Veils and vitriol

Lucy Mangan sounds like a woman after my own heart. Like me, she never really fancied the idea of getting married but found herself saying yes instead of no when asked (in both cases, it would have been churlish to refuse after all the efforts the would-be groom had gone to).
Like me she knows how to use all of life’s rich tapestry (shamelessly) as journalistic fodder. And how to plug her books by selling features based on them.
Like me – I hope – she can raise a smile or two in the process.
And that’s why I think it will be worth getting hold of a copy of The Reluctant Bride, despite all the sour comments on the Mail and Guardian websites.
See for yourself here: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1271558/How-reluctant-bride-fell-love-marriage.html

Last straw

So ... one stepson plus wife, kids and his father-in-law are stuck in our place in Spain.
My oncologist has rescheduled as she's stuck in Madrid.
But now - and it's worst of all - Peter the man who runs the ironing service is stuck in Hong Kong. At the end of a three-week holiday.
Need I say more?

Costa Brava

People sometimes ask me why we don't go to our place in Spain at this time of year. This is why. It's not called the Costa Brava for nothing.

The sun has got his hat on (because it's snowing again)

No wonder the English have a reputation for talking about the weather. Ten minutes ago I was planting out primroses under a blue sky and now there’s a flurry of snow. And don’t get me started on weather forecasters. I am almost inclined to rely on the gizmo that belongs to my husband and sits on the kitchen windowsill … only when I looked down after spotting the snow I saw it was predicting sun.

snow joke

Enough snow already. Although some things have been fun

Right said Fred

I am writing this post to escape from the activity downstairs. The son and the husband are moving large sofas from one room to another. The decorators are coming on Monday.
When we moved in to this house almost 28 years ago (or at least, when the husband moved in – I was still on the post-natal ward) we slowly painted and papered until we got the house the way we wanted.
Some of the rooms have had several make-overs since then. The room I am typing in (now known as my study) was once wallpapered with racing cars and motorbikes.
The room we planned to have made over this time was what we call the dining room. We used to hold dinner parties there but over the years we seem to have gravitated to the kitchen table when we have friends round.
I suppose we could refer to it as the music room, since there is a piano in there. But only the son plays it – and only at Christmas. I suppose what it is now is a spare sitting/tv/games room, mostly used by young people when they would rather not talk to us or watch whatever it is we are watching elsewhere.
Anyway, my husband decorated this room at least 25 years ago, lovingly picking out the cornices in a contrasting colour and carefully matching the very large repeat Chinese style wall paper.
This was so long ago that the wallpaper has come back into fashion, I think, but there’s no denying that it has got rather tatty and it’s time to start all over again. The husband has got a little too long in the tooth for all that kind of thing now (his relationship with ladders has always been a bit up and down) so that is why we booked the decorators.
Only now I have been persuaded that the room we spend far more time should be the one to receive their care and attention. Hence the sofa removal.
I’d like to say sofa so good, but from what I can hear it’s not going well….

Hat and Feathers

The invitation on the mantelpiece isn’t to a wedding but a 60th birthday party. The venue is the Hat and Feathers – and so is the theme. I have no idea what to wear but I doubt it will be a hat. I didn’t even wear a hat to the daughter’s wedding.
And speaking of hats and weddings ….

The last book club meeting was hosted by one of the two soon-to-be mothers of a bride. So soon, in fact, that the wedding was taking place a mere three days after we met to pull Dave Boling’s novel Guernica apart.
Those of us whose heads weren’t full of timetables, manicures, providing lunch for the bridesmaids (it’s a late afternoon affair) and so on were astounded that anyone whose head was could still a) entertain and b) think about books.
But the most astounding thing of all – to me, at any rate – was to learn that as the mother of bride was, in a very short space of time, to fly halfway round the world to become a mother of a groom, she was planning to Fedex her very expensive wedding hat to Australia.