I rarely sit at the back of the bus. If I do, it’s never through choice. Say my usual seat (the first row on the raised step – left OR right, no preference) is taken. And say the only free spaces are a) beside the guy with a cold who keeps making throaty snot noises, b) beside the jackass playing sectarian anthems on his mobile phone while stomping his feet and whistling out of tune or c) beside the woman who hasn’t thought to turn her key pad tone noises off on her mobile phone BEFORE embarking on her bus journey text-a-thon – then if there’s a spot for me ‘up the back’, then up the back I will sit.
I think I must’ve been about 13. 14, maybe. I looked older then than I do now. I was sitting at the back of the bus – probably looking quite moody and wearing way too much make-up. There’s every likelihood I was wearing a leather biker jacket and some item of tie-dyed clothing. And maybe a scarf round my neck. In those days, sitting at the back of the bus (especially in either of the window seats) came with the added risk your clothes/shoes might melt or the backs of your legs might be seared by the engine burning through the velour/pleather seat. Nowadays, the risks of sitting ‘up the back’ seldom involve flesh burning but are more likely to include accidentally sitting in someone else’s bodily fluids or being engaged in conversation with a crim about how ‘thur jist oot the Bar-L and uv gote a contract oot oan thum’.
I can’t recall exactly where I was going, but at a guess, I’d be bussing to town to meet my friend Lesley. A couple o’ alternateen mallrats, Lesley & I spent most Saturday afternoons scuffing around Argyle Street in our Doc boots. Barely lifting our feet, we scuffed from one end of the St Enoch Centre to the other, our only plan being to ogle the tall, long-haired, handsome boy who worked in Hoi Polloi and sit in the food court.
So – there I am, sitting in the left side window seat at the back of the bus, my legs hurting from the heat. The bus was busy and it wasn’t long before the back row of the bus was jammed with bottoms. Eventually even the seats opposite were taken by passengers who’d weighed up how they felt about travelling backwards and decided that ultimately they didn’t really mind if it meant they didn’t have to stand for the duration of the journey.
A man sat opposite me. He was dressed in grey pinstriped trousers and a shirt and blazer. He was reading a newspaper. He had weird red curly hair. It looked as though it had been crimped. Crimped – then gelled down flat on his head. His shirt was a little bit crushed up and his jacket had a wee stain on the lapel. He didn’t seem to mind that every time he turned the page of his newspaper he nearly had the woman next to him’s eye out. I don’t like being too close to strangers at the best of times, but there’s something properly creepy about staring into a face at close proximity on crowded public transport. I affixed my eyes on the man’s shoes. They were scuffed and tatty. As we bumped along, he continued to elbow jab his fellow passenger intermittently. I noticed a hole in the man’s trousers. I could tell he wasn’t wearing any pants. Then his balls fell out.
Well, actually, they didn’t just ‘fall out’. They sorted of sneaked out. Little by little. With every bump in the road a little bit more… emerged.
Oh my. At this point, I intended to go into greater detail about ‘the sneaking’ but now I’m typing, it’s dawned on me I really am typing about testicles (the owner of which seemingly hadn’t noticed were on the loose) and I feel a little bit awkward. Not only that but I feel a bit sorry for the poor fella who had inadvertently exposed himself to a 13 year old girl. That’s assuming he wasn’t some pervert getting a kick out of riding buses with no pants on and intentionally allowing his balls to bounce out of a rather conveniently placed hole in his trousers. Should I call the police just incase?
“Officer. I’d like to report a crime. A man’s testicles fell out of his trousers and I saw them. I’m not sure if he meant it or not. Them falling out and me seeing them, I mean”.
“When did this happen?”
“Um. 19 years ago on the 61 bus. He had hair like a giant Frazzle, if that helps?”
I think this is the end of my story about a man exposing himself on public transport. You will be relieved to hear I do not have any accompanying images for this blog post.
It feels like the sun hasn’t risen in months. It makes a shy appearance around 9am, skulks around outside the window for a wee while then disappears again around 3.30pm. I don’t own a S.A.D light but I really wish I did. I read about a special meet-up the other day where people go do yoga under an enormous sunshiney lamp. I’m not so sure about the yoga, but some artificial daylight sounds just great round about now.
While sorting through my incredibly disorganised blog material folder (I don’t know why, but it would appear I do not afford my digital files the same care and attention as I do my paper ones), I came across a bunch of photos I took in the summer time with the intention of writing about my mum and her magic green fingers. I found the blog post abandoned in my ‘drafts’ dookit yesterday and, even though I’m a couple of seasons out of kilter and my thoughts are out of date, I want to share them in the hope they might inject a teensy bit of life back into an otherwise sluggish, winter-weary me.
Even when I was little, I knew my mother was mostly at her happiest when she was shuffling around on her knees, trowel at the ready, through dirt and soil, sifting out stray stones and plucking out weeds. She seemed happier still foraging around in woodland gathering wild flowers and picking crab apples and brambles she would later blitz into tasty sauces. For a long time though, she was gardenless. With no patch of green of her own to look after and unable to wander in the forest quite so much, she paid extra attention to her beloved house plants. ”It’s like a jungle in here”, my dad would grumble as he emerged from behind a thick wall of flowering Busy Lizzies. ”It’s like a jungle in here”, he’d gripe as he swatted away the leaves from the enormous spider plant that tickled his head as it dangled from the kitchen shelf. When he marched my sisters and I into his bedroom one day and pointed at a yuka plant my mother had somehow managed to nurture to the size of a fully grown palm tree, we had to agree that it was, a little bit “like a jungle in here”. And then there was the cheese plant. Brought back to life by, I can only presume, a combination of my mum’s enthralling conversation and whatever the hardcore plant food was she secretly smuggled from Bolivia, we had to navigate round/through the folliage like David Bellamy just to change the channel on the tv set.
