the phone, on Facebook, researched various schemes and made some great plans for the future. But in the absence of the Mastermind chair I really aspire to, I have been perched on a tiny bench at the kitchen table, surrounded by books, maps, diaries and a camera. Maybe, one day, when the sores on my arse have healed, I'll post a picture.

Or maybe the Japanese tourists will snap me through the kitchen window and do if for me, before they move on to Dylan Thomas's boatshed in Laugharne.

Truly Great, better than Brilliant

I wondered what I looked like setting off across snowy fields with a gritty grin and wicking lycra, heavy walking boots and the fur at half past eight this morning. Daft punk or Yummy Mummy looking for her Monday morning pilates fix with Jesus Jones, aka Mike the Instructor? Either way I made it, thanks to Darling parking his car in the foothills. We are now big in the bog paper department too, as I took my granny trolley out for another trip and stocked up on the essentials. The Seige of Leningrad this is not, and Terrier, 8, can rest assurred that we will not be roasting her in the Aga this week or next. Darling left for La La Land and Vegas later in the day too, so food reserves will stretch just that little bit further.

I am not sure how many more times I can be bothered to drag fresh stuff up the hill though. BBF 1996 canned sardines suit me just fine, and girl 12 will be back in school soon and the snow will eventually melt. And then I will be (Boz Skaggs) All Alone.

Mike is a great instructor. He was surprised to hear that even my teeth hurt after last weeks (my first) session. I was thrilled when he told everyone else (ok the other person) to get her head on the floor, 'but not you Lucy, yours is already there'. I have always yearned to be a teacher's pet, God alone knows why.

So today was a good day. Not brilliant in the old sense, and neither was yesterday or the day before. Perhaps I have turned that point, and can settle for truly great instead.

Wild Theme by Mark Knoffler

With more snow forecast and the bog paper situation nearing critical, Darling woke full of resolve. He set off boldly with Boy 15 and Girl 13 and only jolly well did it. He got them back to school. He is not back yet, and should have been ages ago but apart from being marginally concerned I have had a good day.

I had totally underestimated the effect of filling a house with big, loud, squawky, gawky mini-humans and what that alone can do to your head. If you then factor in feeding the beasts and trying to keep all the other domestic plates spinning, metaphorically, and being the driver and entertainments manager too then it is hardly surprising that things (I) have not Been Good of late.

When I loaded the car this morning I remembered my lovely friend from school, Tara. My mother was meticulous with my packing and made sure that I went back to my all girls, very dry school with my trunk filled with all the prescribed items, ticked off and accounted for, in good order and named. From Surrey, in the car, with both parents in attendance, on the right day.

Tara arrived by train from Notting Hill, stinking of Marlboro Red Tops, late, and with nothing much in her holdall, unless you count the half bottle of vodka and Clash album. And believe me, we did count those two things. And in those days Notting Hill wasn't so much cool as sodding dangerous. I made friends with Tara within about one and a half seconds of first meeting her and together we made it through the system, sharing my kit. We had some amazing adventures together too. In anticipation of ever finding a boyfriend we once tried to explore each other's erogenous zones so that we could direct operations to our satisfaction when our time came. Our housemistress, a spinster who we called 'Dave' for no particular reason unfortunately walked in on us, after lights, in the dorm, while Tara was licking my back. Amused she was not and we were immediately separated and never got to share a dorm again.

I spent some of the happiest times of my childhood at Tara's Mum's Notting Hill home. Connie had had six children by three different men, none of whom seemed to feature much in her life. Connie only really kept the house as a place for the kids to hang out whilst she shacked up with a publisher in Little Venice and it was anarchic. Whilst living for four days on toast with peanut butter (because that was what there was), staying up all night with the Taylor boys and mad Suzi might be fun for a while, I imagine that as the oldest child of six as Tara was, it may have felt less like freedom to her. I lost touch with her after school.

Anyway, my children have been returned to school and they packed their own bags and they had plenty of luggage. They had regular meals consisting of all the major food groups and access to fruit at all times. So I am not going to beat myself up too badly.

Tara turned out well. I read her (published) writings regularly.

The Mink Trumper is on your rabbit thread.

As all parents of school age children know, Facebook is evil and should NOT be allowed in the home of any loving caring family.

This was the message that was sent home from my children's school about three years ago and has given me hours of entertainment, and even, on some occasions real happiness. Naturally as soon as I read that Headmaster's letter I was intrigued (in a bad way) and set up an account. I sat back and waited for the paedophiles and perverts to come and groom me. I waited and waited, and whilst I waited I looked about a bit and found a load of friends and family also mooching about. Some I knew well, some not so well, some not at all but who have been introduced to me. The group of friends grows almost daily and the good humour, mutual emotional and creative support and encouragement and genuine empathy (particularly for the bereaved and the insomniacs) has been almost breathtaking. Anyone who thinks that all human kind is cruel would have to perform a swift volte-face in the face of my facebook.

The point is, that Facebook isn't evil, but young people can be cruel, and that kindness sometimes has to be learned. Maybe, like youth being wasted on the young, Facebook is too. You have to have been kicked about a bit in order to know that kicking is bad. And Facebook isn't a replacement for real friends and real life. It just runs alongside it, enhances it. And when you are snowed in, or alone, you aren't.

And as for the title of this piece, The Mink Trumper is on your rabbit thread. Well, it was a message I got last night and I have been laughing about it all day. It would take too long to explain, but she knows who she is and I am glad she got home safely. And to date, not a single perv.