Revenge is a dish perhaps best not served at the Mayor of Malmesbury's cheese and wine-tasting soirée

Now, it’s not really like me to think of avenging a small slight…

Ok, it probably is like me to think of avenging a small slight – big slights I can usually overlook; small slights, however, for some reason seem to take slightly longer. Small slights sometimes really seem to get under my skin and rankle away like a tiny piece of grit in your shoe when you’re wearing tights and sitting through a long and less than entertaining Sunday sermon which you’ve completely lost the gist of whilst feeling hungry and not really being sure there is anything suitable for lunch.

Especially when the person who’s slighted you really doesn’t even seem to recognize the fact they’ve done anything particularly revenge-worthy.

So when Geraldine Fitzpatrick decided to organize her own table for the new Mayor of Malmesbury’s cheese and wine-tasting soirée and bag all my best friends, you can well imagine my nose was put just a teensy weensy smidge out of joint. Especially when the very friend who had asked H and I to join her for the evening and got us both into a very-slightly-almost-looking-forward-to-it frame of mind, and then cancelled a couple of days later to explain, just a tad abashedly, that she hadn’t actually realized it but Geraldine Fitzpatrick had earmarked her for the Fitzpatrick table and was getting into a right old flap at the thought of having her table plans upset.

“And you know what Geraldine’s like when she’s in a flap – there’s just no reasoning with her…”

I’ll leave you to make up your mind as to whether that constitutes a small slight or even, perhaps, a slightly bigger than small – perhaps almost a medium-sized – slight.

* * *

“Obviously, we can’t go now,” said H, almost indignantly. Although there was reputedly a space on Akela’s table that they might be able to expand into two very-tightly-squashed-together chairs. And that would inevitably entail incrementally less wine and a very snug tete-a-tete situation with the Group Scout Master.

That’s the trouble with living in a small place. In a larger, more anonymous community, I suppose one could conceivably drum up another group of friends from a different set and blend in quietly whilst darting evil snubbing looks Fitzpatrickwards. But not in Malmesbury.

Anyway, as luck would have it, another friend – let’s call her Madeleine (actually, none of my friends have such flowery, flamboyant names, but please bear with me – I’m feeling slightly Bertie Woosterish) – happened to be on the organizing committee.

“I’ll tell you what,” Madeleine suggested pouncing on a possible silver lining of the useful variety poking out of the corner of my billowing black cumulo-nimbus of festering feeling slightedness as I poured out the details of my social predicament. “Why don’t you come along and help. That way, you don’t get to miss out on the wine-drinking and socializing, yet you don’t have to suffer the indignity of being squeezed onto a table with lots of people you don’t know very well. And better still – you don’t even have to fork out for a ticket. I'm sure there won’t be all that much to do, and there are lots of interesting people on the committee. Movers and shakers – that sort of thing. It might be useful, too, from a work point of view.”

She was beginning to appeal to my vanity, which was fatal in my present frame of mind, and it also occurred to me there might be a slim possibility of accidentally spilling some Beaujolais over Geraldine’s new frock… Social evenings are few and far between in a small, rural community, so I made her promise there would be no washing up involved.

“I’m sure they’ll have a dishwasher at the Town Hall,” she reassured. I thought about it. After a reputedly £million-and-a-half refurb, I felt sure they’d have been able to run to a pretty decent dishwasher.

* * *

How wrong I was, as those of you of a righteous bent hoping for an edifying conclusion to this most humiliating of anecdotes will be pleased to discover. The only thing moving and shaking that evening was a trolley with one squeaky wheel ergonomically designed for someone considerably shorter than me. Back and forth I trundled with groaning platters of paté and cheese, bowls of smooth, succulent-looking olives, baskets of bread... Then the plates would have to be trundled back out to the kitchen again and replaced with ramekins of chocolate mousse, dishes of apple strudel and jugs of cream...

“What on earth are you doing?” hissed Imelda Thorncroft, as I squeaked past her table, a stooped vision of martyrdom perhaps bringing to mind Mrs Overall crossed with a surly cut-price-airline flight attendant.

“I feel terrible,” confessed Anna, the friend who’d abandoned us so thoughtlessly, defecting to the flappings of the Fitzpatrick table like some Cold War Cambridge graduate. Geraldine Fitzpatrick seemed oblivious to it all, flushed behind a leggy pink orchid she’d picked up in the raffle and a row of now-empty wine glasses.

“Could I possibly have tea?” she asked airly, as I hovered by her shoulder with a temptingly hot pot of instant Kenco. “It is getting rather late for coffee.”

* * *

Back in the kitchen, things were no better. Gaynor Baines was protesting at Madeleine’s decision to put her on coffees, while Helena and Brian swept round the tables with sheaves of raffle tickets. Gaynor and Madeleine seemed to be having a bit of a stand-off as Geoffrey looked on, an unwilling umpire in the whole proceedings. It getting to a point where it was kind of difficult to negotiate a way through what looked like an increasingly complicated maelstrom with my rattling trolley. As I trundled back into the kitchen with perhaps my 64th cargo of brie-encrusted butter knives and chocolate-smeared forks – I’m guessing here, I lost count somewhere between the ninth and the fourteenth – I was just in time to see a flash of Gaynor’s expensive black coat disappearing huffily down the grand staircase towards the car park, Brian following meekly with the car keys leaving the hapless few to cope with several carloads of washing up.

Even the Mayor had found herself late into the night, hands encased in some rather worn marigolds, wrist-deep in tepid dishwater, trying against the odds to dredge up some comradely chit-chat whilst her chain of office clinked bleakly against the Johnson’s creamware long after the last reveler had gone. It seemed the substantial Lottery grant had run out before they'd reached the kitchen, which was a vision of hastily chucked together formica and a gaping dishwasher-shaped hole somewhere between the tea urns and the microwave. Geraldine Fitzpatrick was probably by now safely tucked up under a goosedown duvet, a packet of Anadin on the nightstand and a box of Rennies at the ready in the bathroom cabinet, dreams doubtless blessedly undisturbed save possibly from the effects of perhaps a little too much Brie, possibly one too many glasses Cotes du Rhone; frock thankfully free from coffee or Beaujolais stains safely stashed away for the next perfectly orchestrated social function.

Which was why I could be observed – if anyone apart from the few lonely drunks spilling out of a lock-in at The Borough or the late city worker who’d left it until long after the rush hour to beat his way down the M4 to his country pad, had been moved to cast a glance towards the dejected clip clop of sensible heels blunted by the midnight drizzle – scuttling across the town square at 1.30 in the morning with three limp baguettes under one arm and a dubious bottle of Beaujolais in the other.

And the moral of the story is…

Actually, I’ve no idea what the moral of that story is.

