Author: samantha

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This Week I Have Been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

I have read all of Sittenfeld’s books, my favourite being Sisterland her brilliant novel about twins. I also would also thoroughly recommend her very witty short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It. Partly set during the pandemic, Romantic Comedy is a story about Sally, a writer for a late night comedy sketch show and Noah, a successful and handsome pop star. Noah appears on the show Sally writes for, Night Owls, as a guest host and asks Sally to help him finesse a sketch he has written himself. Like many of Sittenfeld’s female characters Sally pulls off an epic act of self sabotage putting the brakes on any burgeoning romance between her and Noah. She can’t bring herself to believe that he could be interested in her. Then the pandemic hits and they being to exchange emails. Sally’s surname is Milz and her email address is Smilz (Smiles – get it?) little details like this are so beautifully thought out

Romantic Comedy is brilliantly funny and very touching. Sally and Noah are such lovely characters that I found myself really caring about what happened to them. I also particularly liked Jerry, Sally’s step-father and his pet beagle, Sugar. This is a long story but, like any book by Sittenfeld , it is well worth the effort

Watching – Expats on Netflix

Expats, based on the novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, stars Nicole Kidman as Margaret and Ji-young Yoo as Mercy. Margaret’s husband, Clarke, played by Brian Tee, is offered a chance by the big conglomerate that he works for to relocate to Hong Kong for three years. His company put in place a generous package including private school for the children, a maid and chauffeur and they move into a spacious apartment. The chauffeurs are privy to all the comings and goings and private conversations, they are so quiet their passengers seem to forget they are even there. The family, including Margaret and Clarke’s three children, Daisy, Philip and little Gus find themselves amongst the the community of other wealthy ex-pats including neighbours Hilary and David who seem to have a complicated relationship to say the least. Life seems to be a round of glamorous but dull dinner parties and Margaret, who is a landscape gardener, has no real purpose. She looks down on the other women who are just “wives” despite being one of them herself. Then, on one such social occasion taking place on a boat, Margaret and Mercy cross paths. Three year old Gus is being a terror and Mercy steps in and helps. Margaret offers her an evenings trial as a nanny as she feels that the children are becoming too devoted to their current “help” , Essie. Mercy and Margaret take the children to visit the busy night-market and life changes forever.

I know that Kidman has won Oscars but, it seems to me, that she often plays the same person over and over. Margaret has stiff mannerisms, is uptight and is rather brittle with her speech. Kidman, aged fifty-six, is also too old to be playing the mother of a three year old. For some reason, when she is dressed to go out for an evening her hair is styled like a WWII evacuee. I have watched the first three episodes, it is a little slow but, no doubt, I’ll finish the series now.

Listening to – Hunting Warhead Podcast on Apple Music

Hunting Warhead tells the story of the Australian Police’s investigation into a huge child pornography website and the peadophile responsible for running it, Canadian, Benjamin Faulkner. The host is Daemon Fairless who sounds uncannily like Alec Baldwin. He is very sensitive in his presentation of the case and in his interviews with the people involved including the mother of one of the infant victims.

The subject matter definitely makes for difficult listening. The lengths some of the investigators go to to identify children at risk are extraordinary. The victims can be absolutely anywhere in the world and there is a huge market in supplying horrifying, exploitative content. The investigators refer to such websites as child abuse sites, not pornography. The website featured in this particular investigation, Child’s Play had over a million subscribers. It is staggering to think how many people get gratification from looking at images that most of us would find sickening. 

