Onesie for the Road

The news is not good, people.
I’ve been on the online newspaper again, and guess what?  Guess what this year’s massive Christmas seller is?

The onesie.

I’m not joking.  New Look report that they’re selling a onesie every three seconds.  This is New Look UK.  But it doesn’t bode well, does it?  Twenty people a minute buying a onesie, just in New Look.

I can’t bear onesies.

They’re bad enough as pyjamas, but this new caper of people wearing them out on the streets is frightening.

And in fairness, I wouldn’t imagine they’re much cop as pyjamas either.  I have to imagine that being in bed with someone in a onesie would be both creepy and warm beyond reason.  And any night time piddling would become insanely difficult for them, and cold, I’m sure.  And surely if their bedtime pal was hoping to get lucky, they'd be far too repulsed and tired by the time the damn thing was off to bother?

I blame celebrities.  It used to be the people from the reality shows who'll do anything to be photographed, but now it’s actual famous people.  Those little lads from One Direction have apparently done a photo shoot all wearing them, and Rihanna is also a fan.  These are the people that the next generation are taking inspiration from.  They’re a very bad influence, by any standards.

Having said all that, a much loved family member once bought me a onesie. Naturally, the least I could do was try it on.  I don't know why she bought it. Maybe she was stuck for a Christmas present for me, or maybe she thought I’d look like a big cuddly teddy bear in it. 

I didn’t.  I looked more like one of those strange people who like to dress up as babies for kicks.  And I didn’t think it was that comfortable either, to be honest.  It was too warm and fleecy and slightly claustrophobic and much less comfortable than the average pyjamas.

And His Nibs was definitely not a fan. He suggested, when he saw me, that we might be better off as “just friends”.  We’d been married for about seven years.

I resent that onesies are forcing me further and further into the role of grumpy middle aged person.  I don’t want to be the woman who rolls her eyes and shakes her head at young and fashion conscious trendies.

God knows I’ve never been a stylish sort.  These days I just do my best to cover myself as much as possible.  But for God’s sake.  Surely this is as bad as the shell suit or the mullet?  You’re making fools of yourselves, dear youngsters.  You’re wearing baby clothes.  Pull yourselves together.  You know it makes sense.

Pumpkin Tossing

I read the online newspaper again this morning. I don’t know why I haven’t always read the papers, actually. I must have missed out on hundreds of stories that would have fascinated and amazed me.

As most of us will probably know, last Thursday was Thanksgiving in the United States. News reports say that a 54 year old woman, who went out for a walk in California that day, ended up in hospital, the victim of an assault with a deadly weapon.

Apparently, it all took place in the manner of a drive by shooting. 

 She was walking along, minding her own business, when a white four door sedan, or saloon car as we would call it (and yes, I had to google that) passed by.
It was one of the passengers of the sedan than committed the assault. As the woman was crossing the road, a passenger leaned out of the car and threw a pumpkin at her.
Yes, a pumpkin.

It hit her square in the chest, and she had to be hospitalised. The police are taking it extremely seriously. They allege that the woman could have been fatally injured. And that the pumpkin was a deadly weapon.
Which in fairness, I suppose, she could have. I wouldn’t like to be see a pumpkin coming at me at speed.
I used to get really sulky at the end of the school year when people threw eggs at each other. Eggs hurt.

The police say that “Any time you throw anything out of a vehicle and you hit someone or something, that's a crime”.
And that the appropriate charge is assault with a deadly weapon.
Can you imagine losing your head and throwing a pumpkin out of the car window, then getting charged with assault with a deadly weapon?
You’d get a bit of a fright, I’d imagine. But not as much of a fright as the woman got.

Dear Women who make my Husband sorry he married me...

I'm sure you know who you are.

You’re the ones who make dinners like home made steak and kidney pie, or make your own pasta, or fill the house with the scent of baking scones and cakes. 

Or the ones who iron five workshirts for husband on a Sunday evening.  As well as the children’s school uniforms for the week.  And in some crazy cases, even the tea towels and the sheets.

Please stop.  Every time we’re in your house, chatting casually, being neighbourly or making sure our friendship doesn’t flounder, and you start whipping out flour and actual vegetables, and big lumps of meat from the fridge, you’re driving him mad.

It’s a bit of a letdown to go home to a takeaway or a pasta stir in, after that.