My mum has a garden of her own again. She plants the seeds, she grows ‘em. She digs them up again, moves them around, plants them again and watches them get bigger. Round and round she goes, planting, growing, planting, growing. ”Maybe one day the garden will be finished and we’ll be able to sit out”, she’ll say. But where’s the fun in that? This, this right here, is a ‘working garden’. And I love it. Here are some of the things that live there. Much to my mother’s horror, most of my favourites are weeds.
My mother's garden has big daisies in it.
It has little daisies in it too. I like that these ones have extra long stems. Skinny minnies.
If my mum's magic fingers have the same effect on fruit and veg as they do on flowers and plants, I reckon we could be eating giant fruit salad this summer!
I'm sure these wee darlin's are weeds, but they've always been on my list of favourites!
These are cute too.
If I ever have a garden I'll devote a whole section to weeds!
I have no idea what the bowl is for. Maybe my mum grew it?
This gnome is older than me. His name is Sammy. Or Willy.
This gnome is older than me too. If the guy in the blue overalls is Sammy, let's say, then this must be Willy. But it might be the other way round.
I could honestly smell this rose from about a metre away. It smelled bea-u-ti-ful.
I LOVE WHIRLIGIGS! (My mother didn't grow this).
My family had a caravan on a site in Ayrshire. I loved it there. Between the ages of 0 and 12, I spent all my free time there with my mum. It’s probably a good job I can’t drive since I’m quite sure I would probably have been served some sort of order to keep me away from there by now. ”You don’t own a caravan here Mrs Maclennan. Your family haven’t been holidayers here for 18 years. Please go home and please stop harassing us”. Hm.
One time, while I was playing with my friends (climbing trees, rolling down hills etc., etc.), I spotted my mum far off in the distance. She’d been walking in the woods. As she got closer and I could see better, I knew she was wearing her skin tight blue jeans, her wellies and her coral reef cardigan – although it hadn’t been christened ‘the coral reef’ yet. I think at this point, I referred to it as her ‘bear cardigan’ because it was big and fuzzy. I could see she was humphing great armfuls of daffodils. As she got closer still, she started to smile at me and kind of waggle her head – y’know, like you might do when you see someone you know but you’re not *quite* close enough to speak to them yet. You kind of gesture with your face or your hands or something. I’m sure she would have waved if she could but of course she couldn’t due to the 10 kilos of flowers resting on her forearms. With sticky willy stuck in her hair, mud on her knees and weed fluff all trapped in her cardigan, she was quite a picture! At the time, I was a bit embarrassed. Being about 8 – maybe 9, I was all, “Oh lord, here comes my mum… Would you just look at the mess she’s gotten herself in. She’s just so embarrassing” (though I probably didn’t say those exact words. I don’t talk like that. Never have.). Now though? Now that picture is one of my very, very favourites and I’m glad it’s stuck in my brain gallery. Not only that, but 20 odd years later, and I would KILL for those damn jeans.
Me? I can’t grow nothin’. I’m just pleased not to have destroyed the Busy Lizzie my mum gave me when I moved into my house. Eight years and going strong! Well – maybe not going strong so much, but it’s not dead. This summer, Garry bought me a window box. Despite my lack of gardening know-how, I do love the idea of tending to window boxes. I’m just not that great at actually tending to window boxes. The box came filled with pretty flowering pansies. Once they died, I did nothing with the box. I look at it on the ledge now and again. I enjoy examining the dirt and debris that magically just appears in there. I don’t know where it comes from. Imagine my delight, when I peeked my head out of the window one night to spot a wee crop of mushrooms popping up in one corner! Mould, decay, rot – say what you will. I think they are very sweet.
Four years ago, the bulb in my bathroom pendant ceiling light exploded.
Today, my tool toting, utility belt wearing, techie whizz pal came to my house, big yellow ladder in hand (over shoulder) and replaced the duffed light fitting. It took around 15 minutes. 4 years and 15 minutes.
Tonight I will bathe. After dark.
"I think this is the hairiest lampshade I have EVER seen!" exclaimed Allan
One dark night, about two years ago, I lit some candles and hopped in the bath. As I happily warbled along to Bright Eyes and sculpted funny hairdos/big boobs with my bubble bath bubbles, my relaxing fun time was interrupted by the sound of sirens. Lots of ‘em. Then someone rang my door bell. Irritated by the noisey, buzzy, eee-aw hullabaloo that was drowning out my rendition of Lua, I was pleased Beardy was at home to deal with the surprise visitor/Jehovah’s Witness at the door. As the sirens continued to make intermittent ‘waaaow’ noises, I could hear Beardy chat to someone over the intercom. He burst into the bathroom, the door clattering off the wall. I got a fright. ”The fire brigade are outside! And they’re here to rescue YOU!” he shouted. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. As it transpired, a concerned and cautious neighbour spotted my candles flickering behind the frost of the bathroom window and thought our flat was on fire. Imagine. Had Beardy NOT been home, I would have ignored the buzzer presser and continued with my karaoke bath time routine. Imagine. Had I not answered the door, there’s every chance a troupe of burly fire fighters would have burst into my hall and right on through to my bathroom only to find me with a frothy white quiff, carefully moulded 38GG bubble breasts, singing sad, sad songs in a fake American accent.