One of the guests on Hunting Warhead is a psychologist specialising in peodophilic behaviour and he explains that often a person will realise that they are attracted to children at around the time they are twelve or thirteen years old. If that person wants help with controlling their inappropriate feelings they are usually met with a brick wall, there is little research on curtailing this type of impulse. They grow up ashamed with nowhere to turn to for help. Most of these people realise that it would be wrong to act on the attraction they feel but some, of course, do go on to abuse children. The psychologist states that not all child abusers are peodophiles and not all peodophiles are chid abusers. Faulkner himself states that he was madly in love with a four year old. It really is horrifying to listen to his interviews, he is not remorseful at all. Had he been detained in Canada he would have received a relatively light sentence but Faulkner was arrested in Virginia and will serve thirty five years in prison.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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Heading Back To University – Part One

On By samanthaIn FAMILY1 Comment

Yesterday my husband and I took my daughter back to university to begin her second year of studies. She had been at home for eight months, six of which she spent on a work placement in London. She is doing a four year Business degree with two, six month placements, one at the beginning of Year Two and one at the end of Year Three. My daughter was fortunate to find a work placement fairly quickly but, nevertheless, I think the application process is very stressful for the students. They cannot remain on the course if they fail to find a placement and it has to be a role which is relevant to the degree. It puts them under a lot of pressure at a time when they also have exams to sit.

The Placement Officers at the university released the available opportunities on a spreadsheet and then it was up to the students to send off their CVs and covering letters. Of course they were all applying for the same positions and it was difficult for them to see their friends being offered a placement before themselves. There were one or two roles on the list that we didn’t feel were necessarily right for my daughter, we didn’t want her to work for a company that didn’t even have a functioning website and was located in a not particularly safe area for example. I assume the university do their due diligence when sending these opportunities to the young students. A number of the placements were overseas, quite a few in Germany, so these were ideal for students with proficient language skills. There was one placement right in our town which would have been lovely and convenient but another student secured that.

Nearly all of the employers required online applications to be submitted, most of which take at least an hour to be completed. The covering letters of course have to be tailored to each position, it is all very time consuming. The interviews were all online, most students had at least two interviews for any role they were considered for.  My daughter was fortunate to be reasonably well paid for her placement but, by the end of the application process, some students accepted unpaid positions. As we live within easy commuting distance of London my daughter moved back home but students who live further afield also had to arrange and pay for accommodation near their temporary workplace. Living in any city is enormously expensive and I imagine it was difficult to make last-minute arrangements. I know all of my daughter’s friends were hugely relieved when they had secured their placements. 

I bought my daughter a couple of trouser suits for her placement, one from Next and one from Top Shop (still available at ASOS) but she didn’t wear either of them. The dress code in the office of the huge corporation she was working for was supposed to be Business Casual but it was actually extremely casual. My daughter, not someone who is particularly interested in clothes, wore some three quarter length trousers from Zara most days paired with a little shell top or cotton blouse. She just wore loafers on her feet. When it got colder she bought some wide leg trousers from Pull & Bear and wore a slim fit jumper on top. She said lots of people wore trainers in the office. Things have certainly changed since I worked in The City in the 90s.

For the first couple of weeks my daughter had to go into the office every day which, even with a 17-25 railcard is a huge expense. After the initial training period she was able to work from home for three days a week. She said there were days when she was the only one in her department who had gone in and that some people never seemed to put in an actual appearance at the office. 

My daughter was really well looked after during her placement and learned a lot. There were three other students from her course working in the same department. She said that the staff were very welcoming and patient if anybody needed any guidance. The students were expected to work hard and my daughter often had a long list of tasks to complete. They did a little bit of socialising after work but not as much as they would at university. I think it was a very positive experience for her. The company said they were delighted with my daughter’s performance and were sorry to see her leave. Unfortunately she can’t go back to the same place for her next placement so we will have to start the application process all over again.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Purse Predicament

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

In my recent post Shopping Shy I described how much my daughter hates shopping and that I think it’s the sense of overwhelm that is the problem. There is simply too much stuff to choose from. Gone are the days of going into a shop and having two or three choices. Now we all have fingertip access to thousands of retailers offering their, often very similar, wares.