I don’t make dinners anymore. 

I did, for years, but found it a thankless sort of a task.  So I gave up. I wasn’t enjoying myself.  His Nibs had the same reaction to every dinner.  Whether it was a jar of red goo thrown at some pasta, or a home baked pie, with pastry made from scratch, which didn’t happen very often, he’d always say “That was lovely, love, thanks.”

Even when it was a plate of absolute scutter.

Eventually I gave up.  There was no glory, and I’d become fed up of spending the evenings mashing carrots, when I could have been watching the soaps.

After we did all the fighting over the housework, and got a cleaning lady, I gave up ironing too.  She, marvellous sweet angelic person that she is, does it.  His Nibs still irons his own work shirts, because he has a uniform and likes to be sure he’ll have enough for the week, and I won’t do it.

You wives who met their husbands twenty years ago, like His Nibs and I did, and have had three children, and don’t seem to have aged a day, you’re not doing me any favours either.

I’m at least three dress sizes bigger than I was when first we met, having had no children whatsoever.  And my hair now grows snow white, and is allowed to do so until a visit to the hairdresser becomes inevitable. Because I look like a skunk, with my white stripe. 

And I gave up all that caper I was so into when we met first, of putting on lovely makeup every morning.

I go to work, and pay half the bills.  And spend a fair part of the rest of my life on the laptop ranting and raving about everyone who annoys me.

I know that it’s not politically correct to say any of this.  I know that His Nibs is supposed to make the dinner as often as I do, and iron half the clothes and what have you.  The difficulty is that he is very good at dealing with all bins, and walking the dogs, and doing the “poo patrol” in the garden (dog poo, obviously, you foul minded articles), he keeps the cars oiled and checks tyres and changes plugs and other man type jobs. 

He’s not great at fixing leaky taps or hanging shelves. To be honest, he’s banned from using his own drill since he made the hole the size of his head in the wall when he was trying to hang a shelf.  But in the day to day stuff, he does all the traditional man jobs.

And in fairness, he does the laundry and the washing up too.  He used to clean all the bathrooms and wash the floors, on the days when I emerged victorious from the housework wars. 

And he has never once spent money on a recipe book, or on a random pan that we’ll never use.  That’s me.  I go into shops and when I see the meat thermometers and cake pans I feel a bit guilty and tell myself that if I had the necessary instruments, I’d probably cook my weekends away.

I don’t of course, and we never have space for the things we actually need in the cupboards. Like food and plates to put our takeaways on.

I’d imagine His Nibs, in his quiet way, knows that he’s been sold a bit of a pig in a poke.  You don’t have to shove it down his throat.  Try to look as if you don’t know what you’re doing the next time we’re in your house. 

Burn an onion or something.

Or I’ll make him stop being your friend, and you’ll have lost the person who believes you’re a hero.

Hot Stone Madness

Every now and again I write a blog that some kind and funny person reads and then regales me with a far funnier and better story than I ever could hope to write.

I have an example.  It concerns a friend, who I will call Penelope, because that is absolutely not her name.  And I definitely don’t have any friends called Penelope, so nobody can be accused in the wrong.

Penelope came up to me the other day, after reading last week’s blog “What a Spa” and asked me about the pampering treatments I had last weekend.

I told her how great it had been, and how much I’d enjoyed it. We had the usual chat about the massage, whether it was like a little feather tickling my back, or more like being molested by a sumo wrestler. 

I prefer the sumo wrestler option, when it actually hurts, and told her so.  Happily, that’s what I got last weekend. 

“At least you didn’t have a hot stone massage” she told me.  “They’re a complete waste of time.”

“Do you think so?  I actually really like a hot stone massage.”

“Fair enough” said Penelope.  “But they’re sort of false advertising, aren’t they?”

“Why do you say that?  They promise hot stones, and you get hot stones.”

There was a short silence.  I got the feeling that Penelope had something else to say, but wasn’t saying it.  I waited it out.  Eventually she cracked.

“When you had your hot stone massage, how exactly did it work?”

I told her my tale, of warm towels with hot stones on top, and of all that followed.

“I knew it.  I knew I was being scammed, but I felt sorry for her.”

I waited.  And waited. This time I cracked.

“What happened at your massage?”

“All right.  Now don’t laugh.”

Penelope proceeded to tell me what had happened when she paid and turned up for a hot stone massage.