This is one of my very favourite Christmas tree decorations. I stole it from my mother. I’m quite sure it’s older than me.
I removed all traces of my washout winter holiday today. The Christmas tree has been dismantled, the tinsel boxed up and the hand-me-down snowman candles packed away. Earlier this afternoon, the radio told me it’s bad luck to take Christmas decorations down early. Whatever. I feel better for it. I will feel even better when I’ve gone some way to shrinking the sugar mountain currently crammed into my kitchen cupboard. I don’t have proper food of any nutritional value to hand but I could easily feed myself – and Beardy – three meals a day worth of fudge, biscuits, ice cream, crisps, chocolates and marzipan fruits for at least a fortnight.
A while ago, I mentioned in passing that I haven’t updated my beauty regime since I was 13. Beardy asks me, more regularly than you might expect, why I change my hairdo and my clothes now and again but yet never change my face. I’m never quite sure how to respond. I usually just mutter something about not being very good with make-up. This response is equally as unsatisfactory to me as it is to Beardy.
I used to be quite, quite obsessed with make-up when I was little. In my folder of cut outs from Jackie magazine I treasured a particular spread about creating the perfect ‘vamp’ look. Remember when magazines used to use the word ‘vamp’? I miss those days… The girl in the magazine who underwent the vamp makeover wound up with a perfect, porceline base, fabulous cat-eye eyeliner, bright red lips and sculpted cheek bones. Having followed those darned make-up tips for the past 16 years, I can’t say I’ve ever achieved the perfect vamp look.
Just for fun, I thought I might empty the contents of my make-up bag (well, make-up drawer, actually) and see what might happen were I to experiment a little bit.
I used to hoard make-up products. People gave me hand-me-downs. I kept ‘em. I received free samples from cosmetic counters. I kept ‘em. I bought weird coloured eyeshadows on a whim. I kept ‘em. However, the one time I actually want to play dress up with the crap I’ve accumulated (“That foundation that’s 4 shades too dark for my skin? Hm… Might come in handy”), I find that at some point I’ve been sensible – and ditched the bulk of my beauty ‘back-ups’. I feel a mixture of rage, pride and disappointment.
Since I was all geared up for some make-up fun, I tried my best to give myself a make over. I even put my vintage crimpers to work. Here is the finished result.
Re-create the look…
1. Having cleansed and moisturised your face (who actually uses toner? WHO?), cover all the weird bits of your skin with concealer. I paid particular attention to the annoying reddish bits at either side of my nose and to the dark circles that have appeared beneath my peepers.
2. Since I don’t have make-up sponges or one of those fancy big brushes, I use my fingers to apply foundation. To create this look, you must apply three times as much foundation than* you would normally.
3. Set your base by applying approximately three times more face powder than you would normally.
4. Cover your entire eyelid with any eyeshadow you can find (I only had one to choose from). Ideally, you will own more than one shade of eyeshadow. Owning more than one shade of eyeshadow is almost sure to make this activity more fun.
5. Decide which of your eyeliner colours is silliest. Apply three times as much than you would normally. Around both lids. Then apply three times as much mascara than you would normally. Again, mascara options will enhance the experience. I only had one option.
6. Use lip liner. Just for a lark. Slick on three times as much lipstick than you would normally.
7. With your blusher brush, draw on fake cheekbones.
8. Crimp your hair. Having shared my crimping woes with crimping expert Josie Jo, I have learned that I ought to have sprayed my barnet with hairspray first to create a tighter crimp.
9. Make a funny face then insist your photographer husband take a ring-flash portrait of you immediately. Et voila!
*As I re-read this post, something is bothering me. Should one say, “three times as much than you would normally” ooooor “three times as much AS you would normally”? I’ve written it and changed it so many times the words make no sense. My apologies. Sometimes the word brain just stops working.
I’ve never thought of myself as one of those gals who worries too much about getting older. I couldn’t give a hoot about wrinkles or saggy bits. I watch ads on tv for age regenerist this and pretend face lift that and am in no way motivated to consider defying the signs of ageing with made up chemicals. “Wah! Wah! Can’t hear you Olay! Can’t hear you! I shan’t invest in your magic potions! Nopes. I shan’t!” Heck – until recently, I still used the same skin care products I did as a teenager! Even now, my beauty regime is hardly very grown-up. It’s barely even a regime. I wash my face every day with some Soap & Glory face scrub product with a cute name. I wham on some moisturiser. I put my makeup on. It’s probably to my detriment that I’ve never thought to update my make-up routine and were I to believe everything Clare tells me, the fact I ‘forget’ to take my face off before bed will surely be my downfall. In all sorts of ways. Apparently. But that’s neither here nor there. Or at least, it’s neither here nor there in terms of this post. Perhaps I might write a ‘playing with the contents of my make-up bag’ post some other time. Right now, I have much more pressing matters to discuss.
Now. Think about what I just said. Then brace yourselves. In the past two days, I have removed not one – but three silver grey hairs from the top of my head. Three. My face can do what it likes. What boobs I have left can plummet south if they so prefer it there. My ass can wibble and my knees can creak. But my barnet? Please, time, don’t mess with my barnet! Don’t get me wrong. I love grey hair. I love white hair. I’m even partial to a purple rinse – on other people, but piddly stray greys are officially freaky-deaking me out. Give me a full head o’ silver threads and I’m happy but taunt my otherwise shiny conker nut with a few wirey lines and I am not even remotely amused. Then – to add insult to injury, something truly awful happened. On the same day I removed the second of the three silver interlopers from my crown, I experienced a much more troubling ailment which I can only presume is a weird sign of getting older. Hemorrhoids. The horror! Beardy says I ought to keep my hemorrhoid chat to myself. I happen to agree and can’t actually believe I wrote that down. I mean, I’ve seen those shows on tv – Grumpy Old Women and what not. I know this shit happens. But I have been 32 for precisely 20 days and already I feel like I’m falling apart. A whole new world of age-related vanity issues and ‘health problems’ has opened up in the last three weeks and I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m considering getting tattooed.
As if that crisis wasn’t bad enough, there are other age-related problems preying on my (probably senile) brain. You know when you’re little and you imagine that life will be pretty much all sewn up by the time you hit 21? And then you hit 21 and realise that your mother is still stock piling tins of baked beans and cleaning products on your behalf, that your boyfriend is about as likely to be ‘the one’ as Patsy Cline is to walk into my living room right now, that your ‘wages’ equal that of your 16 year old counterpart and that all in all, in two decades, you’ve achieved precious little aside from some ‘hilarious’ tequila related stories (they’re not hilarious), some horrendous wardrobe additions and a catalogue of amusing haircuts. Hideous, huh? All you have to cling to, let’s face it, is the hope – no, the belief, the certain knowledge, that by the time you’re 31, you’ll have sussed all this out and everything will surely take shape.
Cut to my 32nd birthday. I do not have everything all sewn up. I’ m not even sure what I want to be when I grow up.
Thankfully, despite not having everything all sewn up or knowing what I want to be when I grow up, in comparison to the murky mess I found myself in when I was 20/21, the 32 year old Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry is a veritable success story! I am lucky to have a comfy house. I’m even luckier to live in it with my husband and my giant cat. I’ve taken some risks – some have paid off, others haven’t. I’ve met some brilliant, brilliant new friends and shed some not-so-brilliant ones. Blah blah wah wah. All very normal. Now though, I’m thinking about what happens to Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry between now – and when she turns 42. And I’m a little bit scared.
Doris Day, Que Sera Sera
Things I Might Do In The Next 10 Years
1. Be the Editor-in-Chief of my own magazine
2. Direct a comedy sketch show
3. Star in a gritty movie
4. Perform a Patsy Cline tribute act
5. Work in New York
6. Try my hand at writing fiction
7. Publish 10 more books
8. Get a grown-up job
9. Win an award
10. Earn more than £6k per annum
Monday 12th September 2011: My 32nd birthday.
A birthday breakfast fit for a queen.
These are my birthday tights. I bought them especially to match my charity shop birthday frock (also pictured). I was thrilled that a stranger on the train platform complimented them.
After a surprise meet-up in Spitalfields with my very favourite advertising duo, I joined my dear, dear friend Katie Murphy for some special birthday cocktails at Drink Shop Do. Katie had a drink called 'Ruby Shoes'. Mine was called 'Front Garden' :)
Had I had £1500 burning I a hole in my pocket, I would have bought this jukebox as a special birthday gift for myself.
After King's Cross cocktail fun, Katie & I headed to Islington for a hearty, carb-o-rama Gallipoli Bazaar feast. This is Katie.
And this, I'm sure you will agree, is the most unflattering photograph of any person ever taken. The end.
My mum says my sister could sing before she could speak. I wrote things down before I could spell. Both my sisters are much older than me. One is 9 years older. The other, 12 years older. To save throwing them away, my mum would hand me down their used up school jotters and partially filled notebooks (paper fetish starts here, my friends). Not only did I love just ‘having’ the stack of books, but one of my very favourite hobbies was ‘writing French’. I wasn’t really writing French, of course. What I was doing, in actual fact, was tracing my sisters’ fancy joined up handwriting. They wrote in pencil, you see – so I wrote over their swoops and curls and swirly bits in biro and pretended I’d come up jotters worth of wordy materpieces all on my own. Joined up handwriting = French. Obviously. Just thinking about how much I enjoyed doing that is making me tear up just a little bit. The mood I’m in, I have to wonder what the adult equivalent of ‘writing French’ is. Anyone?
A few years later (when I could join up my own writing for real), I developed a teensy obsession with the movie, Dirty Dancing. I wasn’t allowed to watch Dirty Dancing when it first came out – I think mainly on account of the raunchy title, because, let’s be honest, the movie is hardly hardcore now, is it? Though, I guess it might look that way to a cautious parent judging only by the promo poster imagery. Anyway, I was the last of my friends to see Dirty Dancing. I was usually the last of my friends to do most fun things. I was, however, the first of my friends to learn to write my own name, to count to 20, to learn my multiplication tables, to know what the longest word in the dictionary was, to be able to say ‘yes’, ‘hello’, ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ in Spanish, to be able to get a nice noise from my recorder and to know what the word ‘picturesque’ meant AND know how to spell it. Anyway, as lovely as all these things might be, they didn’t make up for the fact I hadn’t seen Dirty Dancing and so the girls in my class took the piss out of me. That was, until, my caravan friend Pamela invited me round to her place to watch it while her mum was out.
Hooked. I was so hooked infact, that having watched the film over and over and over again, I spent several weeks (though fewer than you might think), transcribing the entire script of the movie onto crisp white sheets of typewriter paper. Once complete, I drew my own electric pink Dirty Dancing logo on a makeshift cover, pegged the whole lot together with a giant novelty peg and displayed it lovingly on my bedknob. I tried to do the same with the Top Gun script but I don’t think I made it to the end… I’m not sure.
When I was a teenager I became obsessed with those ads in magazines for scam writing courses – though, I didn’t understand that they were scams and instead thought my parents just didn’t love me enough to nurture my early literary stirrings. Nonsense, of course. My family did all they could to grow my wee creative self, and ultimately did a fine job. As far as the mail order writing course went, they simply did not care to fritter away hundreds of pounds on a load of hooey issued by some moron sliming around on the bottom rung of a pyramid scheme. That said, I unwittingly engaged with a publishing pyramid scam all of my own. I saw an ad in The Sunday Post (I know… THE SUNDAY POST?!) calling for entries to a UK wide poetry contest. The winner was promised loads of money and a publishing deal. I duly sent my entry. I can’t remember exactly what the poem was about now, but I do vaguely remember the mention of porceline something or others smashing in my skull? Or was it my skull that was supposed to be porceline? I do not know. Probably best I don’t. Anyway, low and behold, I received a reply from the contest committee. I received a little note from the competition jury man telling me that although I hadn’t won the bag of money or the publishing deal, my poem had been shortlisted to be printed in a giant compendium of all the best competition entries. And – AND… I could see my work published IN the compendium if I sent them a cheque for £49.99. I was thrilled. No. Really, I was. Absolutely over the blinkin’ moon. I was just so disappointed that I would never save up enough pocket money to buy the book. Oddly, I didn’t tell my parents that I’d entered the contest and I definitely didn’t tell them about the letter I got through the post. Gullible? Moi?
When I wasn’t imagining myself as a supercool music journalist, I was scribbling angsty stuff in my diaries. Oh – hold on, stop the press. I’ve just remembered something a little bit funny that should have been included further up the page, chronologically just after the writing French hobby chat. Someone gave me this really brilliant little diary. It smelled old. It had a hard cover – one of those sort of padded, quilty ones. It had beautifully smooth, smoooooooth, cold pages with blue lines on. It had a little pop lock on the side. This journal had to be used for something very important. Something secret. Top. Secret. During one school holiday (at the caravan again), I decided to log every single person I knew in the book. I colour coded them with felt pen dots to demarcate what my relationship was with them and then I graded each person on a scale of 1 – 10 depending on how much I liked them. That is a TRUE STORY, my friends. And I cannot tell you enough how much I wish I still had that little journal. Thing is, not only is it a weird, weird thing to do, but I’m almost certain I did actually log every single person I knew in there. Every last one. Even the doctor was in there. And all my mum’s and dad’s friends. And all my sisters’ friends. Yet another childhood gem of a project that might need revisiting!
So. Yes. Where was I – before that crazy little snippet popped up? Oh yes. Supercool music journalist > diaries. I kept a journal of sorts (I think inspired by the likes of Anne of Green Gables first and then TV characters like Blossom) on and off during primary school then more religiously during high school. I wrote little bits and pieces after high school but once I’d discovered alcopops and the indie disco, my scribbling waned a little. I’d write in my books SO much that every Christmas my mum would buy me a giant stack of hardback jotters, knowing I’d soon fill ‘em on up. One year, I also received a set of coloured biro pens from Santa. I was thrilled. Writing things down had never been such colourful fun! I stored my book collection in Doc Marten boxes for years until one sad day I took a bonkers turn. I read my books one last time then whammed them in a black bag and binned the lot. More than a decade’s worth of ramblings silly and serious – gone. Not a week goes by that I don’t feel a teensy bit vomitty at the thought.
I knew I’d never really be a supercool music journalist. I knew because, as horrible as it was to admit it, I was rubbish at it. I’m not a good enough writer to describe something as amazing as music properly. I don’t know enough words. Not enough adjectives – not nearly enough similies. That would never do. I also wasn’t really sure how I felt about music writing. I mean, I bought music magazines and I enjoyed reading them but I think I was mad keen on interviews and mad bored by reviews. Nah. Despite harbouring a teen desire to wear cool clothes while hanging out in cool clubs and venues, my career as a music journo was nipped in the proverbial bud when I tried to write a review of an early Biffy Clyro gig for a student paper in 1996. “Biffy Clyro were quite good though they sounded a bit like a Nirvana cover band. I guess they were quite cute” was pretty much all I could come up with. I did not submit my article.
Writing after that became mostly an academic pursuit and no one besides tutors, lecturers and the odd conference delegate came to read the things I spent all my days writing. Jump ahead a couple of years, and inbetween writing band biogs for muso pals and penning pretend magazine articles that never saw the light of day, I took charge of all the words related to Made in the Shade. Huzzah!
Why am I rambling on about all of this? Well. I am rambling through my weird writing journey for one very specific reason. After years daydreaming about it, I am officially a published author. I wrote an actual book. ‘Tis true! Someone (a very lovely and super cool someone at that) referred to me as ‘an authoress’ yesterday and boy, did I like it! Yep. My book – the one I wrote about learning to sew, is gracing bookshelves and online shopping pages all over the UK and the US right now. Pretty exciting, eh? I am excited. I am probably most excited about getting to work on book number 2.
BOOK NUMBER 2: IDEAS
1. The Joy of Green – a book about how the colour green is the best of all the colours
2. The Carpet Chronicles – a book documenting bare-foot experiences across the globe
3. Big Mouthed Belters – a book about how much I dislike certain contemporary female singers
4. Carrie’s Guide to Lounge Wear – I put the world’s comfiest clothes to the ultimate couch test
5. Carrie Ate All The Pies – I eat pies. Beardy photographs me eating pies. I grow 3 dress sizes then release an accompanying fitness title (and maybe a DVD)
I think I have this writing thing all sewn up. A new career beckons. I’m sure you’ll agree. With gems like these in the ol’ noggin, how can I fail?
There’s a certain sort of baggage I really wish I could shed. Those knotted carrier bags full of rubbish and nonsense that build up in the corner of my brains in a big messy pyramid shaped stack. I’d like to ditch them. Throw ‘em on some psychological scrapheap and set them alight, maybe? Fears and phobias, weirdo hangups, failure hangovers, all sorts of paranoid androids, stupid limitations, bitter sweet memories (that was all I took with me), angry thoughts, green eyed monsters… “Let them melt to gloop!” I’d shout as I flounce off (probably covering my nose and mouth and coughing quite a lot. Bad baggage like this gives off hazardous fumes, you see*).
How. Ever.
There’s a certain sort of baggage I shan’t ever, ever part with…
... My vintage luggage collection!
I bought this little canvas briefcase about a year ago from Mr Ben for the princely sum of £10
My briefcase is just the right size to hold my laptop, a generous bundle of notebooks and a whole load of other crap I insist on carrying around with me.
I've decided to keep my Nokia tour call sheet in the front pocket as a 'lil momento. I'll come across it now and again and smile to myself.
I found this darling on the street. Abandoned. I rescued him (and his beautiful beige chequered friend - but he lives at The Maisonette at the minute). The best baggage in life is free.
Poor Beardy. Beardy is exasperated by my penchant for a good piece of luggage. That said, I insist that our house needs more practical storage and what more practical, affordable (and what more bea-u-ti-ful) storage could a gal happen upon than some perfectly bashed and beaten baggage? I currently have about 8 full size cases and a couple of little vanity boxes. And a briefcase. And a case especially for storing cassette tapes. Some live on show, some live in my storage cupboard.
Today I was gifted one of the very best bits of baggage EVER. When I was little my parents had a small black leather case with a big silver buckle fastener on the front. In comparison to the swanky beige 80s matching set they had, the black case was dinky – and it was certainly the prettiest of the luggage stack. I’m not sure what ever happened to it. It was always my favourite. Imagine my delight then when my friend presented me with a suitcase super similar to this ‘lil piece of McMooglie family nostalgia! Even more exciting, this particular little gem is the perfect shade of GREEN!
I will treasure it for always. I cannot wait to take my suitcase on a new adventure.
*Fumes ARE still hazardous even when the bonfire is imaginary.
I’ve been a magazine obsessive since I was little. It started with sticker albums, wordsearch booklets and the odd shopping catalogue. I was the only person in my household interested in Betterware. I then progressed to spin-off publications linked to my favourite tv shows. Finger Mouse. Going Live! I dreamed of subscriptions to mags that came with their own binder and series of ‘free’ gifts. I never ever got one. I managed to convince my mother, even though still at primary school, to let me read Jackie, insisting it was definitely for LITTLE, little girls. Not one to have the wool pulled over her eyes, my mother would be sure to secretly scan the pages before I got to them, censoring anything she deemed inppropriate with a black magic marker pen. I remember one time, when I’d sneakily spent my pocket money on my first issue of Just17 (at the ripe old age of… 12?) she censored the problem page, blacking out the word ‘penis’. The pages were glossy and the print kind of raised off the page. I could still read it.
I bought Jackie and Just17 religiously throughout my teens before moving onto the likes of Mizz and More. I thought I was very grown up when I read my first Company and I was certainly a woman of the world by the time I ripped open the cellophane of my first Cosmopolitan. Of course, I had not actually kissed a boy yet, but holy moley, I was well equipped with tips and dos and donts and hots and nots should the opportunity arise. It became apparent from the plethora of ‘Dear Agony Aunt’ letters from geek girls like me that I wasn’t the only teen reader to be living some sort of romantic life vicariously through the pages of Just 17 and its like. The ‘Dear Agony Aunt’ pages were always the best bits, let’s face it.
I kept every single magazine in a big stack beside my bed and when the stack got too big to stay tidily upright, I stored them in stacking boxes instead. When the magazine boxes started to take over my bedroom, I had to make a cull. I scoured each and every issue I’d collected, ripping out pages I wanted to keep. I painstakingly catalogued them according to topic – beauty, boys, fashion, beauty, boys, fashion – punched holes in them with my red metal holepunch and stored them carefully in a big giant ring binder. By the time I saw fit to part with my big giant ringbinder of teen girl fodder (I regret this moment every darned day), I’d already accumulated a tonne of music magazines – from Smash Hits to Select to NME and Q. A whole new tower of magazine boxes had been building under my windowsill.
Recently, I parted with two boxes of Q magazine but I continue to hoard (and grow) two baskets of BUST, Milkcow, Venus, Selvedge, The Chap and Oh Comely. Some people tend to plants and vegetable patches. I cultivate my magazine collection.
One time, about 11 years ago now I guess, I spotted an advert in the job pages of The Herald. I can’t remember the exact publication now, but Teen Mag X (let’s call it that – though already I’m regretting calling it that as the ‘X’ makes the whole thing sound much less wholesome and a lot more naughty – or wrong – than I’d intended) were looking to recruit a junior journalist. I wrote a covering letter to beat all covering letters and posted it off to Teen Mag X. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to write a letter like it since - though I’m hoping I might muster the same ‘I REALLY WANT THIS JOB ooomph’ again soon. Much to my utter delight, I was invited to attend an interview in Dundee. Or was it Aberdeen? I think my parents may have worried that this writing lark was a silly flight of fancy and that I was pursuing the opportunity for mixed up reasons. I didn’t travel north to meet the publishers. I missed the interview. If I merely regret the moment I decided to part with my giant ring binder of clippings, then thinking back on this episode makes me feel nauseous. I don’t suppose I really wanted to live in Dundee. Or Aberdeen. But, gee whizz… I wonder what might have come of Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry had I taken the teen mag road less travelled. Maybe it’s not too late! “Dear Aunty Carrie. My boyfriend wants me to touch his penis. What should I do?” I could totally be Aunty Carrie.
Yes. Aherm. I have a new addition to my magazine library. Hot on the heels of my last ‘new favourite thing’, Oh Comely (more about this later, no doubt), comes Frankie. A super cool, beautifully designed, wonderfully written, marvellously edited and generally overwhelmingly swoony excuse for a magazine, Frankie comes all the way from our creative pals in Australia. With the tagline, “Do. Make. Look. Listen. Say. Think”, Frankie has just about everything fabulous wrapped up perfectly in a nice neat papery package. Though it doesn’t appear to have a problem page.
My mother-in-law, Pauline, ‘overheard’ my Frankie fan talk on Facebook. Less interested in what the mag was but more interested in how it could possibly elicit in me the behaviour of a big fat coo-ing homing pigeon, she gifted me a subscription. Oh how I whooped! I whooped with a whole lotta welly – right from the bottom of my tummy! I returned from London yesterday to find my first installment lying on the hall floor. I knew exactly what it was from the Morrison Media sticker on the front of the envelope but I didn’t open it right away. I waited til this morning to tear open the paper package in a mini Frankie Opening Ceremony. With a cup of tea and a comfy seat at the kitchen table, I summoned Beardy to witness the big reveal. As I slid the smooth, weighty issue from the envelope, we both made this noise: “Oooooh…”
Pauline, this is one of my favourite gifts of… ever. Thank you. x
"Ooooh..."
Painter Lisa Pugley is featured on p127 of Issue 42. I like to think this painting is me sitting beside my sisters, Lisa & Marie.
[I wrote this post on Friday 29th April 2011. I was all set to publish it when my internet connection zonked out. Oh - and I have no digi pics of my wedding oddly enough so I've rather crudely taken some pictures OF my wedding pictures! Here's my wedding-y post - a couple of days late... ]
Right up until today, I can honestly say I really didn’t give too much of a hoot about The Royal Wedding. I mean, I wasn’t actively avoiding it or being publicly outspoken about my not caring much about it, I just didn’t really think about it. What business is it of mine that people I have never met, or am ever likely to meet, are getting married? “Prince William and Kate Middleton are tying the knot? Aaaaaw. That’s nice. “ And. Now to get on with my work/chores/sleeping ( I’m usually only ever doing one of those three things). That’s sort of how it went in my head in the weeks and months leading up to what everyone on tv was calling ‘The Big Day’. Phhht. Big day? Certainly no big shakes.
This morning, I woke up at 8am. A little woozy and having barely opened my eyes, I switched on the tv. “BBC 1! BBC1! Where is BBC 1?” (I hadn’t even allowed myself the few seconds required to put my glasses on). After some moments fumbling around, jabbing at the remote control and hollering at Smokey Cat to, “Help me find the right channel!”, I heard ol’ Huw Edwards’ voice coming from the far end of my bedroom. He wasn’t IN my bedroom. He was on the television, broadcasting live from outside Buckingham Palace. Oh hoorah for Kate and William! The Big Day has arrived at last… Oh my! And it would appear I’ve decided to give a shit? Surely not.
Indeed, it was true. I was caring. I was excited, even. By the time I was dressed and ready to leave the house, William & Harry were driving to The Abbey in a fancy Big Potatoes car. Why are my eyes watering? Am I shedding a tear? Am I feeling some sort of weird emotional attachment to two PRINCES I do not know? “Och, int’it a pure shame their mammy’s no’ there the day…” I began to question whether I might be having some sort of breakdown.
I quite often find myself questioning whether I might be having some sort of breakdown. I wasn’t as panicked by the possibility as you might expect a person to be when confronted by the very real notion they just might need to visit a mental health professional. I’d been through worse. However, when I started to get crazily uptight about being late for the start of the ceremony, realising too that since I took so long putting my make-up on (a gal needs to put her make-up on to ‘go’ to a Royal Wedding!), I no longer had time to stop off en route to pick up some supplies (you know – the things you need when you ‘go’ to a Royal Wedding like bottles of £2 Bucks Fizz and pan au chocolat) I was quite, quite sure I was losing my mind.
Having watched Kate and William say their respective ‘I do’s, I came over all a-mush and got to thinking about mine and Beardy’s wedding day. A sucker for a wedding and usually always the first guest to blub, I somehow managed to be a tear-free bride. Am I remembering that correctly? I think I am… I guess it really is amazing what a nip of whiskey can do for a gal if she whams one back before taking a stroll on down that aisle. Or maybe I had no tears left since I’d cried ‘em all the day before like a crazy goon! (Classic pre-wedding vodka tears).
A far cry from royal fanfares, maple trees and diamond tiaras, Beardy and I celebrated our union in a big stripey tent. It looked a little bit like a Big Top. It was decorated with flowery bits and enlarged, photocopied pictures of us looking smiley and in love. ‘Twas all very DIY. Just the way we intended. Our marquee-o-rama was pitched in the carpark of The Trentham Hotel in Dornoch. Owned by dear Beardy family friends and the location of much of Beardy’s teenage tomfoolery, we were dead set on the venue and we were dead set on throwing a super-relaxed shindig for our friends and family members. With tonnes of help from generous mums, dads, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, grandparents and pals – we had ourselves a merry little marriage celebration.
All our smiley faced wedding guests, in the carpark of The Trentham Hotel - outside our Big Top tent!
Natasha Bedingfield, These Words
I’ve heard since from several brides that this particularly troubling syndrome (let’s just call it Crazy Over-Emotional Bride Syndrome) is common amongst the ‘bride-to-be’ contingent. Under normal circumstances, you have a pretty great and varied taste in music. You know? Cos you’re cool. But there you are… The week before your wedding - in a shop, or in a cafe… A song comes on. A stupid, rubbish song. Ordinarily you’d ignore it or maybe make some sort of flippant comment about how stupid and rubbish it is. The week before your wedding though? It would seem that even the most poorly conceived musical/ lyrical combo can move a gal to tears. I heard a story once of a bride-to-be that cried infront of a sales assistant in a department store when she heard Ronan Keating, ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’ on the shop music loop. I was lucky in comparison. I burst into tears in the privacy of my own house - when I saw this Natasha Bedingfield video on T4.
Badly Drawn Boy, The Shining
The song I toddled down the aisle to. Not a dry eye in the house… Not a dry eye here now either! Makes me blub every time I hear it still.
Neil Diamond, Forever in Blue Jeans
Beardy and I were super-particular about the music plans for our wedding. But you know what they say about the best laid plans… :/ We’d painstakingly put together playlists to see us through every waking minute of our day – from a slushy mix of quiet loveliness for guests to listen to before the ceremony, to an upbeat breakfast soundtrack and ambient background hilarity for the hotel bar – we’d planned it all. We’d even made up a whole bundle of songs for ‘the dancing’ at the reception. We’d settled on a traditional live ceilidh band for the first half of the reception and generous DJ pal Duffy agreed to be in charge of our cd playlists afterwards. Aherm. None of that came to fruition. Our ceilidh band had accidentally double booked and instead, we were met with a bunch of ageing hippies (and not the good, fun kind) that could barely play their instruments and who chose to play a full set of positively gruesome songs that no one knew. There was more than one comparison drawn between our wedding band and Pheonix Nights. However, the highlight of their performance (apart from when the drummer got a little bit over excited and fell of his stool, out the back of the marquee) was the first song. Forever in Blue Jeans :)
Madonna, True Blue
My sister and Maid of Honour, Marie, flew all the way from West Africa to be at our wedding. Her journey, as if not already crazy enough, was plagued with disasters and delays and she missed out on the ceremony in the end. But! All was not lost! She still had her chance to pull her ‘lil surprise at the reception. When I was little, I used to pop my head phones on, sing along to my favourite songs and record myself with the mic on my mum’s big black radio. By the time I was about 11, there must have been several tapes kicking about our house that had me wailing along to The Hits of the 80s (and a fair few that had my version of the entire soundtrack of The Slipper & The Rose on). Little did I know, that some 18 years after recording my ‘debut’, Marie had salvaged one of my secret tapes and shared the best and worst of its contents with our wedding guests! Despite my reactionary loud exclamation of horror, “Bastard!” (I couldn’t hold it in. “Yes darling, the bride did just holler ‘bastard’!”), turned out, my rendition of Madonna’s True Blue a la 1986 wasn’t nearly as awful as I thought. It was certainly more entertaining than the wedding band.
*I really, really wanted to share our ‘first dance’ song with you but you know what? I can’t find it on You Tube. If you want to have a search, look for I’ll Let Nothing Separate Us by Otis Redding. Beardy chose it. And it was perfect.
This is one of my very favourite photographs from our wedding day.
As wonderful as our wedding was 7 years ago, I’d love to recreate it – this time including guests that couldn’t make it and guests we hadn’t met yet! Maybe when we reach our 10th anniversary, we just might organise that :)
I like this one too - though my weird double chin kind of spoils it. Beardy looks nice in it though!