An Irritating Truth

I’m feeling out of step with the world. It’s something I’ve been feeling for a while, now, and I’m not really sure quite what to do about it.

I suppose I should be feeling hopeful. On the face of it, things are looking up. There’s a lot of constructive stuff being talked about the Copenhagen Climate Change summit, our Government seems to be getting serious about looking at alternatives to fossil fuels, and for once we seem to have an American president who appears to be taking Climate Change seriously– I suppose that’s good. But I can’t help thinking about the 15,000-plus return flights to Denmark the summit will entail (haven’t they heard of video-conferencing?) and wondering whether it isn’t just going to be another Kyoto.

Yes, I know it’s about finding alternative sources of energy, but energy for what? For manufacturing the millions of throwaway plastic toys that go into party bags – then straight into landfill – each year? For manufacturing mobile phones designed to be upgraded every time you fancy a new colour, or a different sort of keypad? For filling up planes to fly gap-year students and bloated western tourists thousands of miles across the globe to rape, pillage, buy large quantities of knock-off designer consumer durables and destroy the places they’ve visited? Unless we in the West begin to accept that we’ve got to consume less – a heck of a lot less – and adapt the way our economies work accordingly, it’s just so many angels dancing on the head of a pin.

* * *

I went to a meeting of our local Green Group the other evening. As usual, I arrived fifteen minutes late and everyone was already talking enthusiastically about The Wave. Someone suggested hiring a coach, and they were discussing the comparative merits of a 49- versus a 52-seater and the fact that they would need one with a toilet, as well as DVD screens to show rabble-rousing films like An Inconvenient Truth and Age of Stupid on the way. My heart sank slightly. While I have no objection to people going on marches, I think there are many more important, more useful things we could do at home. Frankly, I’d rather see people signing up to the no-fly pledge or 10:10 – or even finding a way to build a skatepark for the local youth so they didn’t have to sit at home watching endless reruns of Top Gear – than travelling halfway across the country in a diesel-guzzling pantechnicon. What is it with old people and coaches?

“Wouldn’t it be greener to go on the train?” I suggested, although personally I had no intention of going. I went on a march six years ago with about two million other people and a fat lot of good that did anyone.

“Oh, but it would be so much more fun going all together on a coach,” declared someone, clearly looking forward to the prospect of a Grand Day Out. “We could have one of those special banners made to put in the window of the coach – it would be great PR for the group and would almost certainly work out cheaper than the train.”

Cheaper? Since when was cheaper part of the Green agenda?

“Or maybe we could charter a special train?” suggested someone else.

“Er – but there are trains running anyway. Every half hour from Chippenham, and every hour from Kemble.”

There was a half-hearted sort of discussion about the logistics of getting to Chippenham or Kemble on a Saturday morning, but it was quickly decided that the four or five miles entailed would prove far too complicated without a regular early-morning bus service – and of course, there’d be parking costs. It would be far easier just to hire a coach.

“But it’s a green rally,” I tried. “Surely it’s counterproductive to be traveling down on a coach when there’s a perfectly good train service.”

The chairman looked at me blankly. “Is it the possibility of violence you’re worried about?” he asked me.

I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that I must have one of those voices which is like the sort of whistle only dogs can understand, and yes, now he came to mention it, I was beginning to think there may well be a possibility of violence, and perhaps somewhat sooner than he was anticipating.

* * *

And these are the people who are supposed to care. That's what’s so depressing. My inner George Monbiot heaved an enormous sigh and shrugged “What’s the fucking point?” as I reached over towards a plate of unfairly-traded, chocolate (doubtless gleaned from some slave-labour tolerating corner of the world) biscuits. Why not just go the whole hog and charter a private jet from Bristol? Only I didn’t say that, or someone would probably have pounced on it as the best idea they’d heard since the decision to sign up Alesha for the Strictly panel.

* * *

I was at a wedding at the weekend. A wedding which was lavish by any standards – there were quantities of cake that even Marie-Antoinette might have blanched at. But a wedding is a wedding, and the couple involved looked radiant and happy, which, after all, is the main thing. There were lots of people there involved with the Cape Farewell project, which if you haven’t already come across it is a sort of consciousness-raising exercise about climate change. All well and good, I suppose, if you overlook the fact that it’s really a lot of celebrities and popstars chasing photo-opportunities in far-flung places which they’ve got to using rather large quantities of jet fuel ((sorry if I’m raining on your parade, but it ain’t me that started messing with the weather). I fell into conversation with a journalist and a documentary maker, who’d been filming on the project, and before too long, the conversation turned to handbags. Designer. Fucking. Handbags. Comparing their collections, bandying about names I’d barely heard of and quoting prices, none of which was less than three figures, and some of which were considerably more. One of them even had a special designer handbag-bag to keep her designer handbags in. I quickly stuffed a cupcake into my mouth before I found myself saying something I might regret.

Climate change has become a fashionable issue – and that’s a good thing, some might say. But fashion, by its very nature, is transient and fickle, while our problems with Climate Change are long term and serious. Climate change and fashion make very uncomfortable bedfellows; things may all seem romantic and rosy during that first flush of passion, but it’s an attraction of opposites, a marriage – unlike the one we were at, I hoped – that I fear that is doomed to failure; the two things cannot co-exist for long without someone getting hurt. Badly.

Climate change is not a lifestyle choice, to be ditched as soon as the next catwalk shows come around. The people who are already being affected by climate change don’t have lifestyle choices – some of them don’t even have the choice of any kind of life at all thanks to our culture of “Because You’re Worth It”. “Because You’re Worth It” implies that perhaps others aren’t. The poor b*ggers in Bangladesh, for instance. Here – have another Ryanair trip to Barcelona – you deserve it. Hey, it might involve a few thousand people getting made homeless, or being washed away by the rising tide of inhumanity, but You’re Worth It. And They’re Not.

I suppose what I'm saying is, if you care about Climate Change, you must be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. It’s not about marches. I’m as partial to a bit of part-of-the-crowd-fuelled righteous indignation as the next man, but I suspect its impact will be minimal in real terms. And what’s insidious is that, after the march you can feel you’ve done your bit, so it’s ok to go back to booking that cheap city-break, buying a second home or flying to that exotic place you’ve always dreamed about, because you deserve it. You’ve done something. Some estimates suggest that as much as 50% of our emissions in the UK are caused by leisure air travel. Leisure travel. That's people who don't need to do it. If something looks too cheap to be true, that's because it probably is. It's NOT because You’re Worth It – no one could possibly be worth those tens of thousands of third-world lives, demolished eco-systems, ruined economies – someone, somewhere will be sure to be paying the price.

