10 Things I Loved About The Royal Wedding

10 Things I Loved About The Royal Wedding

1.    1.        The stunt with the car as they drove away from Buck Palace – genius
2.       The way they kept smiling at each other throughout the service
3.       When William told Kate she looked beautiful as she arrived at the altar
4.       The way Harry snook the peek William wasn’t allowed to and told his brother how great she looked
5.       Kate’s “Oh wow” as she stepped on to the balcony
6.       Tara Palmer-Tompkinson’s dress – amazing
7.       Kate’s total composure.  Totally unfazed.  As if she was born for it
8.       The Queen’s yellow ensemble.   Only yolking!!
8a.  Kate’s dress.  One word.  Classy.  Loved the veil and the very under-stated tiara
9.       The kiss that was so good they did it again lol
10.   The fact they so clearly love each and are made to last ...
11.   The over-riding sense and sensibility of the pair of them.  Completely in tune with the public and determined to make the monarchy something that reflects the people

10 Things I Hate About .......driving in Lincoln

10 Things I Hate About ..... driving in Lincoln

1. how the traffic doubles when it rains - get an umbrella people!  And all you lazy kids, WALK to school
2. there's always a bus / tractor / lorry / van / truck willing to get in your way and drive veeeeery slowly
3. the drivers who think it is their right to barge out of a side street ... right in front of where your car was about to go
4. the merry mothers who let every man and his dog into the queue of traffic that you are stuck in and which is seriously impeding your ability to get to work on time
5. the Pelham Bridgers who deliberately choose the wrong lane to get ahead of the traffic and then assume you'll let them back into the one they want to be in when they have to move back into your lane.  No.  You can sit there and wait forever as far as I'm concerned - you shouldn't have tried to jump the queue.
6. the arseholes who block roundabouts so that the whole thing gridlocks - especially at South Common
7. the genius who created Tritton Retail Park ... on a route that already gets gridlocked
8. the multi-story where even your car has to go on a diet to fit into the bay
9. if the schools aren't on holiday, don't even bother.  And finally ......
10. if one route in/out is f****d, they're all f*****d

Harlan Coben - CAUGHT

Harlan Coben – Caught

Harlan Coben has been 1 of my favourite authors for as long as I can remember.  Ever since I bought his 4^th book, “One False Move” in a WHSmith special offer 10 years ago, I have done nothing but rave about his wit, his great characters and the speed with which he can download his adrenalized story right into the brain of the reader.

For 10 books he did nothing wrong, creating 2 of the best characters in modern fiction – Myron Bolitar and Windsor Horne Lockwood III – and moving deftly out of the potential graveyard of a series decline into the novels which moved him finally, and beyond overdue, into the mainstream.  Tell No One and Gone For Good unleashed the modern turbo thriller – real people caught in mundane lives as they turn sour, nightmarish and ghostly.

For the last 3 books, something has been wrong.  For the last 3 books, something has been missing.  Some indefinable spark has poofed and floated away (and is probably now living with Greg Iles or Simon Kernick).  The wit is still there, but it’s an echo, a 3^rd rate sit-com with the lights turned low.  He still creates agreeable characters, and their mouths are still occasionally wonderfully sharp, but they lack the emotional resonance of some of his finer and more complex creations. 

And then there is the story itself, as if his search for nightmares in a mundane world has delivered him to just one conclusion – those lives are mundane for a reason, and with it comes the hum drum of his latest novel.

Wendy Tynes is agreeable enough, smart, spunky and with a sarcastic attitude.  The set-up is good too:  as a TV reporter, Wendy “exposes” a local paedophile who is then murdered.  Is it justice, or was she set up to frame an innocent man ?   Five years ago, Coben would have made this an amazing story, mining the complex moral see-saw of the is-he/isn’t-he scenario, and adding incomparable threat when a conspiracy starts to emerge.

This time, the story limps along, readable enough, but lacking any complexity or depth.  It reads like the book of an author on a treadmill – one who can no longer wait to be inspired because his latest deadline is looming closer every day.  It’s a shame – with more time or thought, the book could have been so much more than the sum of its parts.  As it is, it’s storytelling by numbers.  Easy, readable numbers, yes, but 2-dimensional numbers never the less.

The blurbs on the book still trumpet the amazingness of Coben’s latest work.  Of course, they’re not doing that at all.  They are the long overdue words of the very critics who didn’t notice him when he was brilliant, and now applaud his lofted position in a crowded market.  Unfortunately, their long delayed adulation will force readers to this book, only to be disappointed.

Unfortunatelier still, those same critics don’t direct the reader to any of his masterpieces – probably because they still haven’t read them.

Save yourself and Coben: read one of his earlier books, preferably one of his first 5 Bolitar books, (when he was on fire, racing like a tornado and spitting out pithy one-liners faster than a coked-up comedian) and hope that the extra royalties will earn him the extra rest he clearly needs to recharge his thrilling batteries.

3/5

(because I love him and refuse to diss him too bad)

Cheater's Fish Pie

Cheater’s Fish Pie

Quantities to suit however many you’re cooking for

·         White fish eg cod

·         Other fish to choice – smoked haddock, salmon, tuna

·         Bag of large prawns frozen (no need to that)

·         Optional – bag of frozen mixed shellfish – prawns / squid / mussels / scallops

The rest –

·         Single cream

·         Dill – born to be used with fish

·         Soy sauce (to find the perfect cream / spice balance)

·         White wine or sherry

·         Garlic and chilli – ideally blitzed by a blender.  Failing that, just squirt a dollop from a tube or use a teaspoon of the easy stuff you get in a jar

·         1 large onion

·         Sweetcorn – optional

·         Frozen peas – optional

·         Maris Piper potatoes to mash, with butter

1^st Things 1^st

Follow this order –

·         Peel the potatoes

·         Put the kettle on for the potatoes

·         Chop the potatoes into medium chunks (the smaller the chunk, the quicker they will boil)

·         Put the potatoes on

·         Chop your onion and place it in a separate bowl

·         If you’re going to blitz it, do your garlic and chilli now, to taste

·         Pour some oil into the widest flattest pan you have.  Choose your flavour – olive oil, garlic, chilli, lemon.  Place the fish in the pan and on top of it, spread your garlic/chilli paste and any other spices you want to add

·         After 10 mins, turn the fish over and add the onion

·         10 minutes later, check on your fish, peeling any skin off if you’re that bothered

·         Add your frozen shellfish and a good left-handed glug of wine / sherry (always use your non-writing hand for a less controlled splash!)

·         Let things simmer for another 10 minutes, adding the peas and the sweetcorn half-way throug.  Turn the heat down low and add your cream, soy sauce and anything else you might want, spice-wise

·         Whilst this is gently simmering, drain your potatoes, throw in some butter, and mash ‘em up.  Whilst you’re mashing, drop your dill into the fish mix as your final step

·         ALWAYS test the meal before you serve it – it’s better to add a bit more wine / cream / soya sauce than serve something that’s “missing” something

The Cheat’s Choice

Serve the mash up onto your plates, as a base, like rice

Serve your fish mixture on top

The Posher Choice

Put your fish mixture in a deep casserole dish, filling it up at least half way.  Spread your potato mixture on top

If you want to, put some cheese on, or crispy bacon

Be careful – you need at least 1cm gap before the rim of the dish.  Once you put the pie in the oven, it WILL bubble (approx 180 for about 20 mins)

Et voila J

If you like, you can smart with it, experimenting with different spices.  Keep the veggies simple – broccoli is good, as is celery, but don’t over do it.  Equally, don’t do NO veg !

And for an extra mmmmm use less cream and add in some Bisto parsley granules

Being A Mommy - week 1 part 2

When you are alone with the baby, things are not good.

Things are in a constant state of panic and agitation.  You can’t settle, rest or relax.  And most of all, you want your old life back.  It’s not that you wish harm on your baby or wish her to cease to exist, you just want this to NOT be your reality.

You throw out a comment about adoption to see how it goes down.  The movie star boyfriend, with typical sensitivity, tells you you should have thought of that before you got pregnant.  Harsh, very harsh, but who is there to tell you these things ?  This is how the whole Silence of the Sisterhood started – a conspiracy of fertility, sacrifice and resignation.  No one tells you how hard it is, no one.  So how the hell are you supposed to know you can’t cope with it?

You know it’s bad for several reasons –

·         You’re not eating.  For someone who loves food more than almost anything, this is always a bad sign

·         When you are forced to eat, you eat Pot Noodle.  Since you have always described this as less nutritious than cardboard, it is a very very bad sign.

·         In the night, when you can’t sleep because you are waiting for the baby to wake up (how sick and ironic is that) you wonder what would happen if the roof accidentally collapsed.  Not on your room, just the baby’s.

That’s my sickest confession.  I really did think that once.  And I didn’t even consider it worryingly wrong.

Bizarrely, it’s the little things that save you.  A control freak by nature, I find that if I write down exactly how much Beth has drunk, I will be able to predict how long she will sleep.  This gives me a measure of control over my day and makes life feel less random.  The victory is small, but valuable.

Big Brother.  Seriously.  It’s the year the Scottish religious one wins, and E4 is streaming it live, 24/7.  In a world where nothing exists except the baby, this stupid show becomes my family, my friends and my neighbours.  If I keep the TV on, I feel less alone.  I don’t talk to them (I am after all depressed, not mad) but just having them there, talking bollocks, keeps me a teeny bit sane.  Go figure.

It takes about 6 weeks for the breakthrough.  On the edge and at a loss, I beg my auntie if she would love the chance to have Beth for the weekend.  She gladly jumps at the chance and I immediately feel something like opium soothe through my veins.  All week I countdown to the magical moment, and actually talk to my daughter, telling her exciting things about her trip.  Eagerly, I bundle her into the car, and it’s not til she’s all the way down the road and out of sight that I realise what a very very wrong thing I have done.  I am consumed with guilt at the selfishness of what I have done and what I have put my daughter through (I’m sure she’s having a blast with her auntie, but that’s not the point).  I am overcome by a ridiculous urge to travel 50 miles and bring her back, and that, my friend, is when I finally accept I am a mother.  Standing there on the side of the road, forlorn at the departure of my innocent baby girl I feel like the lowest form of shit and know, just know, that I have to be better.  She is innocent, pure and innocent, and unless I want to scar her for life, I must stop wallowing and crack on with this motherhood shit.

2 interesting asides to the story –

Part of sending Beth away for the weekend was to spend more time with Shaun, who promptly came home, didn’t notice she’d gone, decided we’d watch a film I didn’t want to see, and then feel asleep halfway through ...

And the next time my aunt and uncle visited, I was actually holding Beth.  It’s one of the saddest moments in my life that his immediate reaction was not “hello”, but to say “well done, that’s the first time I’ve seen you holding Beth.”  Tears, sometimes they flow, and sometimes they really flow.

The drugs do work.  They started to stabilise me and helped me take baby steps with my baby.  They helped me resolve not to cry in front of Beth, however shitty I was feeling, because she did not deserve it.  They helped me want to be the mother she deserved, however inadequate I was, and eventually, they helped us decide to move to Lincolnshire, so that I could have a network of real people to support me, not just Big Brother.

That’s not to say the next 2 years were easy – they weren’t – but loving my baby became infinitely easier, and far easier than loving my movie star boyfriend.

Being A Mommy - week 1

Post natal depression is a kick ass poker player.  It doesn’t hit you 1-2, 1-2 like a boxer would.  No, it prefers to screw with your head so that you actually think you’re fine, even though you have never been so far from fine in your life.

It lets you think you’re getting away with it, even though you’ve battled depression twice before.  You know the signs, you’re braced, you’re aware of the growing numbness, but this doesn’t stop you hoping you are wrong.  Even when the amazing movie star boyfriend leaps in with his self-pitiful, “this is great, I just fucking knew it”, you wonder why you didn’t, and why you are so disappointed.

For the 2 days you were in hospital, you thought you were coping.  You smiled at your visitors, you generously let everyone who wanted to hold and snuggle your baby, you even managed to change baby’s clothes (you try not to dwell on the fact that it took you half an hour to summon the courage to even attempt this).   You dismiss as normal the way her cry knifes through you, and how very very grateful you are when the nurses take her away to the sleep ward.

It’s only 1 week later, at the insistence of your wonderfully honest GP, that you face the truth – you are only fine when you are not being a mother.

I was always adamant I would never have children.  I always knew I wasn’t maternal, and that really deep down I was far too selfish to be a mother.  My own had been amazing – loving, selfless and inevitably a little smothering – and I knew that was not an existence I could subscribe to.  Inevitably, it took her death to make me realise what I had lost and how to regain it.

Even when I was pregnant, I think I was more in “shopper” mode.  It’s very exciting having a whole new room to design and plan, and a whole heap of clutter to buy for it.  And let’s not forget, baby clothes and soft toys are very very cute and very very cuddly – they do indeed make you go aaaah.  Funnily, I never realised I was buying them in a standalone sense, rather than for a little someone to use.

And then there’s the whole garage full of crap required for the baby just to function – prams, car seats, sterilisers, bottles – it goes on, as does the quest for the “perfect” one.  Such a little person, so much clutter.

And so on the day you leave hospital it really really dawns on you, with the sensitivity of a hammer, that however you walked in, you are walking out as a mother.  What the hell does that mean? And how am I supposed to do it?  I’m great at my job, ok as a girlfriend, positive as a person – but no one taught me what this motherhood malarkey means.  I am acutely, rawly aware that I really need my own mother to illuminate the path.  Stubbornly, the path stays depressingly dark.

By the time the movie star boyfriend arrives to take you home, you can barely contain your nerves, your fears or your rage.  You have been trying to telephone him all morning – now he tells you that he didn’t answer the phone because he was determined to enjoy his last lie-in of his adult life.  WFT?  Did I seriously have a baby with this piece of shit?

The first couple of days at home are bewildering, scary and like nothing I have ever had to cope with before.  For the first time, I do not have all the answers, or know how to find them, or have any confidence in what I am doing.  The baby monitor which I considered essential is just annoying – if the baby’s finally asleep, I can’t cope with the stress of listening to her sleeping.  Knowing my bubble of peace could be punctured at any minute is almost more than I can bear.

Due to the caesarean, moving is difficult. My ankles still look like concrete pillars and my head is a mess.  I have never known a tiredness so deep or so inescapable – like a tide pulling me under, all I want to do is drown in it.

And there’s so much to do.   When the baby is awake it needs watching or interacting with.  And when it’s asleep there’s bottles and sterilising and all that crap to do (Beth thankfully having given up on breast-feeding just before the movie star boyfriend punched the wall because she wouldn’t “crack on with it”.)  Which is all fine, crap but fine, until you wonder when you’re ever going to shower again or have a meal again.  You’re not even fussy.  It doesn’t have to be a cooked meal, just any sort of meal.

And then the bomb drops.  Almost as soon as the baby is home, Shaun has to go back to work.  You have felt his departure counting down like a nuclear warning for the last 2 days and suddenly it is here.  Your only response is to cry.  You are scared shitless.  How the hell are you going to cope with a baby for 12 hours while he is at work?  Alone?!  OMG, alone.  You.  You and the baby.  Alone.  The panic is shrill and all encompassing.  It has enslaved you – all you can do is think about it and how the hell you are going to get through it.

Through it.

After the Caesarian

Being a Mommy – Day 1

Lying under the lights of the spaceship, everything is numb.  You can turn left and see your “not too sure what to do so I may as well smile” boyfriend.  You can turn right and see the 2 nurses.  Bless them.

But no.  Shit.  They are nodding that nod of encouragement and offering you the baby.  Offering you the scary thing you realise you haven’t really thought through.  Offering you the thing that you have not been able to give birth to, (and you actually feel deprived about this) and the thing that you didn’t feel, see, hear or feel or feel or feeeeel coming out of you.

You smile back politely and look away.  And that’s when they speak.  “Would you like to hold your baby?”  Er, no.  Even numbed up, you realise this is probably socially unacceptable so you force your brain into some top grade lying – “oh .. woozy .. wouldn’t want to drop it, ha ha”.

They nod.  But it’s one of those nods that you can know won’t give up.

At the earliest opportunity, the boyfriend disappears to make the celebratory phone calls.  You lie there pathetically, not wanting him to go – who will form the barrier between you and the baby if he’s not in the room ?

Panicked, you see the smiley nodding nurse moving in for the kill – here is a baby, your baby.  I smile blankly.  Wouldn’t want to drop the baby ha ha.  The nodding stops and her bullshit-o-meter spikes – “just let the baby lie on you” she commands.  You make some sort of noise, but it’s no good.  You’re trapped.  And there’s some sort of baby on you.

In the movies and the rom-coms and the TV shows, this is where the glowing, sweaty, apple-cheeked momma leaks a few photogenic tears and starts a life of endless cooing about her baby.  This is where she shakes her head in awe and wonder, gazes lovingly into the eyes of her soulmate and feels the world CLICK into a jigsaw of perfection.   She will feel blessed, joyful, brimming with love and declare it the most momentous moment of her life.

She is not me.

I lie there.  Numb.  Numb in oh so many ways. Numb from the epidural which I am frantically trying to convince myself is not wearing off because then I would have to admit reality is intruding.  Numb to how I should be feeling.  Numb to myself.  Numb and immune and apart from what is expected of me.

I look down, assuming a glance at my baby will change me into Jennifer Aniston in Friends.  But nothing.  Numb.  How is this baby me ?  How did it get here?  What am I supposed to do – now, today, tomorrow, the rest of my life ?  Why don’t I want to hold this thing ?  Why can I not even touch it ?

7 years down the line, it is hard to contrast how I feel now with the stark horror of those few hours.  I love my daughter more than I love myself, more than life, more than crisps, more than my eBay pleasures, yet that first day (hell, let’s be truthful, the first year ?  two years ?)  I did not know how to love her.  I lay there, waiting for love to spring and wash over me like a mommy shower, longing to bathe and drown in its waters but ... nothing.  Numb.

Bad as this is, and numb as this is, you remember a vague sliver of yourself.  Oh yes, control freak.  A lifetime of being out of control with this baby thing.  Shit.

So you’re lying there quietly, ignoring the blob thing sleeping on your chest, when the husband sweeps back in.  You have never been so happy to see him and immediately urge him to get this baby off you.  Smug nurse strikes back – let’s see if baby’s hungry.

Breast-feeding.  Oh fuck.

Everything about pregnancy has told you that your body is no longer your own.  You have lost your special hang-ups and shynesses and no longer care who sees it or what it does.  Hell, if you can survive the piles and the magic bullet, you can survive anything.

So you let the nurse tug your gown away and look at you expectantly until she realises if there’s any feeding to be done, she’s going to have to do all the legwork herself.  You force the non-numb bits of you into the bed, steeling yourself for what this leeching experience is going to steal out of you, and vaguely, only vaguely because by now you are drowning in numbness and don’t really care, you notice the husband frown at you, wondering why the earth mother he ordered has forgotten to take your place.

Part of you, a small part, a part clinging to life rather than the vortex of the fast approaching depression, thinks this could be the moment.  That as soon as the baby starts suckling, it will unleash some miraculous motherness in you and a white glow will spread through your body transforming you from nothingness into Jennifer Anistonness.  You take a deep breath – here goes.

Breast feeding is the weirdest thing.  Some women love it.  Frankly I didn’t get it, and thankfully, neither did Beth.  Unlike all the baby animals you see in zoo programmes, real babies don’t automatically search for the nipple, or know what to do with it, or guzzle with parched thirst.  They kind of roam around like blind eels, put the thing in their mouth and ignore it, and just ... lie there.  To break the monotony, they cry that they’re hungry.  Like the men they spring from, they cry over the problem rather than grasping the solution.

So you lie there.  Numb but no longer numb enough, and as some sucking starts and you realise with a weird distaste that it’s a baby not a man causing that tugging sensation.  You persevere, waiting for the gush of motherness, warmth, love, selflessness that still does not come.  The baby, eventually, in a half-arsed way so reminiscent of her father, starts to drink and the nurse all but breaks into a gospel Hallalujah.

You, well you’re not so impressed or awed or anything.  One look at the nurse bitch tells you she can’t wait to try this breast-feeding malarkey again.

Relieved that the nurse is satisfied enough to snuggle the baby down for a nap, you shrink into the bed and fake tiredness.  Willingly they wheel you back to the ward.  You close your eyes hoping to shut out the world, but annoyingly, like a thorn, it’s still there.

You let the boyfriend go and do boyfriend things.  You will the sleep down on you, and pray with a fervour that has eluded you for years that you’ll wake up back in your old world.