Author: samantha

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This Week I Have Been….

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – The House Keeper by Valerie Keogh

I “borrowed” this book from Amazon Prime Reading, I have no idea how this works and I see there is an option to return. I should do that, hopefully there is not going to be the librarian of my childhood with her ink stamp asking me for a fifty pence fine. The predictable Kindle hyperbole reads “The completely addictive, unputdownable psychological thriller”. Well I wouldn’t go that far. The story follows recently widowed Cassie Macreddin who has used her late husband’s life assurance payout to purchase an Hindon House, an old home in need of much TLC. Cassie wants to turn in into a B&B. Cassie hints very early one that she was somehow responsible for her late husband, Richie’s death.

Cassie moves into the pretty much derelict house when other, more sensible, people would probably have made alternative living arrangements while the most essential work was being done. Every little creak makes her jump and she seems very paranoid. She is suspicious of everybody, especially the estate agent who sold her the property, are they trying to drive away because they want the old wreck of a home for themselves? It does not make much sense, why wouldn’t they have just bought it themselves? The kitchen in particular gives Cassie the shivers as does a dark corridor of little rooms that look like cells.

Cassie is ridiculously clumsy and there is description after description of her various falls and injuries. She enlists the help of Daniel, a local builder and, predictably he is handsome and single. He can’t be a very good builder though because he and his team are able to start work immediately, no planning permission or architect needed apparently . When Cassie visits the local café the staff all whisper in a huddle when they learn that she is the buyer of Hindon House, what is it they know that she doesn’t? An elderly neighbor stops by with chocolate cake and Cassie tries to extract some information from her, unsuccessfully.

I was about thirty chapters into The House Keeper when I began to wonder if anything was ever going to happen, it is far too long and repetitive. Towards the end of the book the story picks up pace and moves to a vey far-fetched conclusion. The story would have been better with a lot of the padding removed because by the end I had totally lost interest.

Watching – Omeleto on YouTube

My daughter has been home from university and we have been watching the Omeleto YouTube channel which showcases short films. There are many different genres, horror, sci-fi, comedy, drama, animation etc. The films on the Omeleto celebrity channel feature well known actors such as Barry Keoghan, Maisie Williams and Guy Pierce. Some of the films are only a few minutes long and the overall quality of content is excellent. We watched The Disappearance of Willie Bingham on the Omeleto horror channel, which was far too gruesome for my taste and The IMom on the Sci-Fi channel. We also watched Curve, directed by Tim Egan, on another channel, Short of The Week , a conundrum of a film which I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Listened To – Redhanded – a Wondery podcast on Itunes

Redhanded is an award winning true crime podcast which usually covers a different high-profile crime each episode, occasionally the same case may be covered over two or three episodes. I believe it is the number one true crime podcast in the UK and has an international fanbase. It is presented by two young women who really know their stuff – Hannah MaGuire and Suruthgi Bala. They are both well travelled, funny and intelligent. One of the first episodes I listened to was about the very sad case of Otto Warmbier, the young American student who went on a trip to North Korea, was accused of treason and then returned to his parents after a year in a vegetative state. Sadly, Otto died shortly afterwards. The news coverage of this case upset me greatly at the time and I listened to the episode in the hope of gaining some clarity about what had happened. The show provided just that and Hannah had even visited the border of South and North Korea and had some fascinating insights. All of the disturbing content is sensitively presented with a touch of humour. The episodes on Casey Anthony and Natalia Grace are literally jaw dropping. I found the episodes featuring the Grenfell Tower fire and the murder of Sarah Everard rage inducing because both tragedies could have been so easily prevented if various government officials had only done their jobs properly. Redhanded is free to listen to but you can also sign up for their Patreon and access much more content.

Thanks for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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M.A.C. Mineralize Skinfinish Powder & Wet ‘n’ Wild Colour Icon Lipliner

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My daughter bought me this M.A.C. powder for Christmas after I dropped my brand new Clinique compact and had tried to salvage the contents by mixing the broken up powder with surgical spirit as per a YouTube tutorial . It worked perfectly but my face smelled of newly-pierced ears which wasn’t exactly pleasant. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat!