In Ruby Wax’s book Frazzled she describes how the act of buying some cushions became a huge exercise in overthinking. I remember some years ago going onto Amazon to order some new salt and pepper grinders. There were hundreds and hundreds to choose from. Goodness knows how much time I wasted comparing them all, I actually began to feel quite stressed over this inconsequential decision. I eventually bought two perfectly ordinary wooden grinders which I have never given a second thought to since. 

This week I decided to buy a new purse. I wanted something smaller than I usually use with room for a few cards, a couple of coins and a little bit of cash. How hard could that be? Having sold several bags and purses on eBay as part of my ongoing de-cluttering exercise, I was in the position to treat myself to something nice if I wanted. I Googled small zip-around purse and was immediately swamped with choice. There was a beautiful Chanel number for an eye-watering price, I discounted that immediately as I have not won the lottery. Louis Vuitton have a pretty model for £350 but it’s still very expensive and I’m not a huge fan of their Monogram canvas. Mulberry have one for £240 but it is a little plain. Oliver Bonas have some at £26 but they aren’t leather although I was very tempted by the bright orange. I choose a glossy patent leather purse from French brand Isabel Bernard for £60 but a £30 delivery charge was added at checkout so I cancelled. Eventually, after much deliberating, I ordered one from the Kate Spade sale which came in at around £50. It arrived yesterday and is perfect. Phew.

I do wonder how all of these different retailers keep going, surely there can’t be that many people looking to buy the same product? I haven’t even mentioned all the hand made options available on Etsy. I buy most of my birthday cards from Etsy but I haven’t had a great experience with other items, the quality has been lacking or they just haven’t tuned up.

If you’d like to pick out your own small purse without the over-thinking drama, then take a look at my Pinterest board below, I have done the leg-work for you.

https://pin.it/rbgjK9HJ7

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by shawnanggg on Unsplash

The Dementia Diaries – Chapter Five

On By samanthaIn THE DEMENTIA DIARIESLeave a comment

Both of my parents are becoming increasingly infirm so their GP arranged for a visit from the Occupational Therapist’s department. To prevent Mum telling them that they don’t need any help, I went along to join the meeting. The administrator they sent took herself off on a tour of my parents’ small house and came back into the living room with a list of modifications that they would make at no charge to Mum and Dad. The list included a second stair rail and hand rails either side of the front door both inside and out. They also supplied sturdy walking sticks, a foot stool and commode and a stool for the kitchen. Mum uses the footstool as a coffee table and the commode and kitchen stool are just gathering dust in the corner of their dining room. I expect there are unused items like this all over the country, what a colossal waste of NHS money. As the woman left the house my mum bellowed “Bugger Off”. My parents don’t swear and never in my entire life have I heard Mum speak this way. I told her she was being rude and she just replied “I can say a lot worse than that”. In that moment she didn’t seem like the Mum I know at all. 

The woman visited my parents on a Tuesday and the workman arrived to carry out her instructions two days later. The handrail going up their stairway has really made their staircase a lot safer and Mum sort of pulls herself up.

Unfortunately the workman may as well have erected a huge sign stating Vulnerable elderly people live here, feel free to rip them off. They now seem to be targeted by every cowboy, rogue trader conman within a one hundred mile radius. I bought two stickers for their front door saying No cold callers, the police will be informed, but it has made no difference. A week or so after the rails were fitted I went to visit my parents and their, even more elderly, next door neighbours were having their driveway jet washed by a man who had pitched up at their door in a shabby white truck, no company name or branding. He was simply blasting all the dirt onto my parent’s driveway and also all over their brand new garage doors. I looked at him, horrified and he stood very still and glared at me as if daring me to say something. I decided not to. His young son, was playing on my parent’s front garden. I had a cup of tea with my parents and warned them again about people like this aggressive looking man. I told Dad not to answer the door to anyone they don’t know. Later that evening Dad rang and announced that the man had returned and washed his driveway for the bargain price of £90. I imagine the thug knocked on their door and Dad felt too intimidated to refuse. Their garage doors were completely showered in dirt and the driveway did not look any different.

Since my uncle’s death seen years ago my aunt lives alone. She was watching television recently when there was a knock at her front door and a man informed her that her roof needed repairing and he was the bloke for the job. My aunt was telling him, no she already has someone to take care of home repairs when she heard a crash. Another man was actually already on her roof and had dislodged some tiles. My aunt, very shaken, told them to get off her property and called the police, who did absolutely nothing. She then had to pay a roofer to repair the damage these low-lives had caused. 

My mother-in-law, a very vulnerable individual, lost her savings in a foreign property scam. The fraudster, David Ames, the head of a company called Harlequin, persuaded her to invest in holiday homes that weren’t built. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison and stole the savings of thousands of hard-working people, some of them could not retire because of their losses. Ames personally rang my mother-in-law to persuade her to keep “investing”. She thought he was a nice man. Anyone speaking to her is immediately aware that she is not capable of making any important financial decisions herself. No wonder he took such an interest. My mother-in-law didn’t tell anyone about her so-called “investments” until her bank account had been drained.

One of the many reasons that my mum could never live alone is because she would be so vulnerable to fraudsters. Where I live we have regular “Nottingham Knockers” calling selling dusters from the pound shop for £10 and claiming to be on a young offenders rehabilitation scheme. There is no such scheme, it is a scam. If you politely decline to buy anything you are more than likely to be called a vile name and have your car keyed. These people are the reason I now have a Ring video doorbell after I opened the door the an aggressive young man who bizarrely demanded I give him dry clothes as it was raining. He got verbally very abusive when I refused. 

So how to protect our elderly relatives (and ourselves) from scammers? Not opening the door to people they don’t know is the main thing in my opinion. My dad thinks he is being clever by engaging telephone scammers in chat but this is a mistake, these people are criminals, just put the phone down and block the number. If the elderly person lives alone and does open the door to a uninvited “tradesman” then they should pretend there is somebody else at home. I tell my dad to say that his sons do all the repairs on his house. If someone claiming to be from their bank rings then put the phone down and ring the bank, on another phone if possible. If ringing on the same phone then wait half an hour. I read about a woman who thought she was ringing her bank to check the validity of a call she’d just received but the fraudsters had stayed on the line and she was simply still speaking to them. She said the man seemed so helpful as he defrauded her out of ten thousand pounds. These people are often very charming. The old saying goes that a fool and their money are soon parted but, these days, anyone can become a victim of fraud. It is a sad world when we have to be so suspicious of everybody.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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Bass Guitar Blues

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

For a joint Christmas and birthday present this year we bought my youngest son a beautiful new Fender electric bass guitar. I must admit I was slightly stunned by how much these things cost but we managed to get the model he wanted in the sales . My son had said that he’d like to sell his old guitar but first it needed to be sent off for repair. As it was still under warranty I was able to return it to the company I bought it from but they were very clear that it must be properly packaged up as they would not be liable for damage in transit. As I had disposed of the original box ages ago I had to buy a new box on eBay for £15. It was too small. So I had to buy a bigger box on eBay for £20. Ugh, annoying. My son really looks after his things so his gleaming black guitar was duly packaged up and I arranged for the courier to collect it, another £6.50. When the very surly courier arrived I asked him nicely if he could make sure that the guitar was carefully placed on the van. I had marked the box This Way Up and Fragile, Handle With Care in thick red marker on on every surface. It is a bit of a clue isn’t it? Anyway, the courier grunted, gave me a contemptuous look, completely ignored my request to hold the box a a certain way and slung the guitar on the back of the van. Ok, to be fair, I don’t actually know that he slung my son’s precious guitar but I bet he did. A couple of days later I received an email from the repair company along with some photos of my son’s guitar. It had a big chunk missing out of it and was horribly scratched. Hundreds of pounds worth of damage, more than the instrument is actually worth. I nearly cried. 

I asked the guitar company how I could go about claiming compensation from the courier but they told me that it had not been sufficiently packaged. This despite me using the worlds’ most expensive cardboard box, bubble wrap and plastic bags. So, instead of being angry with the miserable, incompetent sod of a courier I started berating myself. I have an airing cupboard full of old mattress protectors which are padded, why didn’t I think to wrap the guitar up in one of those? Why didn’t I buy more bubble wrap? I lost SO much sleep with this whirring around and around in my head. I still haven’t told my son about the damage and we haven’t had the guitar back yet. Fortunately he is thrilled with his new model. He is a good natured boy anyway and will probably just wonder what his daft mother is getting so worked up about. What’s done is done, there is no point dwelling on this. These things happen sometimes.

It must be nice to go through life not worrying about anything, just brushing problems off like water off a duck’s back .  My daughter has just come back from Cape Verde and is now wearing bracelets and a T shirt emblazoned with the island’s motto No Stress. Hotel guests were greeted with Hakuna Matata which, if you have ever seen The Lion King, you will know means No Worries or Take it Easy, It is a Swahili expression used by people who are clearly more laid-back than I am.

No Stress definitely isn’t my motto, more’s the pity, but perhaps I could try Less Stress, it would probably do me good.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Header Photo by Susan Mohr on Unsplash

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The Dementia Diaries – Chapter Four

On By samanthaIn THE DEMENTIA DIARIESLeave a comment

I’m out for a walk when I pass the vicar of our village church. She hurries past, head down and lips pressed together, her body language telling me she does not want to engage in even brief pleasantries. She has been the vicar here for about twenty years, she christened two of my children but I no longer attend church having lost my faith some years ago. I had a fairly religious upbringing, Church of England school and Sunday School every week although my dad, an atheist or perhaps an agnostic, only sets foot in church for weddings and funerals. My mum, however attended the village church almost every single week of the first twenty years that she lived here. Sadly, for the past few years it has been beyond her capabilities to attend. She has probably forgotten that the church even exists.

Despite the fact that my mum was such a regular, the vicar has not once knocked on my parents’ door to see how they are. It’s been three years at least since my mum last made it to church, surely a quick home visit would be the usual protocol. The vicar must have seen them regularly stumbling along the lane to the village shops or waiting at a bus stop. We all live in a small village in Kent. My house is a stone’s throw from the church and my parents aren’t more than a few minutes walk. Was my mum such an invisible or unimportant member of the congregation that nobody noticed when she stopped attending after twenty years? What is the point of a vicar if he/she doesn’t even check up on their parishioners? You can probably tell, I am quite resentful about this.

On a more positive note, my mum and dad have been noticed by lots of people and have received some lovely offers of help. For the past couple of years they have rarely left the village but, before then, drivers would often see them waiting at a bus stop and pull over and offer them a lift. More than one complete stranger drove them into town and left a phone number in case they needed further lifts. My parents have never driven and I do think their knowledge of public transport was very beneficial to them until recently. The local bus drivers would literally drop them at their front door. Now I have to take them anywhere they need to go and my mum struggles to get in and out of my car. They do still manage to walk to the village shops once a week though and are always warmly greeted in the little cafe .

My parents live close to a school and I am sometimes irritated by the careless pavement parking outside their house but one or two of the young mums have put notes through my parents’ front door asking if they need help with shopping. During the pandemic complete strangers put cards through with telephone numbers and offers of help on them. Most people are kind.

When I took my mum and dad for their last vaccination my mum was doddering along to the clinic holding onto my dad, to be honest they seem to hold each other up, and a woman said quietly to me she’d often spotted them around and that she really admired them. ”That generation are so stoic and just get on with things don’t they?” she commented. Yes, they do. My dad literally never complains about anything or anyone. Unfortunately I do think that people who kick up a fuss get the most help, my mother-in-law being a case in point.

My parents’ next door neighbour, ninety years old, rang me after my dad’s heart attack asking if there was anything she could do. Bless her, she was then looking after her husband with Alzheimer’s and had her hands completely full. If my dad hasn’t seen her for a couple of days he rings just to make sure she is alright. Decent, kind people looking after each other. The world needs more of that

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

A view of our village church

Vampiric Friends

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

I saw a wonderful post on the Facebook page of The New York Times this week describing a type of person that most of us come across at some point in our lives, The Energy Vampire. The piece, written by Jancee Dunn, resonated with me so much. Until recently I had two major Energy Vampires in my life but one of them appears to have decided that I am no longer useful to her. This was somebody who I had always been more of an acquaintance than a friend until I bumped into her during Lockdown whilst out on a walk and we decided we would walk together once a week. The walk itself was beautiful but very secluded in places and I felt safer with somebody else. It soon became apparent however that this person was just going to spend the two hours or so it took to complete the circuit talking about herself. She was clearly very unhappy and complained about everything and everyone. If I interjected at any point during the monologue a fleeting look of irritation would cross her face, she’d mutter something and carry right on speaking. I really tried my best to listen and to be supportive by simply being there however, on one of these walks she didn’t ask me a single question about my life until we were approaching her driveway. She then appeared to remember that there was actually another person present and half-heartedly asked how things were with me. It was so obvious that she wasn’t interested in my reply that I made my excuses and took myself home. I felt utterly exhausted and not from the walking.

Perhaps I am being a little uncharitable, it must be awful to go through life finding fault with everything and maybe she was suffering from low-mood. I try to be a compassionate person but friendship is a give and take relationship and I can’t be friends with somebody who barely acknowledges my existence even when I am standing right next to them. This particular person has now moved to another area without so much as a goodbye so I was spared the awkwardness of distancing myself.

The other energy-draining person in my life is a relative. I rang her recently to give her some exciting news concerning one of my children. I was one the phone for an hour and hung up without even having an opportunity to impart my news. Instead, I had to listen to a long, boring story she had told me at least three times before about people I don’t know. I tried to blurt my news out but she just raised her voice over mine and in the end I just zoned out and gave up. Despite being a close relative they barely ask about my mum and dad who are struggling at the moment and this just demonstrates how little they really care. I don’t have the option of cutting this individual out of my life but I have reduced the number of times I ring to check up on them. I always have to work myself up to call because I dread it so much.

Perhaps we all have the capacity to be Energy Vampires when we are going through a bad time. Sometimes I will pick up a certain friend for a trip to the cinema or to a restaurant and, before she has even put her seatbelt on, I will be blurting out everything that has annoyed me since I last saw her. Usually though, after a few minutes I realise I haven’t even asked how she is and I hastily stop talking and check in with my friend. Sometimes, she does the same thing. We should all be able to vent to people who care about us and we should afford them the same courtesy. If it is all talk and no listen though it is probably time to reevaluate your relationship.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Header Photo by Loren Cutler on Unsplash

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Shopping-Shy

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

The fact that I have a category on my blog called Shopping perhaps seems rather ironic to anyone who knows me because I loathe shopping. The only person I know who hates it more than I do is my daughter who world probably rather go to the dentist than to the shops.  When I was in my teens I used to catch the 294 bus to the next big town, Romford, and spend a happy hour or two wandering around Top Shop and Miss Selfridge. I think I enjoyed the freedom of having a little of my own money to spend and having autonomy over my clothing choices. Now it just seems like a chore, especially shopping for clothes. 

When I worked in The City in my twenties I would plan my outfits out for a fortnight at a time so I didn’t repeat them too often. I was constantly buying new clothes and shoes. Now, especially in the winter, I wear a variation on the same outfit every day, a warm sweatshirt and jeans. If I am leaving the house, which I seem to do less and less since I began working from home, I might put on a smarter top, probably from Zara, but that’s about the only concession. It is as if I have become a completely different person.

The worst type of place for my daughter and I to visit is a shopping mall but, occasionally, it is unavoidable. The nearest one to us is Bluewater near Dartford, a huge place whee the shop you need is always at the other end to where you are currently standing. I took my daughter there just before she left for university as she needed some new hoodies and a couple of things for going out but it is as if she goes into trance as soon as she enters a clothing store. Even in Urban Outfitters, one of her favourite brands, she doesn’t engage in the shopping experience at all. I wonder if it is a sense of overwhelm, there is inevitably blaring music playing and racks and racks of jumbled up clothes as well as random piles spilling over every surface, almost too much choice. We hastily picked out a couple of things and left. 

Shopping malls are, to me at least, completely souless places. Maybe I am biased as, many years ago, when I was heavily pregnant I went to Bluewater to buy a few last minute things for the baby. My husband had a work meeting nearby so I was just pottering around waiting for him to collect me when I tripped over a very shallow step that I hadn’t seen because of my bump. To avoid falling on my stomach I deliberately twisted to the side and ended up injuring my ankle. I couldn’t get back up again. Not one person helped me. I eventually managed to stand and dragged myself over to a bench and sat, quietly crying, until my husband came back. Despite their lack of assistance a group of women had stood around muttering “ooh she’s pregnant” and I think my tears were due to feeling completely humiliated. 

One form of shopping I actually quite enjoy is what my friend Caroline describes as a “rummage” around an old-fashioned department store. When I lived in Upminster there was, and I believe it is still there, a beautiful old store called Roomes. My mum even worked there for while, in the children’s department. When my oldest son was a baby I spent many contented half hour sitting in their coffee shop eating a huge slab of carrot cake and drinking a latte while gazing out of the window over the High Street. My son would conveniently nap in his pushchair until he became old enough to throw a tantrum, His biggest ever tantrum was on the floor of the toy department and I remember one imperious woman making me feel like the world’s worst mother. Newsflash – young children sometimes throw a wobbly. Now I occasionally hop on a train and visit a similar store, Hoopers, in Tunbridge Wells. It is much more expensive than Roomes and I do wonder how they keep going with an entire floor dedicated to things that an eighty year old would wear to a wedding but, again, I love to sit in their welcoming coffee shop watching the world go by.

Coffee and blueberry muffin at Hoopers in Tunbridge Wells

I do think it is a case of “use them or lose them” when it comes to the shops on our local high streets. In the town where I live it is already mostly all estate agents, coffee shops, nail bars and, more recently, vape shops. There is no shoe shop or children’s clothing store anymore and we have just lost another independent boutique. We do still have a branch of White Stuff that always seems to be empty so I did make a point of buying a couple of Christmas gifts from there. The lady working told me customers tend to order online but make the returns to the physical shop. She said she processed more returns than sales which must be rather disheartening.

These days I spend my time trying to get rid of stuff rather than accumulating it. Fortunately I don’t see the need for a trip to the mall for sometime so will carry on rummaging in the quirky department stores if I do need anything new. My daughter, however, will not be accompanying me!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

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L’Oreal Midnight Serum & Creams

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

For Christmas one of my friends sent me, via good old Amazon, a L’Oreal gift set comprising of three products from their “Midnight ” anti-aging range. I can’t remember ever seeing this range in the chemist or supermarket. I do use a couple of L’Oreal products already, their Colour Riche lipstick in the shade Taffeta is one of my favourites and I like their RevitaLift eye cream. I find myself hoping that this isn’t just ancient stock that has been languishing in a warehouse for a decade, the boxes look slightly battered and dog-eared.

The Midnight range comes in distinctive gold and black boxes brandished with the words Age Perfect Cell Renew. Inside the boxes are expensive looking smoky brown glass bottles and jars, very similar to Estee Lauder’s Night Repair range. This L’Oreal set consists of Regenerative Cream, Midnight Serum and Revitalising Care Cream. Although my friend tells me she ordered it as a set which was supposed to be in a gift box I received three separate products with no gift box although, of course, I don’t mention that.

The first product I try is the night cream. Enriched with Neohesperidine and vitamin E, the cream feels luxurious and glides on. I am very prone to migraines and fragrance is a big trigger for me. This product is very highly perfumed and I do not like the scent at all, it reminds me of Youth Dew, a perfume an aunt wore in the 1970s.  I lie in bed unable to escape the smell. Fortunately, by the third night of using it I no longer notice the whiff quite so much.  

According to L’Oreal’s website, the skin begins to repair itself in the hours around midnight. I am going to wake up to millions of new skin cells I am informed. That sounds like an entire new face which is probably exactly what I need. I read that Midnight serum is formulated with a powerful antioxidant recovery complex. The serum is gorgeous to use, comparable to the aforementioned Estee Lauder Night Repair and it feels somehow… velvety. Unfortunately, it is also quite strongly scented. It is applied via a dropper which is a little fiddly to use. It is currently priced at £15.95 on Amazon UK.

The Age Perfect Renew cream isn’t featured on the L’Oreal website at the time of me writing this so perhaps it has been discontinued. It doesn’t actually appear to be part of the Midnight range although the packaging is the same. Like the other products, it is scented with elderly lady perfume but it feels luxurious to use, thick but not greasy. I was concerned that the fragrance would irritate my skin but that hasn’t been the case at all. After about ten days of using these products my skin feels well hydrated and soft. 

Had this range not been so strongly scented I would probably repurchase but the strong smell is a deal-breaker for me. The products are otherwise pleasant to use and seem to be effective so I will definitely finish all the jars and then have shop around for something else.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

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Goodbye to 2023

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

It is New Year’s Eve and the most exciting thing I have planned is my Tesco delivery. All three of my children are going to various parties and I am on chauffeuring duty for my youngest who has a house party to go to. I wonder if the parents realise they are going to be besieged by sixteen and seventeen year olds or whether they are going out themselves. It’s my son’s seventeenth birthday next week and I am waiting for the “can I have a few friends over?” request. It never is a few but I don’t mind, as long as nobody is vomiting. Unfortunately once they reach sixteen it’s not really a party unless someone is sick, for some reason is it usually one of the girls. I’d rather them all be safe at my house or, preferably somebody else’s, than hanging around somewhere. My son knows no hanging around allowed!

I have never really enjoyed New Years’s Eve. To be honest, I find it a little depressing. My friends would persuade me to go to the to the pub as a teenager and there would invariably be creepy men demanding a kiss at midnight. In 1992 my now-husband and I went to a NYE ball when on a skiing trip in Colorado and I even managed to be miserable there. I seem to remember everyone (well, the women) wearing taffeta dresses while I was in an itchy angora jumper and ski-pants having not known where we were going. So much for last minute, vague arrangements. I have never worn ski-pants again – the only person ever to have looked good in them is Audrey Hepburn. The last time we went out for NYE was about three years ago to friends for dinner. Usually my husband stays up to watch proceedings on the television and I try to be asleep before midnight but there are usually loud fireworks gong off in somewhere in our village. Even my parents, nearly ninety years old, have more fun than me, going to their neighbour’s house for drinks and nibbles.

I pop round to my parents’ house and give them a hand with a few bits around the house, my mum seems a little confused as to who I am at one point. I then send my daughter off to her party with a bottle of prosecco and settle down to watch Suspicion, a 1941 Hitchcock thriller with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.  I can’t say I am suffering from FOMO, it is blowing a gale outside and I am quite happy to have a sedate transition into 2024. It has been a somewhat difficult year what with my dad’s heart attack and my mother-in-law’s recent long hospital stay but we are still all here and that is something to be grateful for.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash