It's (nearly) Chriiiiiiiiis-maaaaas!

Christmas 2012
Most of my family and friends are too polite to tell me if my gift choices are naff so I thought I'd try to elicit the opinions of others, prior to buying some 'surprises'. Please feel free to comment and help me out!

1. Italian Cooking & Language Lesson, £69 per person + optional meal (held in London). I'm thinking of booking this for husband & son (ulterior motive - they can cook me some yummy Italian food)

2. My husband uses Canon camera but has some old lenses for Olympus so I'm looking for  a converter so that they will work together.

3. Son likes The Riddler and Big Bang Theory: how about this T-shirt?

4. Amazon lets me print off vouchers and/or email them to multitudes of teenage nieces and nephews who can then shop on-line so I lazily opt for this. Other shops are losing out because they don't offer this flexibility.

5. Gino D'Acampo's latest book, "La Dolce Diet" - maybe for myself? Seems a bit rude to give someone a book with 'diet' in the title unless it's actually on their wish list!

6. Very impressive selection of stocking fillers -  wallet tools from TouchOfGinger.com

Other than that, I'm still searching...

Red Lion, Welwyn, Herts

Tuesday 6th November 2012: with a few minutes thought, we suddenly found ourselves heading out to dinner in the Welwyn area. Having not tried the Red Lion (just south of the village) for a couple of years, we decided to give it a try and, from a possible 5 stars, it rated a decent 4.

Arriving at 8.20pm, there was ample parking and, on entry, a welcoming atmosphere. Recently decorated and nicely furnished. Possibly understaffed as we tried for 3 or 4 minutes to find someone to ask if we could have a table for two.

It was about half-full and we had a choice of tables. The waitress was pleasant and friendly, the menu looked good with a variety of food and a range of prices. Because we didn't have a starter, there was a bit of a wait for the main course, enough time to finish the first drinks and replenish as the main course was served.

We chose a mushroom tagliatelle - excellent - and organic sausage with crispy bacon, pureed potatoes and butterbeans - also good. For pudding, one of us had frozen yogurt with fresh berries and the other one chose cappuccino which, unfortunately, did not arrive by 9.40pm when we had to leave.

Summary: atmosphere, decor, food and drink all good, maybe slightly understaffed but the staff we encountered were good. Website: www.theredlionwelwyn.co.uk

Lifestyle and British Accents

When we bought our house in 2006, it was still in its 1960-built / 1975-redecorated state. We spent a year organising the extension, planning permission, etc. and another year or two with various tradespeople building and finishing and decorating indoors and out. We still hadn't finished everything but felt that we'd spent enough!

The end result was good. In fact, everyone who walks in for the first time uses the same description, "Wow!" Not because it's ultra-super-amazing but because the inside is an unexpected upgrade from the ordinary 1960 frontage.

However, I've never managed to find much time for housework and, with a teenager in the house, it's always a manic tidy/clean when I know someone is coming, which isn't very often as I'm totally unsociable. I sometimes think it would be better to have more visitors so that the house was tidier more often. It was brilliant having builders around - I had a perpetual excuse never to clean or tidy.

There was a Scot amongst the Cockney builders but, in general, I found myself emulating the way that the 'Norf Lundoners' were speaking, despite years of living in middle-class Herts, probably because I was born and schooled in North London.

In the 1970s, I married a Scot who has now lived and worked amongst pseudo-Cockneys for much of his life and now has barely a trace of Scottish accent - except when he wants to - yet his older brother, who moved south at the same time, has never lost his Scottish accent.

There is a great round-up of accents in this video (not Hertfordshire though!)
I hope you will enjoy...

Stupid Hats and the cost of being entertained

I've been invited to Ladies Day at Royal Ascot, to accompany my husband who is more-or-less-obliged to attend as a guest in connection with his work. There are many things I'd rather be doing than dressing up and being polite all day but I have a strong sense of duty and I also realise that I'm very lucky to have this opportunity so I'm trying to be positive. (I'm really not as horrible as this makes me sound!)