I don’t believe I have ever used a M.A.C. product before, I always find the sales assistants slightly intimidating and their beauty counters are always so busy that it is difficult to browse. I also perceive it to be a brand for younger women. They sell a variety of face powders offering different coverage and finishes. SkinFinish powder, currently £27.70, comes in a black plastic, domed compact which seems unnecessarily chunky and looks a bit cheap in my opinion. There is a very small mirror inside. Annoyingly there is no applicator at all. The powder is best applied with a brush but I did buy a couple of velour powder puff applicators from Boots for about £1.50 and I wonder why M.A.C. don’t include something like this.

I have to say that SkinFinish is the second best best pressed powder I have ever used, my all-time favourite being Lancome’s Dual Finish which appears to have been discontinued. The M.A.C. powder is very flattering on my skin. I have the shade Light. It isn’t at all chalky and just a tiny amount provides excellent, lasting coverage with a slightly dewy finish. I am seriously impressed. I would suggest, if you have skin that gets a little oily throughout the day, then another, more matte, powder in the range may be a better choice.

I purchased the Wet ‘n’ Wild lipliner purely because I needed to make a tiny purchase to qualify for free delivery on an Amazon Prime order This product was £1,75 and has turned out to be one of my favourite beauty purchases in years. The shade, Brandy Wine, is a tiny bit darker that my natural lip colour and I just fill in my entire lips with a very light layer and then go over the top with some lip balm, usually Burt’s Bees. The colour lasts for hours and looks very natural. The lipliner pencil is very long and I can’t imagine needing to replace it for years. A bargain!

Thanks for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Rosa Rafael on Unsplash

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It’s All A Lot Of Oysters But No Pearls

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

The title of this post is taken from the song A Long December by Counting Crows and seems to sum this week up perfectly although, now I have started thinking about it, I realise there have been some nice moments.

I have been ridiculously busy at work, feeling overwhelmed and it seems that my email inbox is like the fairy tale The Magic Porridge Pot, it just constantly refills. For very email I deal with three more seem to pop in. I have come to dread the accompanying chime. My shoulders have been hurting because I have been tensely hunched over my desk, working at the speed of light, for seven hours at a time. I am not very good at taking breaks but I need to get up and stretch every now and again before I completely seize up.

I had a day off on Tuesday and was looking forward a a little rest but my husband had booked a man in to clean the carpets, he was due to arrive at 8am. Groan. Obviously the rooms had to be cleared of clutter (thank goodness for my March decluttering efforts, see my post So Much Stuff! ) All the windows had to be left wide open all day even though it was freezing. I messaged my friend to have a moan and she invited me over for a cup of tea. How lovely to have a friend who knows you are chilly and proffers a heated gilet as soon as you arrive.

My dad called me later, in pain with toothache. Having had the most awful, ongoing dental infection a couple of years ago I have great empathy for anyone suffering like this. My parents can no longer get to the NHS dentist and have started using the lovely but very expensive private dentist in our village. Fortunately she was able to fit Dad in for the following day and I arranged to spend the afternoon sitting with Mum. I had some numbing gel that helped while Dad waited to be seen. Poor Dad, he really looks after his teeth, flossing and using interdental brushes but has been beset with problems for years. The dentist extracted the tooth, the second in six months. It was at the back of his mouth so he doesn’t have a visible gap. Mum didn’t really want me at their house and kept telling me to go home which can be a little hurtful but I just have to remind myself that she doesn’t mean it. Or perhaps she does, I hope not.

I then received a letter from the NHS telling me I was being fined for not paying for my migraine mediation months and months ago. I have paid for my prescriptions my entire adult life but the pharmacist mistakenly put my migraine meds in with my HRT which I had pre-paid for. How I was supposed to know this is a mystery. My husband had collected the sealed paper bag and I didn’t open it for weeks. I tried explaining this to the NHS appeals team but it was like speaking to a brick wall and I paid the fine which was around £50.