Fashionistas should stick to handbags. Or rather they shouldn’t. If I were in charge, there’d be no handbags, no cupcakes, no cheap flights, no gap years, no second homes, no cheap throwaway clothes from massive supermarket chains made from Uzbeckistan’s cotton slave trade and stitched by two-year-olds who’ve been sewn into their mothers’ skirts because they’re too tired to stand up, no shoes… Well, some shoes, obviously, but any frivolous expensive designer nonsense would be banned. The odd pair of Birkenstocks, perhaps, I might turn a blind eye to…

Compulsory hair shirts all round, then? the waspish fashionista wife might snarl at the moralizing environmentalist husband, once the bills for the blow-out eco-style honeymoon start landing on the doormat. My husband tells me I’m turning into some kind of Green Stalinist, but I think I might be more ruthless than Stalin. Mind you, I think I might have to get a better stylist …

I feel like I’m raining on everybody’s parade, and perhaps I am. Perhaps there is no really is no hope.

* * *

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock still, hearing his youth
at the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade One piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy


Right, I’ve got that off my chest, now. Shove up and help me on to that diesel-powered handcart, then...

Cupcakes - just say No!

We’ve been invited to a wedding. I haven’t been to a wedding for ages – in fact, I don’t think I’ve been to a wedding since our own wedding, and that was coming up to ten years ago (can it really be only ten?). I’d forgotten what a palaver they are. H is not coming. We have different views on the fact that children have not been invited. I don’t particularly mind children not being invited – I love my boy, but I don’t expect anyone else to love him, and I can think of quite a few of my friends’ children who I wouldn’t particularly want to have at any wedding, let alone my own, but H is sticking his heels in on this one.

“It’s outrageous,” he protests. “It’s like saying ‘no muslims or black people’,” he suggests. Which is hardly likely in this case, given the people concerned. I point this out, but it’s met with an immutable shrug. At least it saves the need to make arrangements for a boy and dog.

Mind you, I think to myself, the invitation doesn’t say ‘no dogs’…

* * *

A wedding exists in its own time/space continuum, boldly flouting any natural social law and setting its own arbitrary frame of reference without concession to the normal rules of life. Hopefully, in life’s long and eventful journey, not too much damage is done and everything returns back to normal afterwards, once the Bridezilla moment has passed. While I don’t have a particular view about children are at weddings, there are other no-nos – far more serious, to my mind – to wedding planning about which I do have a view, and a strong one at that. In my book (one that probably extends to several volumes) wedding faux-pas include:

• wedding lists sent out with the invitation
• wedding lists with requests for money
• imposed dress codes
• any element of compulsory audience participation
• stratified arrangements to which some guests are invited; others not, indeed any kind of obvious hierarchy at all – friends are friends as far as I’m concerned, everybody’s made an effort to come and should be treated equally, we didn’t even have a top table at our wedding
• a pay-bar at the reception
• opening gifts in front of everyone…

The list is long and I could go on, but I’d probably end up upsetting far too many people. I totally accept people’s right to do their own thing on what is, after all, their Big Day – a Morecambe and Wise song for the first dance is, I admit, not everyone’s cup of tea, and H and I even sat at different tables at the reception – crikey, if I was going to spend the rest of my life with this guy, surely I could be spared sitting next to him at my own party.

(As an aside, I’m as happily married as the next man, but did anyone else not feel, as the priest or the registrar or whoever happened to be marrying them embarked on the lengthy litany of for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as ye both shall live… just a tiny note of panic, a hint of a thought along the lines of, “erm – could you possibly just give me a few more moments to think about it?” No? Really?)

In the great scheme of things, banning children is, I feel, fairly small fry and I’m prepared to overlook it for what is, after all, one of my oldest friends.

* * *

I say we’ve been invited, but there has been, as yet, no invitation as such. My friend - let’s call him ‘Frank’ – sent me an email a couple of months ago to say he was getting married. He’s one of my oldest friends – someone I’ve known for getting on for thirty-five years. He was in the year above me at school and we have a long history and many shared memories of pranks played on teachers, chemistry experiments gone awry and hideous sixth-form discos. He was finally tying the knot at the grand old age of 48.

That’s great, I told him. Congratulations!

It’s on the XX of September. Hope you can come.

I hope so, too, I emailed back. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

A few weeks later I got another email.
Well, are you coming, then? We need to know before we send out the invitations.

Sorry? I was under the – obviously misguided – impression that was kind of the general purpose of an invitation – to invite – but apparently I’m wrong. These days, apparently, you send out a ‘save the date’ pre-invitation invitation before you send out the real one. Just in case you waste an invitation on someone who can’t come.

Er, well, yes – I think so (looking in the diary). Alex might have some kind of scout thing on, but I’m sure we can work round that.

Erm… well, I’m afraid we’re not inviting children. It’s such an important day for us – we want to have all our friends there and there might not be enough room…

Oh. Right. OK.

* * *

Four weeks before the wedding and the invitation – the real one – still hasn’t arrived, so I don’t know where the wedding is or what time it starts, and I’m beginning to worry that maybe I’ve been demoted to the B list – or worse still, for some unknown reason struck off. Surely not. Perhaps it’s gone astray. A tentative email to ‘Frank’ ensues.

Must have gone to the wrong address, ‘Frank’ replies. You're definitely on the list. I’ll pop another one in the post. By the way – has Lizzy spoken to you about the cupcakes yet?

I’m now being lulled into a false sense of security. It’s obviously going to be a low-key kind of affair with a cosy, raggle-taggle gathering of old friends, a few beers, home-made cakes, some old favourites on the juke box… Can’t think of anything nicer.

Half an hour later, I get a call from ‘Lizzy.’ She’s at work and I can something that sounds like an auditory equivalent of a spreadsheet whirring away in the background. She’s up against a deadline, so this can’t take long…

Twenty-five minutes later, we’re still talking about cupcakes.

...Well, we’ve got this kind of peacock-feather theme going on. Everything’s colour and shape-coordinated, and we’re thinking flavours like lemon and cardamom, and a sort of cup-cake version of millionaire’s shortbread… Laura texted me this fabulous picture of a cupcake done in several layers of peacock-coloured frosting… And they have to be made that morning. You can’t make them in advance or they’ll dry out.

And there was I thinking of knocking up a tray of iced buns, perhaps with a few of those decorative sugar balls on top if I happened to be feeling creative the night before. I was thinking of going by train, too – if I was having to go to this thing on my own, I was buggered if I wasn’t going to be able to have a drink – God knows what my miniature multicolour pea-cakes might look like by the time I’d changed trains twice and clambered over the bridge at Birmingham. This wedding, let's not forget, was hardly round the corner.

I foolishly mentioned this thought to ‘Lizzy’, whereupon there was a sharp intake of breath, a momentary silence followed by a sort of ‘clunk’ which I imagine might have been the sound of her jaw landing heavily on her desk…

And she hadn’t even got on to the wedding list and dress code and the compulsory dancing and the circuitous travel arrangements…

* * *

Sex at 48
On a different note, it was my friend Sally’s birthday recently, and a few of us went out to celebrate. Sally shocked us all by revealing her age – she looks about 35.