Anyway, I couldn't help but add up the cost of the extras related to this little treat, even though our generous hosts are paying for the whole day out and an overnight stay in a fabulous 5-star resort. The cost of our new clothes doesn't count as we'll wear them again because, thankfully, we are not entering the Royal Enclosure so he didn't need a morning suit and I didn't have to go over top and buy a dress!

However, I'm very negative about the stupid rule about stupid hats. Hats hate me and the feeling is mutual. There is also no point to the fashionable fascinators, etc. Men wouldn't wear them (admittedly, many men don't have enough hair to put them on but that's not the point either). I managed to buy a not-quite-so-stupid-hat in a sale for only £5 so I'm OK with the cost - just not the stupid rule.

No, the real cost is as follows:

Oh, I wish!

• three hours wandering around a department store, finding nothing suitable
• several hours surfing the internet, getting more despondent
• two and a half hours traipsing around the local boutiques (bought an expensive outfit in a sale even though the trousers were a size too big)
• three hours slogging round an outlet centre trying on shoes (bought a pair) and hats (no luck)
• two hours in a shopping mall, looking at hats (got one) and bags (will now go without)
  

I have to say that my husband was brilliantly patient throughout these shopping trips and even managed to be 'nice' about my hair. Ah yes, another story...

I normally colour my hair every few weeks to lighten it a few shades from 'mousy brown' to dark blonde. I didn't notice that the colour I used yesterday contained peroxide until it was too late - I am now a shocking golden blonde with a ginge tinge so perhaps I should have bought a balaclava. The hair colour doesn't suit me at all but, rather than risk my hair falling out by colouring over it, I'm hoping to minimise the effect by having it cut fairly short later this week!

Update after Ladies Day
Mum died the day before Ladies Day so it was good to have the distraction and most of the people I met were very nice to chat to. I looked awful, of course; very drab in an oversized khaki trouser suit and tweed trilby - what was I thinking? I also lost weight soon afterwards so I've never worn the trousers since that day - obviously I've not worn the hat - and the shoes were so uncomfortable that I wore them only once more, for less than 15 minutes - ouch! Charity shop patrons have had a great bargain!

Moving on

Sooo... I decided to re-write this blog and edit out some boring bits in an attempt to make it more interesting for people to read but - how to keep it interesting and original? Not a clue, sorry! I'll do my best so here we go.

I'll start with 1974 when I left 'the shelter of a mother' and father to give and receive 'a band of gold' (unlike the Freda Payne song, this has worked out well as we recently celebrated our ruby wedding anniversary). We bought our first home in the outer North London suburbs, a 2-up/2-down Victorian terraced house which had been lived in for years by a pair of spinster sisters.

Thankfully, they had extended the downstairs to include a modern bathroom. When some friends moved into a similar house a few doors down the road, there was just an outside loo and no bathroom! We saw a lot of those friends for a few months, as they popped in frequently with their soap, towels and rubber ducks until their extension was completed.

One weekend, we invited half a dozen friends round for a demolition party and took down the wall between the small lounge and even smaller dining room (properly, with a supported RSJ and everything) and started to strip the wallpaper off the walls - there were thirteen layers, some coated with emulsion and even a layer of gloss paint. The result was appalling and we couldn't afford a plasterer so - typical '70s - we painted the walls with Polytex, a polyurethane mix with lumpy bits in, a liquid anaglypta designed to cover cracks and imperfections, a sort-of instant artex. I know!! Dreadful idea and it gets better... we then painted the walls chocolate brown and bought a chocolate, coffee and cream coloured long shag-pile carpet, true 70s style. Wow!

Believe it or not, a couple of years later, someone actually bought the house and we moved on and up to a '30s style s'emi-detached suburban' home. This had a hideous plain royal blue carpet that showed every piece of dust, dirt, fluff and crumb in the universe. The house had a long, south-facing garden and the sun streamed through the patio doors. We stayed there until, towards the end of the decade, we moved on again.

To be continued...