Autumn - Part I

My favourite season. Many mourn the loss of Summer with no more tanning opportunities, but I’ve never had good legs so I’m happy back in trousers or woolly tights. Also, emotionally it’s a much safer season: A hot drink on a cold crisp day outside is lovely; a sticky, hot pic-nic with wasps and flies is distressing. When it rains and howls a gale on your Summer holiday it’s upsetting and disappointing, we feel personally slighted and hard-done-by, not so in Autumn. We expect rain & automatically re-focus our hopes and plans so that if it rains it becomes a chance to curl up and watch old movies, drink hot chocolate and stuff yourself with Autumn/Winter food goodies, such as apples and late Summer berry crumbles and pies, hearty soups and stews. Marvellous. Gets my vote over lettuce every time.

I think I was a hibernating creature in a previous existence, because for me it’s the season to ‘get my nest in order’. I’m not bothered by Spring Cleaning – leave it, we’ll eat outside…but come Autumn I know I’m going to be indoors for the next few months so I’m more motivated to have a clear-out or slap some paint on the walls. Then once I’ve had a good sort and things are in order I can relax with new season TV. Brilliant.

I know this may be controversial for some, but I’m not a big X-Factor fan. Watching the deluded and untalented makes me squirm with embarrassment. But, give me a celebrity in a sparkly outfit learning ballroom dancing – now you’re talking! With inspirational professional dancers, who, let’s face it, are pretty easy on the eye, it all makes for top-telly watching. Then whenever I can tear myself away from redecorating or being a couch potato, there’s the great outdoors!

Of course, this provides a perfect excuse for one of my addictions, my joy-of-joys: Knitwear. Love it. I have far too many jumpers, hats, scarves and gloves, but I can’t resist the stuff. A good jumper is like wearing a big hug from your closest friend. Feeling tired and sleepy on a cold, dark morning? Put on a lovely squadgy jumper or scarf (or both), perhaps a poloneck for really tough days, and you’ll feel tons better, more prepared to face the world.

Taking a break from knitwear shopping and browsing the new Autumn/Winter collections in the shops the other day, I stopped for a coffee and did some people watching. Now compared to a few weeks ago when everybody seemed to looked like tired old bags of laundry, people have now made the odd A/W purchase – new skirts, hair colours and shiny boots paraded past me. Everybody looks new again. So don’t despair about the dark days ahead. Light some candles, watch a movie, or get those woollies on and go out in search of orange cornflake leaves to kick about.

Is it me or is it warm in here…?

Leisure Club

Learning to live with a back injury, I took the opportunity to treat myself to a (reasonably) expensive leisure club membership. I had tried municipal pools but not to put too fine a point on it, they made me feel a bit sick. I don’t have OCD but I couldn’t have taken my shoes off in those changing rooms never mind anything else. Bully for all those people who can swim in the sea and put their bare foot on a discarded corn plaster without a second thought, but that is not for me.

So, off to my new leisure club, nodding “good mornings” with retired older ladies who are aging gracefully, brushing shoulders with model-type younger women, and of course the successful business men (who are less graceful). I know they are successful because they talk about it, a lot, in the sauna between themselves. In fact many conversations are conducted entirely in pounds sterling, or they may have a more frivolous conversation about status symbols such as yachts, cars, acres, ponies, holidays… I work in health services in a deprived area of the city, so I tend to have minimal input into the conversation.

In fact, most of the time I feel like an imposter, upsetting the natural social order. I have to raise my game to not be found out. Subsequently, going to the leisure club has become a job in itself, demanding high standards of appearance through unwritten rules, glances, a code I am beginning to crack… I like a challenge so I have thrown myself into a frenzy of manicures, pedicures and general personal grooming. Now I join in smiling beneficently at occasional users with slightly sagging swimming costumes and grey roots on show. But friends keep my feet on the ground – after my new recent haircut a backhanded compliment: “it’s not that it looked scruffy before, but it’s…better now”.

Reception staff perpetuate the attitude of striving for physical perfection, although all communication is delivered with a strong Northern drawl and ends inevitably with “love”. Upon first contact: would I like to take advantage of an induction to the new gym equipment with individual media screens? No. Thanks. I’ll just have a gentle swim. The new me doesn’t feel the burn, I just try to stay mobile. As, it should be noted do most of my friends with no physical health excuses. Which brings me to the free passes – ooh how exciting, I can take my friends to share my new-found treat! I took my closest friend, who emerged from the changing rooms with swimming cap and goggles in place and proceeded to do front crawl and attempted tumble-turns up and down the pool. Hm, I had to explain on behalf of all female members, that mainly here we do a sedate breaststroke with hair clipped up artfully and wearing at least a bit of lipstick or mascara, before sitting in the Jacuzzi for about half an hour.

You can get up to ten such nicely-turned-out women bobbing gently backwards and forwards in the pool at any one time. Not so the men. Generally when a man gets in it’s like a full breach of the sperm whale, the movement from which could lift all the aforementioned women out of the pool on the crest of a wave. Splashing and smashing through the water with what, in his head, must feel like Olympic-style skill and finesse, in reality he won’t be getting on that 2012 bus – it’s a big splashy mess and if he were your child you’d tell him off.

So mainly I’m trying to keep it real at the luxury leisure club. Who knows, one day I might even see if I can get a TV working on the gym equipment, for now I’m off to buy more mascara and fake tan.

Town and Country

I had always fancied myself as a bit of a country type. Brought up in a small market town in rural Shropshire, surrounded by farms, the smell of manure held no fear for me. However, slowly but surely the scales have fallen from my eyes, the disillusionment has been revealed and accepted. I am “A Townie” through and through.

It all began a few years ago when I bought a pony-trekking session for an ex-partner. Aforementioned partner cantered up ahead while I was stuck on a horse that might have once been white, but now looked like one of my old vests, with a nicotine-stained fringe. My horse was more interested in chomping away in verges and ditches. “Just kick your legs!” came the orders from up front. Well, my little legs were bouncing off the sides of that horse to no avail. The next day, walking like John Wayne back from a long trip, I considered I might be better just walking in nature, rather than trying to be so “hands-on”.

Being firmly of the school of “all the gear, no idea”, I bought a small rucksack, waterproofs, boots and a book Pub Walks Around Britain. This couldn’t fail. I dragged my suitably kitted partner out of bed early one weekend and we set off for a good long walk (well, three mile loop). It all started well, deep breath in, ahhh fresh air, views…ooh ankle deep in mud, and other stuff. No matter. Over the stile into a field full of cows, the biggest cows you’ve ever seen, surely prize specimens for any County show? And they were curious, very curious, so much so that there was no indolent staring and chewing but a stampede towards us. Partner already disappearing into the distance (my hero), I followed rapidly back through mud and unmentionables to land breathlessly the other side of a stone wall – the beauty and security of which did not escape me. On the long trek back round to the car I wondered if just looking at wildlife might be a safer option.

Next month off we went to a Shire Horse Centre. Lovely. Great big shiny beasts behind nice secure stable doors and at safe distances in paddocks. Ah, this is more me I thought, until a stableman appeared with his roll-up firmly stuck to his bottom lip, shouting that he was about to take the stallion to “serve” some mares and for us all to gather round. Intriguing. Then the stallion appeared, no doubt what was on his mind, he wouldn’t be “serving” drinks…Well, I came over quite Jane-Austin-faint at the sight of all this. Measurements could have been taken in double-decker buses or football pitches I’m sure. The American tourists who formed part of our gang of voyeurs started taking photos, and I did wonder what the accompanying commentary might be to that slide show back home.

So as Autumn approaches I am preparing for lots of woodland walks with my dog. Gentle strolls in colourful, deciduous woodland, what could be safer than that? What’s that you say, deer rutting…?

The Hairdressers

The hairdressers – different things to different people. To me, a treat, a well-earned luxury, an opportunity to pamper myself. To my friend, a hellish necessary inconvenience causing acute distress and anxiety from the moment the appointment is booked. She’s not good at conversations in busy, noisy places, which makes the hairdressers a very difficult place, unless you can lipread in a mirror. Also having to sit and look at yourself for a length of time can be difficult. I tend to purposely over-apply my make-up, but generally to no effect – my stylist looks healthy and glowing while I look like a starved vegetarian moments from death. Still, I embrace this opportunity to critique and make plans for a new healthier me. My friend stares and stares at herself until a mild form of body dysmorphia ensues. By the time we meet afterwards, we have to spend a good few hours on reassurance – no your eyes aren’t too big, no your hair isn’t too blonde…

But the key thing to the whole experience is the relationship with your stylist – which (whether you realise it or not) is one of the most important in your life. They have the power to make you feel glamorous and new or like one of the muppets. It’s important to build up rapport and trust, you need someone who will listen to your needs but also contribute yet not chop away blindly whilst telling you about their most recent social exploits.

If I am to consider my hairdresser experiences in terms of relationships over the past month, I have been through a break-up (after a long-term relationship), a one-night-stand and I am now at the start of a new relationship. Let me put this in context: 4 years ago the lovely Tara started cutting my hair, we have been through several very short styles, & ended up at a short bob (which I was growing). People would often compliment me on the cut, then last month Tara told me she was emigrating to Sydney the following Monday. I’m over the worst of the shock and loss now and can even wish her well, rather than be preoccupied with the immediate question, “who will cut my hair?”

So, yesterday I took the bull by the horns and had my first “blind date” with stylist Melissa. It was not a roaring success. I had short layers where there should not be short layers, and a thick wodge of woolly hair jammed behind each ear. If you have thick hair, like me, with alpaca tendencies you have to break-in any new stylist carefully. Invest some time, give them the benefit of your 20, 30, 40+ years of experience of dealing with the wire wool or candyfloss that grows on your head, but don’t be too overpowering and bossy…I tried, she tried, but it just didn’t work. She held the back-mirror, I nodded and smiled in true English spirit whilst inside wanting to cry a bit.

I left the hairdressers and immediately threw more money at the situation, buying lots of hair grips, clips and bands, but now it wasn’t long enough to clip back. Fighting the panic, I managed to talk it through with my friend who suggested rationally that I call them and ask for it to be put right. Once she had said “Hm, I see what you mean” whilst casting a critical eye over my barnet, I knew I had to wrestle with my tendency to try to avoid confrontation and be grown-up, assertive – complain. And, it went surprising well! I was booked in the following day with Bryan, who also appraised the cut with “Hm, I see what you’re saying”. Subsequently, he has rectified as best he can & I have a free appointment with him next month. We discussed my hair, he finished my sentences, it was marvellous. So, it may not have been a fairytale start to my new stylist relationship, but at least I’ve found somebody now who is on the same wavelength!