Apparently, her massage was part of a pampering weekend in the West.  The appointment was for the Sunday morning.

The first thing that went wrong was that the beautician turned up a few minutes after Penelope, so she was waiting outside in the cold.

The second thing was that my dear friend could see from a great distance that the beautician was hungover.  Possibly even still drunk.  As she approached Penelope, she was almost staggering.  And quite green in the face.

While Penelope was changing into her robe, and getting ready in general, she could hear some funny noises outside.  Hoping it wasn’t the beautician puking, she lay down and prepared herself.

“Now” said the woman, coming into the room at last.  “Have you ever had a hot stone massage before?”

“No” said Penelope.

“Great”.
The woman sounded livelier now than she had, so Penelope lay back to enjoy the luxury.

“I’ll just get your stone”

Stone?  Just one stone?  That seemed weird.  She must be just going to move it around or something.

The woman left the room and came back, carrying, as promised, a smooth oval stone.  It fit easily between her hands.  The woman rubbed the stone vigorously, said “there we go”, put the stone down again, and gave Penelope a perfectly normal massage.

That was it.  The end of her story.

I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Are you messing?” I asked “Sure you couldn’t have thought that was right.”

“I didn’t” she said miserably.  “I felt sorry for her, being so hungover.  And I was nearly as bad myself.  I might get a proper hot stone massage some day, just to see what they’re like.”

 

What a Spa!

I had a pretty spectacular weekend recently.  My friend Laura got fed up of us promising each other that we’d do something fun soon, and booked us a Saturday night in a lovely hotel, with spa treatments in the afternoon, for a birthday surprise. 

I love her. 

It was a package of treatments, called the Winter Warmer. I absolutely love this kind of treat.  But I’m not going to lie, I have a certain amount of stress in the run-up. 

On arrival at the spa, we had to fill in a two page form.  As usual, there was a huge list of illnesses that you had to say whether you’d ever suffered from.  I was so worried about what the masseuse would think about my fatty whiteness that I lost the head and ticked all the boxes.  They must have been wondering how I was standing up at all. 

I had to confess my stupidity at the reception desk, before the woman came to show us to the dressing room.

We were terrified of her.  She looked like she never smiled, the kind of woman who doesn’t need to raise her voice to get her own way.

“You vil felow me.”

What?  I looked at Laura, who calmly followed the woman.

“You vil do a fevor.”

I was baffled. 

“We’re doing her a favour.”

“Oh.  Right”

“You vil share a lecker.”

I wasn’t so quick to agree this one.  What on earth is a lecker? I wondered.  It doesn’t sound like anything we should agree to without knowing exactly what we were letting ourselves in for.

We stared at her blankly.

“A lecker! A lecker! We are most busy.”

Shite.  I hadn’t a clue, and was fairly sure Laura didn’t either.  Eventually the woman caught a locker door by the latch and shook it violently, to show what she meant.

Oh, a locker.  Thank God for that. 

“Of course, anything you like.”

She sighed and left us to get into our robes.

When the door opened again, a gaggle of glamorous (and by that I mean skinny) girls walked in, holding their robes and slippers.  I decided not to make the confession I was about to make to Laura.  That I’d briefly wondered when I was packing my overnight bag that morning whether I could get away with being massaged in Spanx.  We went to our treatment rooms, and prepared to be spoiled.

The girl came in, and invited me to sit in a large chair, and to start relaxing.  I don’t enjoy that part.  Someone sitting looking at me, and telling me to relax.  What am I supposed to do?  Let my head fall sideways like an idiot?    

“I’m just going to talk you through your treatments.”

I knew what my treatments were.  A frangipani cocoon, a neck, back and shoulder massage, and a half hour facial.  I’d spent the previous month googling these treatments on an almost daily basis, so excited was I by the coming treat.

“Good idea.  I think you should know, I’m not great with facials.”

“What do you mean?”

“No offence, but I find that the therapist, during a facial, is too near me.”

“Right.  Well the thing is, it’s almost impossible to do a facial from a distance.”

“I realise that.  Look, it’s not you, it’s me.”  I wondered how I got into the classic break up conversation with a complete stranger.

“I don’t like my face being touched.”

“Are you claustrophobic?”

“No.  I just have personal boundaries.”

She went to speak to her supervisor. 

When she came back, she told me we could leave out the facial. She’d been hoping to give me a full body massage instead, but her manager had offered a scalp massage.

I was thrilled.  There’s only so much fat you can have on your scalp.  My thighs, however, are another matter entirely.

It was fabulous.  It started with body brushing, then being cocooned in frangipani lotion, then the massage, the scalp massage, and finally a full body balm.  She finished by wrapping me in warm towels, and going off to get me some water.

Utter bliss.  Obviously, at the start of every massage, I worry that while the woman is massaging me, my fat is running along in front of her hands and making her nauseous.  Once the effect of the massage starts kicking in, I stop worrying.  By the time I was left cocooned, it was all over, and I was in a state of semi-conscious relaxation.

Eventually she came back to lead me to the relaxation room.  It was almost dark, with plinky plonky music, accompanied by drippy watery sounds, endless candles, and fabulous leather beds that came with remote controls.  I was invited to relax, and to partake freely of water and fruit.

I was barely lying down when Laura arrived.  Poor Laura had had a rough night on Friday, her toddler has a vomiting bug, and we both assumed she’d be taking a quick nap.

She didn’t have a chance though.  The beauticians were bringing other women in and out, speaking in hushed tones, and offering fruit every few seconds.  Also, I’d started playing with the remote control of the bed.  You could move the head or the foot of the bed up or down, to find your perfect relaxation position.  Sadly, I’d decided to explore the controls fully, and had raised both my head and my feet, so by the time poor Laura looked around the little curtain I was sort of folded double, and struggling a bit, to be honest.

The girl came back in, offered us more water, which we declined, and left.

We sat in silence for a few seconds. I was being good to make up for my foolishness, and I thought Laura might be asleep.  Sometimes, I get a bit uncomfortable in “relaxation rooms”.  The pressure to relax is so great (Am I relaxed?  But am I relaxed enough?  What can I do to be more relaxed?) that I actually get a bit stressed about relaxing.  I was trying to fight off this feeling when Laura spoke.

“Although I am quite thirsty”

“Will I get you some water?”

“No, not that kind of thirsty.”

“Oh good.  What kind of thirsty are you?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe cider thirsty.”

“Great.  Will we go for a pint?”

Up we got, into our clothes, and fled. 

It was about half five in the evening.  Laura had just had a facial, and I’m insanely lazy, so we decided not to bother with makeup.  Which meant we didn’t have to dress up.  We went to two bars, the first was good, the second was possibly my favourite pub ever.  It, and everything in it, was ancient.  Except the clientele, who were mostly younger than me.  We sat on two high stools at the bar, drinking and talking about people.  When we got curious about one of the bottles behind the bar, they gave us a spiced rum to test.  I say us, but Laura was in the ladies, and obviously I thought she’d be getting her own, so I downed it like a shot.  The barman wasn’t amused.  And didn’t give me another one for Laura, the mean yoke.

We had another drink to wash it down.  It was pretty disgusting.  And then another pint, for the road.   And then another shot, to finish the night off.  I think it was about ten o’clock.

The upshot was that we were in bed, drunk, having had our midnight chips, by eleven o’clock.

I have mastered the art of how to accept my age and still go out on a Saturday night.  I’m giving up on high heeled shoes and any attempt at glamour.  I’m going to go to old man pubs in the middle of the evening and be drunk by the time the cool people arrive.  It’s a great system. 

And we were both refreshed and hangover free when we woke up about ten hours later.  Best Saturday ever.

Girl TV versus Boy TV

They say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

There are numerous ways that this can be demonstrated in our house. 

I like coming home from work and having my dinner, he likes grazing all evening and at no point eating a proper meal.

At weekends, I like staying in bed late and then getting up for the day, he likes getting up before daybreak and then going back to bed for an extra little sleep in the afternoon.

I think money is meant to be spent, as quickly as possible, before bills and overdrafts take it all.  He thinks responsible people try to save some money and never buy things they won't use.  And never ever get into overdraft in the first place.

But one of the biggest differences in my house has to be the television we watch.

And I'm supposed to be lucky.  His Nibs doesn't watch sport, other than the infernal GAA that takes up every Sunday from May to September. 

Once the All Ireland is over, I tend to relax and think it's all over at last, and we can go back to normal television rules.  Except there are no normal television rules.