My daughter came home from university for a week yesterday. It was lovely to see her although as soon as she was through the door she said her laptop isn’t working well. I am hoping that a replacement battery will do the trick. We have been spending the evenings watching a documentary on Netflix called HellCamp: Teen Nightmare. Parents spent $16,000 in 1989 to send their wayward teens off to hike in the Utah desert for months at a time or to be stuck aboard a boat for a year. Some children were used as slave labour . The most famous participant in one of these programmes was Paris Hilton. Thousands of American children still attend these camps despite the recent bad publicity. It is nice to snuggle up with my daughter and watch something together, usually while eating a giant bag of Chocolate Buttons.

So not the best week but, looking back, nothing majorly bad has happened. There are so many people in the world suffering terribly at the moment and my trivial problems are inconsequential in comparison. I have just been feeling tired, cold, headachy and a little frazzled. I have probably also been watching the news too much. The spring will soon be here and it will be nice to feel the sun for a change.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Dagmara Dombrovska on Unsplash

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The Dementia Diaries – Chapter Six Heart Attack – Part II

On By samanthaIn THE DEMENTIA DIARIESLeave a comment

My dad had his heart attack on a Sunday evening and, thank goodness, was recovering well in hospital. My parents had been happily married for over seventy years. By the Tuesday morning, not even forty-eight hours later, Mum appeared to have forgotten he had ever existed. It was absolutely staggering. She slept very late on Tuesday morning and came downstairs, not seeming in the least surprised to see her daughter in the house instead of her husband. She was in such a cheerful mood, chatting away about this and that. Then my brother popped in straight from the hospital. He sat in Dad’s chair. Mum kept looking at him with a puzzled, worried expression. Then she said “it’s a shame my son died isn’t it?”. Thank goodness my parents have never lost a child. I tried to explain that it was my brother sitting in Dad’s chair, that nobody had died and that Dad was still in hospital. She needed reminding she had a husband. My parents don’t have single framed photo of themselves in their house and I don’t know where the photo albums are kept so I couldn’t show her a picture. She kept looking suspiciously at my brother, studying his face, and I thought how frightening and disorienting it must feel to not grasp what is going on or to recognise your own children.

Mum then kept asking me if she and Dad had been happy. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say they have had a wonderful marriage. The sort of relationship where both people really love and look after the other one. Since Dad retired they do everything together. Dad still buys Mum flowers every single week. I told Mum all of that and she seemed pleased. An hour later she kept asking “did I have a husband?” over and over though so none of this information had been retained. I took her back to my house for dinner with my family and then we returned to my parents’ house and settled down for bed. Mum looked heartbreakingly frail in her nightdress.

Wednesday, Mum woke up at the crack of dawn in a foul mood. I was trying to do the washing and cleaning but everything I did was wrong. I set Mum’s place at the breakfast table but it was in the wrong position and she made me move the placemat and cutlery even though it made no difference. Didn’t I know she had two cups of tea not one? She can be very forceful, far more so than pre-dementia. My colleague rang to check in on me and I got quite choked up. I almost never cry but, no matter how old you are, having your mother constantly criticise you is very hurtful and I had hardy slept for a couple of nights. Mum didn’t mention Dad at all that day until I rang the hospital and spoke to him and my brother. I put the phone on speaker and they had a little chat. Once it was clear that Dad was going to recover we made the decision that wouldn’t take Mum to see him at the hospital. We knew from experience that would get very confused and distressed when we reached the ward. This happened when we visited my uncle, she thought she was being left there by herself and became quite distraught.

On Thursday Dad came home. Mum was over the moon to see him. Absolutely over the moon. She kept kissing him and telling him how much she loves him and how much she had missed him. I didn’t tell Dad that she had forgotten his very existence for a couple of days. Dad looked very pale and tired but happy to be home. He is the sort of person not to make a big fuss over anything. He is taking part in a trial where elderly patients are treated with medication rather than having a heart bypass. In the year since his heart attack he has not once seen a cardiologist or had any follow up other than a chat on the phone with a nurse. He is very organised with his medication and seems to be doing well. For the first week or so I went over every evening and helped with preparing and cleaning up dinner and with the housework. Now I pop over and help with the housework twice a week, especially the washing because there is now so much of it, sadly. Dad still does almost everything though and his kindness and patience is extraordinary. I have never once heard him sound impatient or irritated with Mum. For now, we are all muddling along together.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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What’s In Your Bag?

