Sep 20 2015

My greatest schoolgirl errors

Posted on September 20, 2015 by admin

I was actually a bright pupil - voted “most likely to succeed” and achieved pretty much straight As throughout secondary school (I know right… what happened?). For 4 years I also dated the most popular guy in school and was *probably* the envy of most of my classmates. Yet as cool as I thought I was, looking back I made some monumental schoolgirl errors - all whilst sporting a skirt that barely covered my bum, lips coated in Rimmel’s Heather Shimmer and dangerously overplucked eyebrows.

With Dex now one step closer to entering the acne-ridden world of school himself, I’ve been reliving some of my most mortifying school memories. Sit back and get ready to cringe…

The remote control incident

Nothing made you happier as 90s schoolkid than walking into a classroom and seeing that one of these monstrosities had been wheeled in:

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Yep, the TV and VCR combo meant an easy lesson and a distracted teacher for at least an hour. It didn’t matter if we were being played a BBC production of Romeo & Juliet or a documentary on China’s one-child policy - TV lessons were just about the coolest things to happen to you at school.

Being the rebel I was, upon discovering the school had the same model VCR as we did at home, I pinched my parent’s remote control in what was to be perhaps the most long-awaited prank in school history. I was to wait until the next time our teacher was sporting a hangover and needed a darkened classroom full of silent children and technology to do her job for her.

After months of waiting, finally my moment came and Miss Mercer informed us we’d be watching a documentary on where babies come from. Before pressing play she went to great lengths to tell us that she wouldn’t tolerate any giggling and we were to wait until the end to ask questions. Perfect time to whip out the remote!

The video was full of the usual drivel adults feed you about sex - “When a man and woman love each other very much” etc - but there was a cartoon of a couple copulating under the bedsheets that was probably the most risque thing we’d been exposed to at aged 11. As this bit inevitably got the most giggles, it was this bit I rewound and replayed… over and over again.

Every time, Miss Mercer would get up, eject the cassette and give it a shake before putting it back on again. The video would resume playing and I’d rewind right on back to the sexy bit. The same dance went on for some 10 glorious minutes and I gained some serious admiration from my mates. I’d have totally got away with it too, had it not been for one child who proceeded to grass me up after an argument over boyfriends one lunch-time.

A letter home and 2 weeks of detentions for that little stunt.

Lost in translation

I clench a little every time I think of this.

At school, you understand, your vocabulary swells and inflates quickly. You end up using these words either eloquently or apathetically for the rest of your life - let’s face it many of us have winced over a colleague’s improper use of their, they’re or there. Yet fortunately for me, English was one of my stronger subjects, and good grades came easily enough. Essays on Return of the Native or King Lear were laden with commentary on catharsis, pathetic-fallacy and nods to the socio-economic context in which they were written. In short, I knew my stuff.

Yet for all the grandiose words Mrs Archer taught us, I was also learning new words from my classmates - the sort you’re more likely to hear from me today (and the sort I seriously hope my own kids use a little less publicly).

So one day, when outrageously flirting with my maths teacher (despite his New Balance trainers, he rode a motorbike which elevated him to James Dean-like status) in front of the entire class I playfully hit him with the C Bomb. I remember clearly his eyebrows narrowed and his whole demeanor changed.

In fairness, I hadn’t actually meant to disgrace myself or insult him. In my mind, cu$t was playful, inoffensive and U-rated, like prat. When it was obvious to him that the severity of what I had said was lost on me, he asked me to both repeat it and tell the class what it meant. After stumbling my way through a pretty ineffectual explanation, he proceeded to tell me its more anatomical meaning. It seemed I’d effectively called the sexiest teacher in school a walking vagina.

I might have hoped that his anger would dilute down to bemusement, but it didn’t. I got a week’s worth of detentions for that one.

A first kiss made public

Despite being pretty popular, my first proper kiss came later for me than it did for most of mates. Not that they knew this of course. If you had asked them back then, they’d have told you I’d been snogging my hot slightly older neighbour for years. In fact, I was so into this make-believe boyfriend, it gave me the perfect excuse to avoid Spin the Bottle with my classmates.

By aged 12 though, after having a few sips of some lager a group of us had stolen from our dads, curiosity got the better of me. Early evening we crawled under my garden fence and onto our school field. There were real advantages to living so close to school as football pitches were marked out all year round and the teachers generally overlooked us using it if we didn’t leave litter.

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And so, sitting in the middle of a tennis pitch of Little Heath Secondary School, an empty bottle of Budweiser decided who I was share my first French kiss with. Wonderfully, it was to be Aaron, a shy but beautiful-looking boy that I’d written the odd poem about in my diary that summer- despite my nerves I leaned in and let him take the lead. What followed was your typical sloppy, mechanical and somewhat frightening first kiss we all end up having at some point in our teens - but to me it was perfect.

So perfect in fact, you might have thought I’d been delighted to discover it had actually been captured, for prosperity’s sake, by the school’s new CCTV system. It seemed our school might have turned a blind eye to children playing the odd game of 5-a-side on school property after the bell had gone, but they weren’t so amenable to drinking on school premises and lewd behaviour.

Some 7 of us were then invited into our Head of Year’s office and had the embarrassing job of assuring her we were only kissing and weren’t regularly exploring each others bodies behind the bike sheds. We might have managed to convince her that she was not going to have to deal with any teen pregnancies that summer, but she wasn’t willing to let us get away with the fact our choice of refreshment that evening had come in 440ml cans. Letters duly went home to our parents and most of us got grounded for a good few weeks.

So there it is - my three most abiding school memories. Technology, bad language and sex - all re-imagined for an adult audience. Come on then, dare you to tell me yours…

This is my entry into the #LVSchoolboyErrors comp via LV=

Sep 19 2015

Dining Room Inspiration with Homify

Posted on September 19, 2015 by admin

We’re finally making decisions when it comes to furnishing and styling our new home. I’m already bored of the plain magnolia walls and the furniture we hauled across from our old place. We had always planned to upgrade and replace bits when we got settled, and 8 long weeks is long enough!

I’ve always had a keen eye for interior design and once dreamed of becoming the next Patricia Urquiola or Loredana Sava- I’ve never been one for fluffing up spaces with MDF creations or “feature walls”, rather I prefer to invest in key pieces and accessorise around them to create a cohesive theme.

I also don’t believe there’s such a thing as too much research. Even if there’s one single thing in a photograph that inspires you, layering 50 of these onto a photo editing suite or CAD design tool, begins to really inform your sense of style. Often this is revealing too. You might think you want a contemporary Scandi-inspired dining room, then fall in love with an 17th century Welsh dresser that totally transforms your original vision. With this in mind, before you begin knocking down walls and shopping for accessories, it’s always worthwhile taking time to create a mood board of textures, colours and lighting effects that work together so you don’t end up with a Llewelyn-Bowen-esque mess.

Hünkar Proje / Özel Alternatif by Sonmez Mobilya Avantgarde Boutique Modoko

I’ve always been a huge fan of regency architecture and baroque-style interiors and want this little 70s terrace to reflect this. Not in a grandiose way, the space wouldn’t take it, but more of a subtle nod to the past. This house is smaller than our last home, but closer to Dexter’s new nursery, and (hopefully) school in a year’s time. It was always going to test us in terms of space yet we’re determined not to spend all day tripping over Lego or a menagerie of Fireman Sam toys. Our dining room therefore has to double as a space to stow away toys at the end of an evening.

Refectory-style dining tables with benches therefore would work well you can tuck the seating out of the way during the day. This maximises the floor space so you can invest in blanket boxes or storage trunks to house the kids bits when other grown-up shaped people come round to play. A large mirror will also create an illusion of space and depth that our dining room is so seriously lacking.

Helmsley : Classic style dining room by Prestigious Textiles

Helmsley by Prestigious Textiles

Lighting-wise, I’m hope to pick up a reclaimed chandelier to act as a focal point. This is where I can really go to town and be as bold, ornate and pretentious as I like. The room is rather dark so I’m aiming for something really captivating that will make a feature out of any shadows cast on the walls and French doors when it’s dark outside.

Residência A & F by Lyssandro Silveira

If you need inspiration for an interiors project, I’d thoroughly recommend Homify. This is a platform that allows both acclaimed and up & coming designers, commercial agencies and retailers to showcase their products and projects. It acts as an amazing resource for home decor inspiration with some 300k images and 670k home and living ideas. You can select a room or style then browse a catalogue of images to help hone your individual style or guide a project of your own. Once you’ve seen something that captures your imagination you can embed the image to your website, share via social media or save to an “ideabook” - allowing you to create a digital scrapbook of ideas for your home.

It’s well worth a look if you’re a bit of an interiors addict like me. Go check it out.

Sep 17 2015

Concerns about our children’s future… by region

Posted on September 17, 2015 by admin

I like to pretend I’m a pretty lazy parent. I often quip that I parent with a sense of humour and am definitely not one of those Pritt-stick wielding mums that enjoys crafting with their tots. You’re far more likely to see me down the park reading a book on a nearby bench whilst my little terrorists climb, swing and scurry up play equipment that is much too old for them. I believe children learn by their own mistakes and should be given as much freedom as possible to make them. My role is to be on hand with the plasters and a quick cuddle when it inevitably goes wrong.

However, time and time again my anxiety strikes and my true colours as a “worrier” burst forth like a busted kaleidoscope. No better was this illustrated than yesterday when one of Dexter’s nursery teachers deftly plucked an excited wriggling Dex from my arms at his first ever drop-off. With raised eyebrows she curtly informed me “He’ll be fine. You can leave now mum“. She had correctly predicted the floodgates were about to open and I was about to embarrass myself in front of dozens of other parents.

These anxieties often take a darker turn too. I’m forever watching Newsnight in bed, then waking up a snoring Craig to tell him that the world is ending. This country often scares me, and has fueled our plans to emigrate - not least for the sake of our children’s future. Plasters and mummy kisses can’t fix a broken and fragile economy.

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The repercussions of the financial crisis are enormous. As a family we now really struggle. Whereas before, we looked on at excessive house prices / rents as an amusing subplot, it’s now an all-consuming worry. Having stepped off the housing ladder ourselves (quite deliberately) we now can’t afford to climb back on. If we can’t afford it, how will our children? Our only opportunity will be when our parents pass away and their homes come to us by way of inheritance. Given we plan on hanging around as long as possible, we don’t want the same for Dexter and Heidi.

So when I recently stumbled on this post by Pocketful of Rye, sharing the results of a survey commissioned by My Voucher Codes, it really made me think. They asked over 1000 families here in the UK what most concerned them about their children’s future and broke the results down by region. Here’s the top-line:

London - Financial instability and economy – 48%
Scotland - Extremism, terrorism and safety – 30%
South West - Extremism, terrorism and safety – 43%
South East - House prices and high rents – 75%
Wales - Financial instability and economy – 60%
West Midlands - Financial instability and economy – 71%
East Midlands - House prices and high rents – 40%
Yorkshire & the Humber - Financial instability and economy – 60%
North East - Financial instability and economy – 57%
North West - Extremism, terrorism and safety – 68%
Northern Ireland - House prices and high rents – 33%

Whereas at first glance it would seem my own concerns neatly support the results (I’m in the South East), in fact they’re a real mix of all of the above. Although I hope, by the time the kids are of working age, that the economy will have miraculously reset, I do worry they’ll never experience a boom quite like we did in the 80s. Craig is old enough to have experienced this firsthand, whereas I did so indirectly via my parents. As an 80s child we had a large home, all of life’s luxuries and went on some epic holidays. Although, of course, I want my children to exercise financial caution and prudence, their own first paychecks will be under far stricter scrutiny than ours ever were.

Yet extremism and terrorism are also a MAJOR concern for me. I simply don’t believe this country is equipped to deal with the growing potential for civil unrest. We have a population of 650 people per square mile with a large proportion of us residing in terraced houses in tightly packed towns and cities. Although I don’t ascribe to the view that Britain is full, and do share in the compassion many of us have physically, financially and emotionally expressed towards asylum seekers and refugees, I do worry that our bulging communities could end up playing host to pockets of religious or political fundamentalism.

Let me be clear. I am not pointing the finger at any particular faith or group, nor do I resent living in a multi-faith community - rather I feel it enriches us as a nation. I do however feel that one day this idealist bubble will burst thanks to a die-hard few - either from within or outside our borders. In fact, the pin could just as likely come from a nation beset by political instability, or from a racist sect.

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Although 99.99999% of us respect our neighbours and enjoy living within full and vibrant communities, it only takes a handful of deluded people to shatter the peace, and where better for this to happen than in such a densely populated environment. In fact our density as a nation would make any riot, bombing or otherwise even more devastating.

In it’s crudest sense, I don’t believe Cameron, Brown, Blair or otherwise have done enough to nip dangerous rhetoric and narratives in the bud, and neither have we. My only hope is that my children can enjoy the relative religious freedom we have today and not be repressed by the few that so incalculably want to destroy it.