I record Eastenders, I admit it.  I also watch QI and Downton Abbey.  And numerous re-runs of old comedies.  Not always good ones.  He records Boardwalk Empire, fair enough, and from then things go downhill.

Storage Wars.  In the name of all that was ever good, why would anybody watch this awful programme?  In case you haven’t watched it, the premise of the programme is that people go to storage unit sales, and buy the contents of the units unseen.  I can only assume that the people who own the contents are dead or in jail or too broke to pay the locker rental anymore.  So the participants in the programme, who do this for a living, spend hundreds and hundreds on the mysterious lockers, and then empty out the contents , sell everything that’s sellable, and try to make their money back.  There’s loads of people trying to bid more than each other, but not bid too much, and the competition is absolutely fierce.

His Nibs loves it.  It makes me want to eat my own fists.

Then there’s Air Crash Investigation, when we sit watching analysis of the reasons why innocent people get mangled on a simple flight home from their holidays.  I normally sit in horrified silence and try to read a book or something. 

His Nibs stores all the information in his head and entertains me with it the next time we take a long flight.

Rattlesnake Republic is about a group of people who wander around the Southern states of America looking for rattlesnakes, risking life and limb to put the poor things into bags, and then sell them for their skin.  The one time I watched it a ninety five year old woman went up a mountain with a group of snake hunters and almost gave herself a cardiac arrest in the midday sun.  I swear I’m not making this up.  Armed with just a stick, she helped these enormous men find a nest of snakes and bring them off to a seller to have their heads attached to cowboy hats and the rest of them made into boots.

It’s repulsive, to be honest.

And I’m sure most people have seen Banged Up Abroad, where the horrific prison stories of both guilty and innocent Westerners in prisons far away are  spiced up with reconstructions of vicious beatings, and on one horrific occasion, a man being gang raped by the prison guards.

One recent evening,  we arrived home from work and I sneaked into the living room before he did.  He came in to Eastenders, where, as usual, everyone was either shouting or crying. 

I tried telling him that we’d be following Eastenders up with a dose of Downton Abbey, and a biography of a famous writer.  Or maybe a DVD box set, one of my favourite things.  It drives His Nibs bonkers, I start at the beginning of the series, and then watch one episode after the other until bedtime.  Even if I start at five in the evening.

He nearly had a conniption fit when I told him my plans for the evening.  We had a short but vicious fight, which involved him storming that fine then, he’d just go to bed.  Then I snarled that he needn’t bother, I’d go to bed, and he could have his bloody television.  But he wouldn’t give in. 

So eventually we both went to bed sulking.  To the same bed.  Where we lay back to back, not speaking, and the television had a lovely night off for itself.

 

Retail Hell

I was as brave as a lion last Sunday.  Unaccompanied, and unaided, I took on the most difficult shop ever.
I refer, of course, to Ikea.
The last time I was in there, His Nibs was with me.  We went to buy a desk and chair, and the only reason we didn’t break up during the visit is that I kept feeding him cheap hot dogs when he started to lose his head.

I was visiting my friend Julianne on Sunday, and had a lovely time, I hadn’t seen her for ages and as usual had loads to say.  Julianne even managed to get a word in sometimes.  She also kindly provided chocolate cake, and her two children, who are lovely, to be admired and petted.

On my way home down the M50,  I suddenly thought that I might go to Ikea. 

I had a hankering for a scarf hanger.   I know it wasn’t going to make my life any better, but I like the idea of having an actual place to keep my scarves.  Having failed to find one in Dublin city centre, I had to accept that Ikea is the only place that stocks them.
His Nibs thinks a person who has a hankering for a scarf hanger might need to see a doctor, but of course he would think that.  He thinks the best place to keep any sort of garment is on the floor.  One way or the other, he completely refused to go back to the seventh circle of hell that is Ikea. 
So I decided maybe I should just go by myself and get it over with.

I had a very good day last Sunday.  I’d slept late, and His Nibs had brought me coffee in bed before I’d hauled myself out.  I always think a day when you get a coffee in bed in the morning has to be a good day.

On the way to Julianne’s, my sat nav actually co-operated for once and brought me straight to her door, despite the fact that when I put in her address it had insisted that no such place existed, and that it would just bring me to the next best thing.  I had a carefully made cd with my favourite songs on it, and all was well. 

All of this, and my happy visit, had the unfortunate effect of putting me in a very good mood, and I was feeling calm and happy and totally non grumpy.  If there was ever a time to take on Ikea, that was it. I thought that as I was in such a good mood that it would probably be fine.

I’m so moronic.

I went in the door, without going upstairs to the showroom.  Of course, I immediately got distracted by some candles, which went into my gigantic yellow bag.

I shook myself.  No, I decided, I’m not falling for this nonsense. I put the candles back, found some wooden hangers and assumed the scarf hangers would be nearby.  I spied a staff member, and asked him where I could find the desired item. 

His response struck fear into my heart. 

“They’re upstairs in the showroom” he told me “Bedroom department”.

The fecking showroom.  I hate it up there.  I go in there and just wander about, and I can’t find anything. 

I had to ask for directions to the bedroom department, and I was told it was through the “gap in the wall”.

The gap in the wall?  What is this, I wondered?  Narnia?  Alice in Wonderland?  Surely a gap in the wall is a doorway?  It’s hard enough to get from A to B in Ikea without these mysterious directions.

After a quick stop in a studio flat designed for a person obsessed with colourful bowls, I got to the bedroom department and asked for further directions to the hangers, whereupon the friendly boy told me that they were almost out, but there might be some in a dump bin about four miles away.  There’d better be, I thought.

“Turn right here, down to wardrobes, turn left, and there’ll be a basket on your right.”

Down to wardrobes then turn left?  What nonsense is this?  Wardrobes go on for about a mile and a half.  Where exactly do I turn left? 
I saw two of the longed for hangers in one of the wardrobes, but sadly they were connected to the bar by cable ties.  Display models, apparently.  Display model hangers – now in all honesty – how can anyone love this shop?

I found them eventually.  Not from following the directions I was given, but because I walked around the whole fecking place for so long that I passed everything twice.  I got very excited, and bought four.  Even though I only needed two, for myself and my mother.

Then I started trying to find my way back downstairs.  I hate the way people always say that it’s easy, that there’s arrows on the floor to follow.  Yes, there is, but why do they go around and around in circles?

When I eventually got back downstairs I lost the head altogether, as I’d been afraid I would. 

I bought half a dozen shot glasses, telling myself they’d be handy if we ever drink the bottle of honey rum we bought in the Canaries two years ago.

His Nibs is a teetotaller, and I’ve never drank shots in my life without having to have my hair held back before much time has passed, or going bonkers and trying to wreck the place.

Obviously I bought a pack of about nine million tea lights.  And a number of glass discs for holding candles. Which once I got home I realised are actually glass jam jar lids, but because they were cheap, I bought loads of them.  

I got a set of boxes, which apparently keep your drawers tidy.  They don’t fit in my drawers.  

Two glass carafes, which I thought might make red wine look classy, if I suddenly start giving it a chance to breathe.  Why two, I don’t know.  And it’s more likely to look like Ribena than look classy in a €1.60 carafe.  But I was in the grip of a madness, obviously.

I couldn’t choose between the regular and the more festive napkin holder, so I bought both.  The squares of kitchen towel we use in the place of napkins should be lovely in those.

What is wrong with me?  Why couldn’t I just walk in, buy what I wanted, and leave?  I really REALLY wanted to be the person who didn’t fall for their trickery, but I’ve failed.

I feel only guilt and shame.  And slight pride that I own a napkin holder.

 

Dear Bus Driver

What you did to us was out of order.  You knew bloody well we were tourists, just because we’re Irish, you judged us, and made assumptions that were completely incorrect about how we’d want to spend a day of our holidays, that we’ll never get back. 

Fair enough, I’m not going to lie, we were a bit bored in Croatia.  That’s why we were on your bus in the first place.  We could have hired a car, but poor His Nibs was still gibbering from the day we did just that, and he drove around Montenegro for the day. 
Innocent souls that we are, we thought we’d be safer taking a bus trip to Bosnia.  We just wanted  see Mostar.  That’s what we paid for, but that’s not what we got, is it?

It all went fine for the first few hours.  No complaints.  You brought us to Mostar, as requested, gave us time time to see the famous bridge, the churches, the bullet holes and the tacky souvenirs.  Then we had our lunch and were ready to come back. That was the deal, after all.

You had no business, just because we’re Irish, assuming we were practicing Catholics.  You put the heart across my poor husband.  I often think he hasn’t been the same since.

Obviously, this being Bosnia, we had no idea where we were.  You should definitely have asked us before you dumped us all in Medjugore.  And driving off as soon as we were all off the bus, abandoning us there for two hours, was taking the complete mick.

I’ve never been to one of those holy places before.  Unless you count the time in the early eighties when my entire family went to Knock on a camping holiday.  Six damp children in one four man tent, two parents in the other.

Knock was absolutely nothing like Medjugore.

I don’t know how many people know that the word Medjugore actually means “an area between mountains”.  In other words, all breezes are blocked off, and the place is hotter than the hobs of hell.

I’m not religious, but compared to His Nibs I’m Mother Teresa.  If I’d told him he was going to end up in a place full of practicing Catholics he would have thrown himself off the plane on the flight over.

Anyway, we all got off the bus, to get a coffee, as instructed.  His Nibs walked about four metres down the street, and announced that the combination of dry heat and overwhelming Catholicism was just too much for him, he was afraid he’d collapse or have a conniption fit or something. He about turned, and stood staring at the space where your bus had been, just a few seconds before.

We couldn’t believe you’d gone, you fecker.  You’d actually told us to get out of the bus, and then driven off and left us there.  Within the clutches of the religious folk, and boiling. 

It was 40 degrees that day, and our poor Irish skin started pinking up as soon as we stepped out of the shade.

First of all, there was no coffee shop that we could find.  There was a little place where we could buy ice cream, but no other real estate was given over to food. 

As we walked down the street looking in vain for coffee, we walked past a massive plate glass window, containing nothing except priest’s vestments.  And not like the ones the priests wore when I was a child.  I swear to God, Liberace would have drawn back from these ones.

Massive pictures of Jesus, lambs, sunrises, and what have you, all on one garment.  Hot pink ones, lime green ones, it was ridiculous.  And I don’t know our local priest, but I’d hate to think he’d have any truck with these garments.  Nobody wants to be breathing their last and faced with that apparition. 

Frightened, we kept going.

To be greeted by a group of tourists,who were all wearing Virgin Mary t-shirts, and Virgin Mary baseball caps.  They had rosary beads upon rosary beads around their necks, and loads more twisted around and around their arms, the plastic ones that we used to be given as children, before we got our real ones for our Holy Communion.  God be with the days, when my poor mother still thought there was any point in giving us rosary beads.

We were well beyond  frightened now.  We had to struggle to walk down the street because every single shop had loads of those revolving racks outside, every one of them laden down with rosary beads.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  They ranged from the plastic ones, through glass, wood, china, the metal ones with pictures on each bead, marble, it was never ending.

And every one of them had a religious customer frantically revolving the stands, so that as we walked down the street still trying to find the elusive fecking coffee, the beads on the outside were whizzing around and smacking us in the face.

Eventually we were given the opportunity to pay two prices for one scoop of ice cream, but the place was air conditioned, so we went in. 

The only shop we saw that didn’t sell religious stuff was a shoe shop across the street.  Even the ice cream shop had the obligatory rosary bead stands out the front.  As usual, my heart lifted a little when I saw the shoe shop, but sadly it seemed to be full of sensible walking shoes. 
It was only then that I found out that for all intents and purposes, we were at base camp.  The actual site of the alleged miracle,  that the people go there to see ,was hours of walking away from the bus park.  In that heat.  They must all be bonkers, I concluded.

It was a pretty Father Ted visit overall.  But my favourite part was when we came out of the ice cream shop, and there, coming down the street, were twelve priests, in wheelchairs, being pushed by twelve nuns.  They had to roll down the street, since the footpath was so dangerous with the flying rosary beads.

I didn’t feel a bit sorry for you when His Nibs spent the rest of the day swearing at you and eating the face off you.   And the other passengers blamed us, you know, just because they also assumed we were Irish Catholics and had requested the stopover.

You’re a right fecker.  But I have no threats for you.  It’s not like you’ll ever see me again.

Yours, a lapsed Catholic.

Middle Aged Madness

At what age does a person become middle aged?

When I was between the ages of ten and thirteen, my mother was in her late thirties, and I think I thought she was middle aged then.  I definitely thought she was middle aged when she was in her early forties and I was a teenager – She’s going to kill me if she reads this. 
My only excuse is that I was a teenager – I thought everyone who had had their twenty first birthday party was middle aged.

I’m not afraid to admit (well, not terrified) that in eleven and a half months time I will turn forty.  Forty.  The big four oh. 

I’ve decided I can start crying and caterwauling and swearing I’m only thirty five, which would fool nobody, or I can just embrace it. 

But I absolutely do not accept that I’m middle aged.  I think that’s a load of old nonsense.  Some people act middle aged in their twenties, and my Dad still hadn’t started acting middle aged when he passed away three weeks before his seventieth birthday.

I do have a couple of issues though.  Since I seem determined to pour out all my darkest secrets today, I’ll confess that quite recently I was brushing my teeth on a Sunday morning, and thought I saw a loose hair on my face. 

You probably can’t imagine my absolute horror to discover it wasn’t a loose hair.  It was growing.  Out of my face.  I couldn’t believe it.  It wasn’t a tiny thing either.  It was quite long.

So long in fact that I’m forced to accept that either it had been growing there all week and everybody had been too polite to mention it, or it had sprouted overnight.

So either my eyesight is failing – I’m not going to pretend I’m devoted to my makeup bag, but in fairness I do wash myself and moisturise on a daily basis – how had I missed it?

Or I’ve started to sprout inexplicable hairs from my face overnight.

I almost fell apart.  I’d heard this happens to older ladies.  I had absolutely no idea that it happens before we hit forty.

Obviously my initial reaction was to become hysterical and start trying to yank it out on the spot. 

It really, really hurt.  Tears immediately sprung into my eyes and I yelped like the dog does when we accidentally stand on his tail.

I started rooting frantically through the myriad of makeup bags and baskets on the bathroom shelves.  Blowing off the dust as I went along.  For some reason, I’m far more enthusiastic about buying makeup than about getting out of bed early enough in the morning to apply it.

Anyway, the fecking tweezers couldn’t be found.  I thought I was starting to have a panic attack.  I know, I know, there’s no big deal, this is just part of becoming a grumpy old woman proper, but I really wasn’t ready for it.

I tried to remember if people had been staring at the spot between my jaw and my chin all week.  Was I the only person who hadn’t known it was there?  The thought filled me with horror.  I have enough to deal with, with my large personage, without becoming known as the hairy faced woman as well.

Finally, I saw my eyelash curler.

Don’t ask me why, but in my panic I thought “yes, that’ll work, I’ll just catch the bastard in that as if it was a tweezers, and pull it out”.

I gripped the offending hair in the eyelash curlers, and gave it a quick tug.  I can’t stress this enough.  The pain of trying to pull it out was awful.  It was really, really, sore.  I’d rather suffer the agonies of waxing than tackle even one of these hairs again. 

Although tackling the feckers is probably going to be a weekly chore from now on.

As I pulled the hair, the flesh actually pulled into a point.  It wouldn’t come out! Shite.  I briefly wondered what possible excuse I could give for not going to work tomorrow, because obviously I couldn’t go like this.

As I pulled pointlessly, the eyelash curler started to drag its miserable way down the hair, until eventually it pulled off the end, futile.

Lovely.  The only success I’d had was in curling the fecking hair into a corkscrew shape.  Again, belief was suspended.  I’ve never found the eyelash curler to be even remotely useful in curling my eyelashes.

All I’d ever got from using it was pinched and sore eyelids.  That’s why I’d found it in the bottom of my least used makeup basket, I suppose.  But with this eyesore, it sprung into life and curled like nothing I’ve ever seen.

So now I’d actually styled it. 
I found the tweezers eventually, and it was no less painful removing it than  the attempt with the eyelash curler.

I’d really only just started to get over it all, when I got out of bed this Sunday morning.  Again, I went to brush my teeth. 

To discover I had no less than four large spots.  All over my face.  One each on my chin, my cheek, my lip, and my nose.

I don’t know where they came from.  I haven’t stopped washing myself or anything. I have no idea why this breakout occurred. 

Am I caught somehow in the middle?  Between witchy old lady and teenager?  Is that what middle aged actually means?  And if so, how long can I expect this caper to go on?

Maybe I should just stop brushing my teeth?  That seems to be where all the trouble starts.  And black stumps where my teeth currently are will match up lovely with my face hair, and my spots, don’t you think?