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I rarely look at YouTube but last week I was looking for videos demonstrating how to make an A Level study timetable for my youngest son – exciting I know.  On my home page was a video suggested entitled What’s In My Bag? Huh? People actually spend their free time watching women discuss the contents of their handbags?? How asinine, I thought. An hour later, having entered some sort of trance state, I had watched about five of the videos, mostly Korean or Japanese YouTubers, no speaking just soothing background music playing and clumsily translated subtitles along the lines of “let me introduce you to the contents of my elegant bag” and “this lipstick creates an elegant and stylish atmosphere around the mouth”. The contents are all almost identical, a Louis Vuitton key pouch, £240, seems to be almost compulsory, a Gucci or YSL card holder, Airpods, huge iPhone, and a flat, rectangular bottle of hand-sanitiser which they all spray in the air around their faces declaring that it smells wonderful. I can’t imagine it is very good for their lungs.

Video on Youtube by GrownVlog

So what’s in my bag? I have small Ralph Lauren bag that I sometimes use if I am going out of an evening but, usually, I prefer a hobo style because I like to carry around a lot of totally unnecessary things.  In fact, creature of habit that I am, I have been buying a variation on the same style of bag for the past fifteen years. My current version is from Whistles, the style is called Baye. Black pebbled leather, gold hardware and very simple. In the summer I have an oak coloured Mulberry Bayswater (bought in the sale fifteen years ago) which I plan to sell as it is too heavy and formal. I tend to buy good quality items and use them for a long time.

The contents of my bag are not very exciting I’m afraid. The beautiful young YouTubers are all about Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Givenchy, Chanel and Céline. I did have a Chanel wallet but I recently sold it as I felt embarrassed using it at the Tesco checkout. Fortunately the large Classic Flap style I owned was recently discontinued so it became a desirable collectors item and I was able to recoup my money. Now I have a small Kate Spade purse, bought for £50 in the sales. Also in my bag you will find my ancient and very scratched Harrods key ring, a reusable shopping bag, small notebook, pen, umbrella, numerous crumpled but unused tissues, a Burts Bees lip balm or three, a mirror, comb, perfume sample, gloves and, if I’m likely to be waiting around anywhere, my Kindle. I did have beautiful silver keyring from Tiffany, given to me by a colleague years ago when I left work to have my first child, but a builder borrowed my keys for an afternoon and then never returned them. He looked me right in the eye and said he’d never been in possession of them. I hope he got a good price selling it or that his wife enjoys using my lovely keyring. I really should treat myself and replace it.

There’s something comforting about having a few of your own possessions with you at all times. In Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments when the women were rounded up their bags were confiscated and Atwood refers to the fact that they missed their little packets of tissues. Sadly, that was to be the least of their problems.

Now that I have wasted an hour watching this rather hypotonic content I should get back to researching A Level revision timetables!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha 

Cover Photo by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash

So Much Stuff!

On By samanthaIn FAMILY2 Comments

Stuff – if you are fortunate enough to live in a first world country the chances are you own too much of it. I seemed to spend my twenties, thirties and forties accumulating things and now I am trying to get rid of most of it. What a colossal waste of time and money. In my dining room I have an ugly silver tray with three crystal decanters I received as a wedding gift displayed on it. I have never once used any of them in the twenty nine years that I’ve owned them. I only notice them when I’m dusting. Somebody, I can’t remember who, probably spent a lot of money on them and it makes me feel guilty to think about lugging them all to a charity shop, I doubt I’d be able to sell them . Who uses decanters anymore? My husband is decorating my daughter’s bedroom and, even though she is not an acquisitive person and has lots of her possessions with her at university, the clutter is spilling over into the rest of the house. Fleecy blankets, toiletries, sporting trophies, odd bits of jewellery are on every surface and it is driving me mad.

Every year at about this time I start decluttering. Three years ago I made it a serious project and I am pleased to say I still have empty cupboards where I have resisted replacing any of the items I got rid of. Anytime I am going to the local high street I make a point of having a look around the house first for items to donate to one of the many charity shops. My wardrobe is still full to bursting with clothes that I never wear though. The more I have spent on an item the more reluctant I am to let it go. I have two pairs of leather boots that I have worn about twice because they are too wide at the calves and it is really time to say goodbye to them. I tried selling them for a bargain price on the local Facebook page but the woman who said she was going to buy them didn’t turn up and they have languished at the bottom of my wardrobe ever since. I also have a collection of worn-once evening dresses that really need to go along with the various strappy heels I bought to wear with them. My feet hurt just looking at them.

Something I did manage to part with was the collection of Lladro ornaments I had received from a particular relative over a number of years (I hope she never reads this!). I bit the bullet and dropped them all at the charity shop. Our local British Heart Foundation shop now emails once a bag of donations has been sold letting the donor know how much it raised. This is such a good incentive. A recent bag of paperbacks and scarves I dropped in raised an impressive £19.

My project for March is to have a ruthless clear out of my clothes, towels, bedlinen and paperwork. My coat cupboard is full of similar black padded coats, some I have had for twenty years. I need to give most of them a quick rinse in the washing machine and then drop them off at the Salvation Army collection point. I will report back once my decluttering project is underway. In the meantime, if you are in need of any boots….

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Onur Bahçıvancılar on Unsplash

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This Week I Have Been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates

I love Joyce Carol Oates’ short stories but her novels are often too disturbing for me. I don’t tend to enjoy anything that has an ongoing threat of of violence and that is one of Oates’ specialties. Her short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, is one of the most menacing tales I have ever read. Second in the unsettling stakes only to Shirley Jackson’s horror, The Lottery. Oates is an extremely prolific writer having published over seventy books. Her short story collection Evil Eye is outstanding, the ending of the title story being something of a conundrum . I went straight back to the beginning and reread the whole thing but was still confused by the ending. If you haven’t read any of her work that would be an excellent place to start.

Babysitter, set in Detroit during the 1970’s is based loosely on the still unsolved serial killings of children that took place there during the time. These murders ae something of a background story to the domestic drama though. The story centers around Hannah Jarrold, an affluent housewife, approaching her fortieth birthday, who is married to Wes, a successful executive, they have two young children. It is clear from the beginning that Hannah has suffered some trauma at the hands of an abusive father she thinks of a “Joker Daddy”. It seems as though this is a part of her life that she has compartmentalised and Wes seems unaware of her past, in fact Wes really doesn’t seem to notice his wife at all anymore. One evening, while at a charity gala, where Hannah gives a speech and Wes is hoping to do some social-climbing, Hannah has a brief encounter with the enigmatic man she comes to know as YK.

Hannah seems to go through life in a state of permanent brain fog. She sleepwalks through her days making increasingly disastrous and irrational decisions. Although she has moments of complete clarity she does not have the emotional capacity to deal with anything unpleasant and pretends it is not happening. YK is about the worst thing that could happen to any woman and it is clear to the reader from the outset that he is a dangerous predator. No matter how brutal he is, Hannah simply thinks of him as her lover. She is grateful for the attention. YK’s “fixer”, Mikey, otherwise known as Ponytail, is an interesting character and he recognises pure evil when he sees it but is always there with his camera, ready to do YK’s bidding.

Wes feels that the country is on the brink of a race war and is keen to blame any crime on people who are not white. It conveniently fits his agenda and he doesn’t seem to much care about the truth of these accusations or the devastating impact they may have. An incident he has misunderstood, involving Hannah, is stoking his hatred of black people and his indifference to his wife.

I simply could not put Babysitter down, I found it absolutely riveting and found myself muttering warnings to Hannah under my breath as though she could somehow hear me through the page. It is extremely dark and the subject matter does not make for relaxing reading but it is the most compelling book I have read in a while, Domestic Noir at its finest.

Watching- Lover, Stalker, Killer on Netflix

This is a true crime documentary about Dave Kroupa a mechanic who finds himself newly divorced in his thirties. In 2012, like so many people, he goes online to look for a partner. He quickly meets Liz who he has a real connection with and they soon begin to spend quite a bit of time together. Liz, we are told, is a single mum who loves animals and is good with computers. Although Dave likes Liz he makes it clear that he is not ready for a serious commitment. Then Dave meets Cari who is a customer at the auto shop where he works and they begin a fast-moving romance. Cari is also a single mother. One evening, Liz turns up at Dave’s apartment as Cari is there and things begin to go very wrong.

Dave begins to receive hundreds and hundreds of threatening texts from multiple numbers as does his ex-wife and Liz. It s clear that the unhinged person sending the messages is constantly watching either him, Liz or his ex-wife and children. Dave finds himself on the edge of a nervous breakdown fearing for his family’s safety. Then things really escalate. Liz, herself the recipient of hundreds of threatening messages begins to fear for her life but where is Cari, she appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The policeman investigating is determined to find her.

I won’t give anything more away about how the story unfolds but, safe to say, it is full of twists and turns and the outcome is jawdropping and also very sad.

Listening to – Alligator Candy on Apple Itunes

This is a devastatingly sad podcast, narrated by David Kushner who, in October 1973, when he was four years old, asked his eleven year old brother, Jon, to bike to the local store and buy him some “Snappy Gator Gum”. The Kushners lived in a suburban area of Tampa, Florida and the nearest 7-Eleven store was at the other side of a woods populated by palm and cypress trees. For local children it represented adventure and freedom. Tragically Jon, a little red headed boy on his red bicycle headed off and was never seen alive again. Sadly he had run into the worst type of people, Johnny Paul Witt and Gary Tilman. More monsters than human beings. They were only arrested because Witt confessed to his wife who turned them into the police.

This is a very intimate podcast and David interviews his mother and other brother, Andy. They all seem such like lovely, kind people and the love that they have for eachother is evident Although Jon has been dead for fifty years it is clear that he is still much loved and remembered and Andy, a musician, performs a song he has written for his dead brother, it is incredibly moving.

David, only a tiny child when this happened, has blamed himself for half a century for asking his brother to go and buy the Snappy Gator Gum. The whole family have had to live with the knowledge that the worst type of nightmare can descend at any time. Although the subject matter is depressing, there is so much goodness and love in the Kushner family that it almost cancels out the horror. As David says, Jon was a boy on his bike, alone and independent, cycling through the woods. In the moments before his death he was happy. I hope that writing his book and making this podcast has helped David Kushner heal from this tragic and traumatic experience.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Heading Back To University – Part Two

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

It is early February and my daughter is returning to university after eight months at home, six of which she has spent on work placement in London. It has been lovely to have her at home and it almost felt like she’d never been away. When she first came home, in June, she didn’t seem entirely happy to be back. I think she had become used to eating what and when she wanted, coming and going as she pleased and now a little of her independence was gone upon her return.

Because she is doing a Business degree, two years of which involve work placements, she was unable to share a house with the friends she had made during her first year as they were all at university full time and I do think she felt that she was missing out socially. The Business students in Year Two and Year Three share the same student houses for a year. The Year Three Students have it for the first half of the academic year and the Year Two Students for the second half. In my daughter’s case, the contract with the landlady is for twelve students, it is all very complicated. Fortunately my daughter has made good friends with some people on her course and it is these girls she is now sharing with. In fact, this week, that are all heading off to Poland for somebody’s twenty first birthday. 

One of my work colleagues manages some student housing in the city where my daughter attends university and she said they won’t enter into such a complicated arrangement and a friend said they discounted letting their son do a course with a work placement because of the difficulty with finding housing. To be honest, it really hasn’t been a big deal, this particular university offer a lot of courses with work placements and the students always find housing but their choice may be a little limited. 

When I visit my daughter I usually take the train. It takes almost exactly the same amount of time as driving and you just step off the train into the heart of the city. Parking is near-impossible in this particular place as my husband and I found out the first time we drove. There are usually queues to even enter the car parks and, when you do, they are full, and roadside parking is mostly for permit holders only. This time we have to drive because my daughter is taking all her belongings back. Bed linen, pots and pans, clothes, sports equipment etc . I do wonder what students do if they have no access to a car. You can purchase bedding and kitchen sets from the university and arrive with just a suitcase but then all the household stuff will need to be stored somewhere during the summer. Or perhaps students enlist a parent or friend to help them carry it home on public transport. I’m probably overthinking it!