Do you still have sex at 48? asked one of the younger – cheekier – members of the party (who I think sees herself as a bit of a yummy mummy even though her children are now all at secondary school and she could, technically, be a grandmother, she added, perhaps a tad cattily).

Oh, yes replied Sally, without missing a beat. But it’s a bit of a walk – we live at number Five.

* * *

Bring me Sunshine, in your smile,
Bring me Laughter, all the while,
In this world where we live, there should be more happiness,
So much joy you can give, to each brand new bright tomorrow.

Make me happy, through the years,
Never bring me, any tears,
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.

Words - Sylvia Dee, Music - Arthur Kent, Dance - Eric & Ernie

And, before anyone asks, we didn’t go off into the sunset doing the famous Morcambe & Wise dance… But only because H put his foot down for once.


PS I’d just like to say, in case ‘Frank’ or ‘Lizzy’ happen to stumble on this that I truly believe that people’s wedding arrangements are sacrosanct and I’d never assume to impose my views of what’s right and proper on anyone else.

Just don’t ask me to make cupcakes.

Networks Schmetworks

There’s an old Portuguese saying:
You have five true friends – all the rest is landscape.

And while I’d like to think I have slightly more than five (er…two, three, four, five… …. ah yes, possibly six… ) I think there may be some truth in this.

By the way – and slipping off at a slight tangent here – many years ago I used to work with a gorgeous Portuguese woman called Ana who was always coming out with odd Portuguese sayings, such as The dogs bark and the caravan moves on, – usually when she’d been ticked off by our taciturn, Saturnine boss for some trivial office misdemeanour – or a long tongue betokens a short hand, which means... well, what could a saying like that possibly mean? You decide. Honestly, there must be hundreds, some of which admittedly were so gnomic they didn’t sound as though they could possibly make any sort of sense whether in Portuguese, Urdo or an obscure Mongolian dialect. One of the things she often came out with (said with a despondent shrug of the shoulders) was: “It’s behind me.” I think what she was really trying to say is, “it’s beyond me,” but I didn’t like to correct her because it meant that for a few short moments I could imagine that, instead of being stuck behind a barren desk of an airless Bond-Street art gallery where no one ever came in and nothing was ever sold between the long hours between nine and six, I was actually at the theatre watching a pantomime.

It was incredibly quiet in there. Sometimes, the gallery owner would go for days without uttering a word to either of us. I finally realised it was time to leave when I came in one morning to a note on my desk which said: Could you please try not to slam the door when you come in? I suddenly had a terrible urge to run over to the door and slam it repeatedly as hard as I could, shouting Big Dog’s Willy (or some other similar mildly offensive profanity) at the top of my voice until the owner could bear it no longer… Needless to say I didn’t. The dog didn’t bark, but the caravan still moved on…

But as usual, I digress…

My friend Astrid has recently come back from Belgium and she’s decided to set up a local women’s networking club. Now I’m as sociable as the next fellow, but when she asked me to give her a hand with some PR for the launch in exchange for a year’s free membership, I have to admit my heart sank a little. Actually, that’s not quite true – it sank a lot. Truth be told, I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic PR. Yes, times are hard and needs must when the devil takes the hindmost (and there are other probably various other Portuguese sayings to sum up the vague cloud made up of equal parts of ennuie, despondency and a vital urge to procrastinate at all costs which descends on me whenever the two letters P and R are found in the same sentence), but really. Do I have to?

As I think I may have said before, I’m not really motivated by business. I like journalism, because it gives me a excuse to be nosy. I can flit and flutter between topics at the whim of my editor – one month (admittedly July, when the rest of the Northern hemisphere is planning holidays and shopping for bikinis) it’s Christmas gifts, the next it’s British Castles. And next week I’ll be dipping my toe into the world of the psychology of doodling (no, really – I can’t wait) – but PR generally means Clients. And Clients – unless they are actually certified brain dead (not entirely unknown, I gather) – generally have Expectations, which is where the trouble starts. The very idea of a networking to me represents a hitherto untapped tsunami of false bonhomie and bothersome irritations to days otherwise spent gazing out of the window, eating cake and listening to Radio 4. (And possibly writing the odd article if I really must.)

I do like Astrid – I hugely admire her round-the-clock enthusiasm, her perfectly applied lipstick, her bulging appointment book and the way she seeks out new contacts, new opportunities, like some heat-seeking, mission-accomplishing homing device, but it has to be said my feeling of admiration is somewhat akin to that of Homer Simpson with a can in his hand and a pile of donuts on his lap watching the perfect home-run from the comfort of his sofa.

We’re improbable friends, though, me and Astrid. We live in different worlds, the Venn diagram that describes our lives intersecting in just one – albeit important – part; we both have dogs which cause passers by to tutt and cross the street, neighbours to scowl and friends to hastily remember previously forgotten appointments when we meet them out walking. An unlikely bonding in the face of mass social excommunication, our walks out are like a two-pronged attack on the title for the world’s most badly behaved dog. While my dog is small, brown and irritating, hers is large, black and determined; what mine lacks in size he makes up in volume, while hers has an expression like an undeployed scud missile; an expression that seems to say with a forboding growl: Don’t misunderestimate me…

Anyway, the day finally arrived for the launch. I’d arranged to meet Astrid beforehand so we could start the day cool, relaxed and focussed, and all was going to plan until the night before when I received a phone call from my sister-in-law at 9.30 in the evening (I should say ex-sister-in-law – she and my brother have been divorced for several years now). We haven’t spoken for over a year – it’s not that I don’t like her; she’d somehow managed to lose my phone number, and one morning, following months of weekly automated emails inviting me to various counselling courses and weeks of self-awareness training, the grim realisation suddenly dawned: I’d finally made the transition from ‘friend’ to ‘contact’, so I swiftly diverted her into my Spam box. I have to make allowances for her, though – spending the best part of fifteen years being married to my brother would drive anyone into the arms of the self-help fraternity.

Having finally tracked me down and established that we now lived not very far from Bristol, it transpired that she had an appointment in Bristol the following day – could she pop in for tea and a catch-up? It wasn’t really the best of days to be popping in – for a start, there wasn’t much cake left and there was likely to be even less by the time she got here – but I somehow managed to stifle my sigh and make welcoming noises down the phone line.

“Oh – and it’s probably going to go on quite late," she added. "I’ve no idea how long it’s going to take to get home from Bristol. Do you think I ought to book a B&B?”

* * *

…Several hours of cleaning and bed-changing later, bearing in mind several minutes of injury time disguising the fact that we’d been letting the dog sleep in the guest room when it was cold and he’d been using the guest bathroom for canine cleansing activities over the past few months…

* * *

There was the added complication of The Boy. Since The Talk at school (the now soon-to-be compulsory sex-education video that my friend who’s a school governor had the pleasure of vetting in the company of the vicar – “yes, yes, yes,” he had nodded sagely, apparently – in a tone about as far removed from Meg Ryan’s as is humanly imaginable – “That all seems to be in order…”) The Boy has decided to shun the possibility of any possible contact with girls. The very idea of spending an hour or so at Astrid’s house with her daughter and a joint babysitter was clearly not to be contemplated. Finding an alternative activity proved hard – and time-consuming; Jimmy and Dom were both off on holiday and everyone else had been booked into the Camp, which was now full. Finally, but finally, some boy-friendly occupation was found, although this probably involved more unsuitable-age-rated X-box-related activity than I’d have liked in an ideal world (although, as you’ve probably realised by now, my world is usually far from ideal)...

* * *

I arrived at Astrid’s a few minutes late – in the dog car, unfortunately, since H’s has a flat tyre which I haven’t found time to deal with – to find Astrid in all her businesslike finery just emerging through the door with two other women, booted, suited and be-briefcased. It was just starting to rain, so I suggested the obvious – driving us all over to the restaurant instead of walking. Unfortunately, this was the dog car – two doors only and much-chewed upholstery-wise. I don’t think this was the entrance Astrid had been imagining. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed my suspicions – I’d completely forgotten to put lipstick on. Amongst the myriad glossy pouts I’d clearly be invisible; a detour via Boots had to be engineered.

To cut a long story short – and there is a lot more; the lipstick dispenser at Boots had evidently been tampered with and my determination to secure a lipstick without needing a mortgage resulted in the near demolition of the Max Factor display – the lunch was actually much nicer than I’d feared. As it turned out, I knew several of the lunch guests anyway – they were friends, not people I’d ever have hitherto imagined becoming contacts – and I got the feeling I wasn’t the only one whose heart wasn’t entirely, altogether in it.

There was much talk of things like Key Messages, Reciprocal Usefulness and Mutual Support, while I surreptitiously managed to swap Womad experiences and holiday tales with Jane. It wasn’t an altogether wasted opportunity, businesswise, though; I managed to palm off some unwanted work onto Louise, another writer, who I suddenly remembered was married to a haematologist – it was a piece about blood-pressure that I didn’t honestly feel qualified to write and which needed turning round quickly.

“There you go,” I said as I took Louise’s email details, “Bob’s your uncle.” (Or Stan’s your husband, more accurately in her case).

* * *

I still feel acutely uncomfortable about this shiftless territory between friendship and networking. I’ve sort of dipped my toe into Facebook, but whipped it out pretty quickly – and at the risk of sounding like my mother and REALLY losing friends and alienating people – I’m going to tell you why, rather in the manner of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, whether you like it or not (although I will promise not to mention albatrosses. At least, not more than once... However I might not be able to suppress the urge to shout Big Dog's Willy).

Try as I might, I'm afraid I really don’t get it. I was invited to join by a friend, who then bombarded me with quizzes and virtual Jammie Dodgers and all rational conversation ceased, save for generalised look-at-me observations on a virtual ‘Wall’ addressed to no one, and at the same time everyone. My friend vanished into cyberspace and turned into someone who only contacted me with jokes I didn’t find funny and those ‘special person’ sort of chain-emails which you’re urged to send to six or eight or fourteen other special people in the hope that something extra-extra special will befall you all. For the record, I don’t read these. (Well obviously I must have read one, otherwise I wouldn't know what was in them, but you get the message.) And also for the record, I certainly don’t forward them on. As Mr Incredible said in possibly the best ever Disney Pixar animation: ‘Everyone's special means no one is’, and in the fear that like some sinister unseen brand, they’ll somehow burn into the flesh of my friends who’ll then metamorphose into Contacts.

I looked my nephew’s page – he’s got something like 769 friends. How can anyone have a meaningful relationship with that number of people? More is not necessarily better; in fact I’d go as far as to say it hardly ever is. Relationships are becoming stretched and attenuated in this strange, vapid Stepford world. I open my own page and it asks me “What’s on your mind?” Well, if I’m honest, I’m wondering whether the fridge needs cleaning out or whether I can perhaps get away with it for another few days, but frankly, who else wants to know?”

I get a message from my friend John – at least he used to be a friend when we lived across the road from one another; now he, too, seems to have become a Contact – saying, “Just been to the dump with Sue, well you have to keep things fresh when you’ve been married a while,” and with hope's temporary and Pyrrhic triumph over experience, I pop back to put a friendly message on his wall which just hangs there in cyberspace, unanswered for all the world to see and looking rather foolish. Three weeks later, after a phone call with his wife, John sends me another virtual Jammie Dodger, by way of conversation and a link to a quiz to find out which Jane Austen character I am (I’m Lizzie Bennett, which pleases me for about a nano-second, then the crashing realisation dawns that this is all totally meaningless to me and a poor substitute for the to-ing and fro-ing of proper human interchange). I know some of my friends are on Facebook, and I'm sure they must have their reasons. I’m sure it has it’s uses, but exactly what they are is totally ‘behind me’, as Ana would say.

And just don’t get me on to Twitter… The much despised, Round-Robin of the future. I’ll say no more. Just don’t send me a Jammie Dodger (unless, of course I can actually eat it, then please feel free).

* * *

If someone knows a use for Facebook, please let me know.

The dog has barked, and now the caravan can move on.

Seven

Writing about her novel Emma, Jane Austen said: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like…”

Well, I’m not sure even I'm going to like the subject of this piece of writing, but my dear cyberfriend ChrisH has tagged me to come up with seven words that sum up who I am – and I don’t want to run the risk of being struck off the guest list for the novel launch, because I know there are going to be canapés (and possibly profiteroles, too…)

So here goes.

Seven words to describe myself:

Square I’m possibly the squarest person I know. The squarest inhabitant of Squaresville. Squarer than Spongebob. In fact, I’m so square, I’m almost cool coming out the other side.

Almost.

I think I was probably born middle-aged. My favourite job of all time was working in the subs' department at Woman's Realm where I was surrounded by knitting patterns, Madiera-cake recipes and fashion pages where the predominent colour was beige, outfits were invariably 'teamed' with a co-ordinating handbag and matching flats or pumps, and there was a preponderance of something called the 'longline cardi' and the 'Palazzo pant' (always singular, note). I think I may even have had a longline cardi at one point, but this could be a case of a fevered imagination and rose-tinted retro-specs. Amongst the crowds of people in novelty hats, blue facepaint and exuberantly-coloured knitted ponchos at Womad this weekend, I was perched on my folding chair with my bank-manager’s umbrella and a flask of tea thinking: it’s going to rain any minute, and that exuberantly knitted poncho is going to smell really terrible in the car driving all the way back to Wigan...

Greedy Some – probably apocryphal – research paper back in the Seventies claimed that the average male thinks about sex every seven minutes. Well I think about food, on average – well, substantially more frequently than every seven minutes, if I'm honest...

If I’m not planning the week’s menus, concocting my ideal cake recipe in my head or thinking about my next meal, I’m probably either wondering what’s currently in the fridge that could possibly constitute a second post-school-run breakfast or mid-mid-morning snack, rustling up a quick cake or half a dozen scones or rootling through one of my cupboards for something immediately consumable such as dried fruit or biscuits.

Or, alternatively, actually eating something.

Elephantine Surprisingly, I’m not nearly as large as I ought to be, given the number of between-meal snacks I consume – I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I suspect one day I’ll just be innocently popping up into the attic to look for something when I’m confronted by a vast and hideous painting of something that looks like a female version of Mr Creosote crossed with Jabba the Hut with cake-crumb-bespeckled lips and splodges of some tomato-based substance spattered down his front, and then there’ll be some scary fast-forward photography along the lines of that Barbara Carrera film where she ages several decades over the course of about a minute... Except in my case I’ll probably balloon hideously and find myself suddenly wedged uncomfortably in the loft hatch… Actually, best not go there.

No, what I mean is I have an elephant-like memory– unfortunately not for anything remotely important or useful (unless I happen to be at a pub quiz, at which I'm actually not bad...), but for obscure trivia and minor slights that happened many decades previously. Yes, Hilary Carr – I remember that last meringue at my fifth birthday party that was rightly mine. And I haven’t forgotten that bull sea-elephant comment Paul Marsh made at the school fourth-year Christmas party either…

Thrifty I’m not sure H would agree, but I’m actually quite good at making a little go a long way. I remember a marrow a couple of years ago that lasted us nearly three weeks. (In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's still a bit left in the fridge, even now, just waiting to be popped into a pot of minestrone or 'pepped up' – we did a lot of 'pepping things up' at Realm – with a dash of Worcester sauce and some sauteed shallots). I rarely splurge on clothes, having a capsule wardrobe that consists of about five items that sort of go together. (Actually, I’m not sure I would call it a capsule wardrobe – more a collection of things that A) still fit, and B) haven’t worn out yet, and C) happen to be either white, grey or brown).

Chatty I think I probably spent most of my school career standing out in the corridor or sitting on a chair outside the headmaster’s office for talking when I was supposed to be doing something else. At work, I would always be one of the last to finish, having spent most of the day discussing the various possible ways of tackling any given task, the merits of the job in hand, the pros and cons of various brands and methods of tea-making, whether we ought to have the window closed or open, whether ice cream should be one or two words (bizarrely at Homes & Gardens they always insisted it should be one word, which I always found very difficult to get my head round)…

These days, chatting opportunities are considerably fewer and further between, but I still find myself striking up conversations in the most unlikely places, whether the other party is interested in conversing or not. It’s not unheard of for me to strike up a conversation with the dog, if there's no one else around.

Nosy (Goodness – this is becoming a bit like Snow White’s seven dwarfs…) I try not to be gratuitously nosy, but I do like to get to the bottom of things. Ok, I’m probably gratuitously nosy, if I’m honest. I do like to know what's going on. Whether it's any of my business or not.

Slightly neurotic To live is to worry, I find. What do I worry about? Whether I've possibly inadvertently offended anyone without realising; whether that slight heartburn I had last night was really something dire and life-threatening and I'd be leaving a poor, motherless child; whether the dog has eaten those hayfever tablets I can't now find; whether a giant meteorite might suddenly, unexpectedly come crashing down to earth and obliterate us all; whether that olive-oil smudge on my linen trousers is going to come out... It would probably be easier to list what I don’t worry about.

Well, what do I not worry about then?

Erm…



… And I’d like to tag Milla, Fennie, SnailbeachShepherdess, ElizabethM, Kitty, Pamela and Lampworkbeader.

(Gawd - is anyone going to even speak to me after this embarrassing episode of self-revelation?)

The curious incident of the builder and the chocolate muffins

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of the details of her husband’s bank account must be in want of a conservatory. As indeed I possibly would be, were our house not abutting our neighbour’s land and there being few suitable points along the front of the house on which to attach one, without going to the trouble of chopping down several trees and possibly moving the oil tank. (Hmmm – strokes beard – I suppose it might be a possibility…)

Although it has to be said there’s a large part of me that thoroughly disapproves of such wanton building. What about all the skips and the landfill? Not to mention the endless carbon-footprint-creating return journeys by builders’ van up and down the main road to Swindon, which seems to be the West Country’s mecca for obscure radiator fittings, extra long lengths of two-by-four and suchlike. When, exactly, this national obsession with all things construction-related started, it’s hard to say, but the sparks of what was probably a relatively manageable bonfire, with the help of several formulaic TV programmes starring the likes of Sarah Beeny and Ms Allsopp, not to mention the pocket-sized Kevin ‘Grand Designs’ McCloud (who I do quite like, actually – possibly something that has more to do with his being small, and therefore possibly more manageable, rather anything to do with his design credentials) have been fanned into a raging bush fire of continent-engulfing proportions. This, we’re told, is progress.

I have a perfectly lovely friend in London who, every time we meet, which nowadays unfortunately, isn’t all that often, asks me: “How’s the house? Is it finished yet?”
As far as I’m aware our house was probably finished somewhere in the region of 200 years ago, but somehow it feels a bit churlish to point this out. She is, I believe, on her third kitchen and a new en suite is planned above the garage. I mumble something about money being a bit tight, but I suspect what she probably means is have we finished ripping out all the so-called ‘improvements’ our predecessors put in and replaced them with ones of our own choosing – well, actually, no, although I have finally got round to painting the skirting board behind the sofa that was bare, new wood when we moved in.

Where we lived in London, every time a house changed hands – and this was something that happened very frequently during the late nineties and early noughties – a skip would appear outside to be filled with the previous owners carpets, kitchen units, bathroom fittings – in fact just about everything that hadn’t been irretrievably screwed down, plus quite a lot that had. I’m slightly ashamed to admit that we did – briefly – join the skip brigade, but I hasten to add that the house we moved into had been lived in by an elderly vicar with a predilection for the colours mustard, brown and olive – in as many and as varied combinations as possible – for the previous 40 years. There were also polystyrene tiles on all the ceilings and something that looked disturbingly fungal growing under the bath. Well, that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

As I child, I vaguely remember having a chimney breast and a wall knocked down in the house we lived in to make what my mother used to proudly call the “through room,” but amongst people we knew this was almost unheard of – she was clearly a woman ahead of her time. I can hardly remember the builders being there, so swift a job they must have done – one day there were two small, dark rooms, and seemingly the next, there was a long streamlined expanse of featureless wall, clad neatly in magnolia-emulsioned anaglypta (for she did – and still does – like her anaglypta).

“Just go through to the “through room,” she’d tell visitors with a little cough and an airy wave sending forth clouds of Elnett with a hint of Tweed, whilst adjusting the décolletage of a kaftan cleverly rustled up with the help of her new electric Singer sewing machine in the full-length mirror in the hall. She was terribly modern. Through in the “through room”, there would often be an oval platter of bridge rolls ready and waiting, topped with her very own signature mixture of grated cheese, chopped tomato and raw onion – a sort of Grimsby forerunner of the canapé; portable enough to eat with one hand without recourse to a plate, yet substantial enough to evade the accusation of a hostess who – heaven forbid – scrimped.

But I digress, horribly.

Anyway, the truth is I’ve reluctantly joined the ranks of those married women who’ve got the builders in. We’re in the unfortunate position of having possibly the only Grade II listed toolshed in the country, and the roof – which looks as though it hasn’t been touched for at least 150 years – is falling in, so I sort of feel it’s a necessary evil. And I understand we could be sent to prison if it falls down completely. H, who watches more of the Kevin McCloud-type programmes than I do – I’m usually fiddling around doing something important in the kitchen when they’re on – is harbouring ideas about a garden office. He’s thinking along the lines of a couple of velux windows and a surround-sound stereo system, while The Boy has got ideas about sleepover bunkbeds and a mad-professor’s-lab-type decorating scheme. I, however, would be perfectly happy with a toolshed – all I can think about is the spiders and the amount of extra dusting anything else might entail.

Our builder is Richard, who I think I may have mentioned before. I should perhaps point out at this stage that Richard is 6’ 4”, has piercing blue eyes and looks not unlike a young Paul Newman in a certain light – well, if you can imagine a sort of young Paul Newman in a boiler suit with slightly curly hair holding a sweet cup of tea in one hand and leaning on an angle grinder.It’s like having a scaled-down version of the Time Team to visit. I’m taken through the various stages of development of the tool shed – there’s a Cotswold stone back wall, yet the front is faced in Victorian Brick – the stable door is obviously a later addition. Some of the roof tiles came from Bridgewater – look, you can just make out the manufacturer’s mark – they probably came up on the new Kennet and Avon Canal – however others are a different size. And the roof beams… Well, you get my gist. He is a proper builder, though – he takes three sugars in his tea and he does like his sweet carbs.

Anyway, the other week while I was up in London, scenes reminiscent of Wisteria Lane were unfolding in our lane. Richard rang up in the morning to say he might be late – our conversation is a series of misunderstandings and non-sequiteurs, along the lines of “When’s a day that would be good for you?” “Yes, I suppose Wednesday would be a good a day as any.” “So shall we say Wednesday, then? I was thinking more along the lines of Tuesday...” – and I finally manage to establish that he’ll be here around lunchtime. I tell him I won’t be here, but I’ll leave a key under a plant pot and plenty of tea and coffee-making things and a packet of biscuits in the kitchen. There’s a sort of buzzing noise in the background and I suspect he’s got another job going on at the same time as us – possibly several other jobs; his appearances are somewhat sporadic to say the least – then he says something that sounds like “I love you,” but I think I must have heard it wrong – it might have been “lovely” – do builders say lovely? anyway, there was no time to think about it, because I had a train to catch.

Anyway, when I got back later that evening, Richard had gone, and so had his angle grinder. The roof looked just the same as it had done that morning and when I got inside, I found a message from one of my neighbours – let’s call her Edie – to say she just popped round to ‘borrow’ Richard to do a little job for her, adding that she’d plied him with elderflower cordial and a plate of muffins. Curiously, Richard hasn’t been seen since. It seems my Custard Creams aren’t enough to keep him here any more; the toolshed remains roofless, and our garden bears an uncanny resemblance to an abandoned archaeological dig.

* * *

And a woman who held a plate of muffins against her ample bosom said, “Speak to us of builders.”

And the prophet replied:

Your builders are not your builders.
They are the physical manifestations of Wife’s longing for a new kitchen.
They come through you, but they are not yet yours;
And though they are with you, they belong not to you.

You may give them your tea, but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts, and they often bear little relation to what is drawn on the plans.
You may house their tools, but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
A house you will never see made flesh, not even in your dreams however much you promise to pay them.

You may strive to get hold of them, but seek not to make them turn up when arranged.
For life does oft appear to go backward, and frequently tarries with things it ought not to be tarrying with.

From The not-for-Profit, © Kanil GiBrown, 2009

Get thee behind me, Santa

What’s it to be, then – the large pile of ironing or a blog? Hmmm. Tough one. Enticing as the ironing looks – hey, I was wondering what had happened to that grey vest top which I don’t think I’ve seen for a good three weeks, and which has now been revealed thanks to the top 18-inches of the ironing pile toppling down to the floor – I do have my public to think of. They’ll be wondering what’s happened to me while I’ve been trawling London’s seamy streets for the fruitiest mince pie, the creamiest egg nog and the crumbliest fudge (and boy, is there a lot of fudge out there this year, folks). Yes, it’s July again, which means Santa’s gift-laden reindeer – or jauntily smiley PR girls dressed up as reindeer – will be trit-trotting into my life once more.

In my world of work, one of the few regular jobs I have been getting to do over the last few years (but I'm not counting my turkeys) is the Christmas gift guide for a glossy magazine (I’m afraid I don’t get credited, so you’ll just have to read and wonder – but if you’re after a clue, look out for the Bob Dylan headlines). I read an article in The Guardian recently about the journalists who do this type of feature, where the writer claims, “It’s generally a pretty lowly job and I don’t think anyone actively looks forward to working on the gift guide. It’s just a lot of work, keeping on top of everything and making sure all the information is right” Well, Pah, Alice Wignall – I’ll tell you something: I do. So there.

For one thing, compiling a gift guide is a lot less tiring than trying to keep on top of a manically self-filling laundry basket and self-emptying fridge, fielding endless requests for obscure craft equipment or bizarre costumes for World Book Day – the armoured polar bear from The Golden Compass, anyone? – helping your child do homework that involves several hours poring over atlases and tracking down obscure information on the internet, or ensuring several lots of music practice are religiously done, often in the face of strenuous opposition. Many’s the Monday morning that I’ve fished in the unlooked at school reading bag to find a request for pizza ingredients or a plate of cupcakes and had to face down the disapproving tut of Mrs Humphreys as I try to pass off a box of Mr Kipling’s Viennese Whirls with a devil-may-care shrug. Well, I'll tell you something, I'm not sorry to be leaving that behind for a week or two.

What’s not to like about getting away from the office (for office, read paper-strewn kitchen table with half the breakfast washing up encroaching into your in-tray, and for demanding boss, read attention-seeking dog who goes ballistic at the very thought that the postman might be heading – even now – up the Chippenham road towards our village); heading off on a train – even sometimes getting to read most of the paper without interruption? I sometimes find myself driving back from the station at night after one of my infrequent London jaunts, arriving at the motorway roundabout with the sign that says London one way, South Wales the other, and a little voice in my head tantalisingly whispers London? South Wales? London? South Wales? London? South Wales? Then, of course, this being real life and not some schmaltzy romantic novel, I dutifully cross the motorway bridge and head up back home. I probably wouldn’t have enough petrol to get beyond Membury Service Station anyway.

Yes, yes, I suppose there’s the odd chore of having to take an interest in Igglepiggle from In the Night Garden (no, don’t ask – bask joyfully in your ignorance – I’ve forgotten already), conversing with a man (or could it have been a woman?) in a Spongebob Squarepants outfit and having to force-feed yourself with an unfeasibly large number of Sainsbury’s handmade chocolates… Well you have to take these things seriously. (I also like doing the ironing on occasion, I’m just exercising some self-control right now, saving it up for an uninterrupted moment when I can really settle down and enjoy it…)

It’s all been rather surreal – actually, it’s not completely over yet. I still technically have three more shows to go to, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to fit them all in – well, there is the ironing you know… During the last week I’ve been kissed (on the cheek, mind) by Gok Wan, got stuck in a glass lift with a hyperventilating claustrophobic journalist while a clown tried to distract her by making a spanner disappear (Don’t make it disappear, you geek! I wanted to shout. Break the door down with it – I think we’re going to run out of oxygen any minute! Except I don’t, as it will probably cause her to hyperventilate even more) eat several thousand canapes and accidentally find myself apparently stalking another, quite famous, journalist.

“Oh, you’re Xxxxxx,” I say, as we’re thrust together in the signing in queue for one of the shows. “I recognise your byline.” She writes for one of the broadsheets, not the sort of thing you’re likely to find in the hairdressers, like me.
“Erm, likewise,” she replies politely, although the likelihood of her having read something by me is, let’s say rather remote. Unless of course she has her hair done particularly regularly.
“So, what are you writing about?” I venture, as we wait to be shown in by the canapés. She really seems quite friendly and I leap on the chance of an interesting conversation that isn’t about some gadget that I really can’t quite get my head round.
“Trends,” she replies. “I just do columns, really, now.”
“I’ve noticed a bit of a trend,” I tell her. “Have you noticed how white everybody’s teeth are nowadays?” I’ve just come fresh from being kissed by Gok and I’m trying to work out whether he’s had veneers.

She looks at me blankly, and then over her shoulder to see whether the queue is moving – it isn’t – and I wonder whether I’ve somehow accidentally managed to get some spinach from one of the five million canapés I’ve eaten over the last three days on my teeth. There’s an audible sigh of relief as the queue suddenly starts to lurch forward and she’s freed from the crazed country bumpkin who’s just been let out for the day.

Bizarrely, and not by any design of my own, I might add, I find myself hurtling into the lift with her at the next venue and praying it wasn’t about to get stuck. I was obviously beginning to look slightly the worse for wear by Friday, as arriving at the reception desk for the fourth show, an immaculately turned-out PR chap looked me up and down before suggesting, I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting to see the fashion...

John Lewis had the best canapés – tiny three-story smoked-salmon sandwiches and little mini lox-and-cream cheese bagels, which made a welcome change from all the fudge – while Lakeland had by far the best venue – a suite at the beautiful Soho hotel with a balcony overlooking London’s rooftops glinting in the early morning sun. If I had the money and a few days to kill in London, I’d book a room there like a shot – beautifully understated soft furnishings, gorgeous wood and stone finishes – but let’s face it, this is likely to be my one and only chance of seeing inside. Swept along by the smiling reindeer people, tasty titbits and silent waiters with ever-full trays of bucks fizz, smoothies, coffee – whatever you fancied, really, and let's face it, I probably fancied most of it – I manage to squeeze in two free manicures (well, I didn’t really like the first colour) and a pedicure, although I did turn down the offer of some stick-on Bollywood eyelashes, as I was meeting an old colleague for a drink afterwards and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Or – which was more probable, knowing my track record with beauty accessories – something going horribly wrong and my eyes being irretrievably glued shut.

Of course I had to put up with the burden of carting all the inevitable goody bags – or greedy bags, as my friend Karin so rightly calls them – back to Wiltshire. Well, it has to be done. I know, I know, it’s horribly grabby, but I don’t get out much. I don’t believe most journalists – even now – are too sniffy to take one home. I’ve yet to see someone decant out the vital press information, discarding the boxes of eyeliner, lip gloss, chocolates and dvds and remember all too clearly when I worked on the 27th floor of a well-known magazine house, when you could honestly feel the entire building list precariously towards the Thames whenever there was a press event with an outside chance of a freebie upstairs in the penthouse.

The whole experience is fraught with conflicting feelings of disapproval at all the excess and the depressing thought that our fragile economy is built on everyone buying and – inevitably chucking away and replacing – so much stuff, battling the illicit, albeit transient, thrill of something shiny and new in a stiff, glossy bag.

Predictably, the ephemeral promise of illicit gifts wins out, and I find myself back home with an odd assortment of stuff: two Christmas puddings, some scented candles, a DVD of Miracle on 34th Street, a photo frame, a pink suedette Oxford English Dictionary, a couple of water bottles, some olive oil, several jars of chutney, a strange green kitchen implement that looks like the tool the Almighty is wielding in Blake’s The Ancient of Days, a magnetic spoon (why?) an interestingly-shaped cheese grater, a Sylvanian Families baby bear in a cot – and an awful lot of fudge. Well, I’m easily pleased. I give the new cheese grater its first outing with our Friday night spaghetti bolognaise.

“It’s great, Mum,” says The Boy enthusiastically. “Almost as good as our old one.”

Another pleasure, of course – and one yet to savour – is the headline opportunities – I’ve already managed one Bob one (sadly, it is one I’ve used before), and find myself feeling rather pleased with Licenced not to spill for an automatic martini maker. As I said, I’m easily pleased.

* * *

Stop press!
I don’t know whether any of you noticed Jess Cartner-Morley’s fashion page in this week’s Guardian Weekend? Her Going Up column flags up the peacoat I mentioned several weeks ago – what do you mean you don’t remember? That could be me writing about trends.

Remember, you heard it here first...