We arrive at the house, which looks small from the outside but the landlady has crammed six bedrooms in. The whole house is freshly panted in white and looks reasonably clean at first glance. My daughter’s is filled with furniture that most charity shops wouldn’t accept and the drawers and wardrobe are covered in grime, inside and out. We have to wipe down everything. There is a frayed extension cord and a filthy mirror which isn’t really a mirror but foil over some hardboard. The staircase down to the kitchen in the basement is a slippery death trap and nobody over 5’9″ can stand up straight in the communal living area. Even crouching, my husband hurts his head on the smoke alarm attached to the already low ceiling. The downstairs floor is uncovered concrete with an oily stain. My daughter is paying a small fortune in rent as are the other students and I feel that the landlady has done the bare minimum make the place comfortable. I am surprised the stairs even passed building regulations. I can see my agitation is annoying my daughter, she doesn’t want her friends to hear my complaining, so I keep quiet.

My daughter has chosen some bed linen from Urban Outfitters so we remove the existing, disgusting mattress cover and replace it with a new one. The room looks better once the bed is made. The wardrobe appears to have come from a 1930s boarding school and has hardly any hanging space but lots of shelves. Somehow we manage to find a home for everything. There are no locks on any of the internal doors, even the two bathrooms which are both downstairs, and my husband is understandably not happy about this. What if one of the other students has a party and my daughter is out. What is to stop anybody rummaging about or even stealing her things. Or worse still, coming into her room uninvited when she is there? He asks her to email the landlady and request locks but my daughter and her friends seem reluctant. 

My husband orders a new extension cable and we take my daughter into town for lunch. We have to keep moving the car throughout the day as the only parking spaces we can find are for a maximum of two hours. After lunch we go to Lidl and buy my daughter some groceries. She buys mushrooms and peas neither of which she will eat at home!

When my daughter was on campus she had everything on her doorstep but now she either has to walk or take the bus. If she just has one lecture it is a lot of effort for an hour. She plays a lot of sport and has said it is a pain going back and forth . Some of the friends she shared accommodation with last year are in the next road which is nice. She will be in this house until June when she will be home for the summer. She will then return to the same house in September until around Easter next year when her second work placement will begin. I spoke to her today and she seems to have settled in happily enough and had just cooked herself some sort of pasta dish with the peas and mushrooms. They must taste different when she cooks them!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Perfume Pretenders

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My twenty year old daughter had some friends round and one of them walked into our house on a cloud of what of what I assumed was Chanel’s CoCo Mademoiselle. I have a love-hate relationship with this particular fragrance. I love it on anybody else but it smells slightly sour on me and is guaranteed to give me a migraine. There is a note in many Chanel fragrances that gives me a headache, I can really only wear Chance. My daughter’s friend said no way could she afford Chanel, they are all students, she was wearing Soft Iris by Marks & Spencer.

On my next visit to M & S I found the scent, priced at £10 and sprayed a tiny amount onto my wrist. An hour later it smelled prettier on me than Madomoiselle and, more importantly, no migraine! I bought a bottle. The range also includes a few other well-known perfume “dupes”. Pink Pepper is apparently a dead-ringer for Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, a wildly popular and very sweet perfume . Fresh Mandarin supposedly smells like Caroline Herrera’s Good Girl. The girls in Ms Herrera’s fragrance campaign have to be good while the boys get to be bad, rather unimaginative gender-stereotyping in my opinion but that is beside the point, the CH perfume is lovely and it comes in a high-heeled shoe shaped bottle. There is also a Jo Malone wannabe in the range, Sea Salt and Neroli . M & S sell a pack of all the various testers for £5 which is fantastic value. I think this would make a nice little gift for a teenage girl.

Perfume is one of things that is so easy to get wrong and is is an expensive mistake if you end up with a £75 bottle of something that you no longer like after a couple of days. I have re-sold so many used-twice bottles on eBay over the years. Now I generally buy Chanel body sprays, which are around £30, because they are less strong than even the EDTs and are not headache inducing. They last for ages too as you only need to spray a tiny amount. If I am considering a new fragrance I will usually buy a sample on eBay and wear it for a couple of weeks or so before committing to a fully sized bottle but, most days, I don’t bother with perfume anymore.

While in Marks and Spencer I also bought a small make up bag for my handbag, a bargain at £6, and a delicious bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich!  

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

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A Trip To The Theatre – The Mousetrap

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

My friend Helen and I like to go out somewhere nice every few months or so. In between these trips we will go for walks to the cinema or just have a coffee but we both work hard and like to treat ourselves to a theatre trip or visit a nice restaurant once in a while. Just for a change of scene as much as anything else I think. It’s also nice to have a catch up during the train journey into London.

This time we decided to go and see the long-running play The Mousetrap. Based on the famous murder mystery by Agatha Christie, it is the longest running play in the West End, showing since 1952 . I was in two minds about going to see this because, thanks to an unwelcome spoiler on a radio arts show, I already knew whodunnit but it seemed like something we would both enjoy and reasonably priced tickets were available.

We decided to go for dinner before the show and I booked a table at a small restaurant called Violas in Tavistock Street. As seems to be the case nowadays I had to provide my card details when booking online and was informed that, in the event of us not attending, I would be charged £40. This is the steepest no-show fee I have encountered but I suppose it is Covent Garden. Anyway, Violas is very prettily decked out with lots of artificial flowers everywhere (must be a nightmare to dust) and there are faux fur throws on the back of each chair. The staff were unsmiling apart from the French manager who was running up and down the stairs to the kitchen every five minutes and apologetically explaining to customers that there would be at least a twenty minute wait for their food. This obviously isn’t ideal if you have to be at the theatre at Seven O’Clock and the party on the table next to use took their food away in take-out boxes and asked for the service charge to be removed from the bill. 

I ordered the Black Truffle Pasta which was absolutely delicious . Helen wanted the Salmon but this wasn’t available so she ended up with the Prawn Pasta. Her dish was a plate of tagliatelle with a few prawns, one sliver of aubergine and not much else. Disappointing. We both had a coke to drink and the bill, including tip was about £50. I would have liked a desert but we ran out of time.

Thanks to the miracle that is Google Maps and Helen’s navigational skills we found our way in the nick of time to St. Martin’s Theatre in West Street. We had paid £40 for each of our tickets and we were sitting very high up in the Upper Circle, the stairs are very steep and quite deep. There was a long queue for the two cubicles in the ladies toilets which would have benefitted from a freshen up. We decided not to have a drink during the interval although we did go into the tiny bar which is right behind the light-up sign. The window was open and it was nice to get some fresh air as I had an immovable migraine. As is typical of these old theatres, there is very little leg-room between the seats. It would have nice to have had the option of borrowing some of those little binoculars, or Opera Glasses, to see the actor’s faces more clearly. 

Although I already knew who the villain was, I knew very little about the story itself. Set in a guest house called Monkswell Manor, it tells the story of the two young guest house owners who find themselves hosting an odd assortment of strangers during a snowy night. There has been a shocking murder nearby and investigations have led the local police sergeant to their door. I thought the actors were speaking too quickly at the beginning and it took me a while to settle into the story which, to be honest, was a bit daft but enjoyable. Another friend coincidentally went to see The Mousetrap the night before us and she described it as “a homely play” and that seems quite an apt description.

The woman sitting next to me kept whipping out her iPhone and checking her social media. She was in her fifties, old enough to know better and I found it very distracting. She also kept muttering the dialogue under her breath. She seemed a bit strange so I just tried to ignore her.

We enjoyed The Mousetrap but I was pleased we hadn’t spent a lot of money on the tickets and it definitely isn’t something I would want to see twice. We walked back to Charing Cross station where a train was already waiting on the platform. Towards the end of the journey a very drunk man walked through the carriage asking the other passengers for money. This can be very intimidating, especially if you are travelling by yourself. He didn’t cause any trouble though. We were back in our home town by ten forty five.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha