August 2019

‘Here,’ I said to The Mothership, showing her a photo. ‘What do you make of this outfit?’ I’m interested to see her reaction to the statement dress of the summer: the Zara spotty one that has become an Instagram sensation. Her response was typically verbose.

‘That’s a Dress?’ she asks.  ‘Looks more like a night dress to me, for an older person! Worse, actually- more like a hospital gown.  Mind you, my friend was going into Menarys the other day and there was, what she thought, was a rail of nightdresses by the doorway.  Turned out they were all dresses! Maybe it’s a new trend so you can go to the supermarket in your night wear and no one will be any the wiser!!’

For once we are completely in agreement. I had started reading an article on The Guardian on-line, and thought, ‘I may get myself one of these yokes, it sounds the business,’ until I saw it and was distinctly underwhelmed when I saw the picture.

‘It’s kind of shapeless, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘It is,’ says The Mothership. ‘and drab.’

‘Insipid,’ I reply.

‘Nondescript,’ she goes on.

‘Wish washy’ chirps up LSB, who’s sitting in the corner and even though he hasn’t seen the dress is keen to join in the fun.

‘The thing about style,’ opines The Mothership,‘is that a lot of people just don’t have any. I was down the street the other day, and I said to your dad, ‘Would you look at the cut of those jeans that woman has on?’ ‘Sure they’re more hole than jean,’ he replied. ‘And he was right too.’

‘But in the dress’s defence,’ I say, ‘at least it’s not fitted. No one needs a fitted frock after a week in an all-inclusive hotel.’

‘I suppose,’ she conceded. ‘It would actually be very good for concealing a plump tum.’

‘Hmmmm.’ I said, feeling that this was a tad pointed at me and my portliness. My excesses have clearly not gone unnoticed.

However, we were talking ourselves round to the dress rightly.

‘It’s airy too,’ I went on.  I could have done with airiness in Palma I can tell you. Readers, I kid you not- the heat in Mallorca was a killer; I can usually cope valiantly, especially if I have poolside access to mojitos, but this was relentless. Even at breakfast I was perspiring into my coffee, most unbecoming it was. ‘Maybe it’s the menopause,’ I said to LSB, mopping my glistening face with a napkin.‘It’s 34º’ he said. ‘Would you give over.’

On the last evening of our holiday we took the foolish decision to go for a Mexican. (I mean, who the hell thinks that jalapeños are a wise idea when it would roast you alive?  Us, apparently.) Just for good measure the red tiles on the floor had absorbed all the heat during the day and they radiated an intense glow upwards, sending sweat running down the backs of my legs in rivulets. Like a fool I ordered a margarita and it came with salt AND chilli around the rim, which was just plain cruel. I still drank it obviously, but it didn’t make me any better  company, as LSB would readily attest. He truly did earn his acronym on this trip.

Back to the dress.

Thus in such temperatures, a floaty garment, should you choose a maxi over a midi dress, is a wise choice to waft a bit of air around. In addition, to this, I appreciate that this frock could be styled up or down as the occasion demands; and at £40 if you’re talking cost per wear, you’re on to a winner. I’m currently trying to apply the ’30 wears rule’ when I buy anything new (or second hand) and it’s saving me a fortune.

So here was my take on the polka-dot hit of the summer. I dug out a black dress I bought yonks ago in TK Maxx and wore it with my new favourite pendant- my astronaut necklace from Liberty Blue. If I’d listened to Marie Kondo, I’d have chucked this frock long ago because I bought it when I was postnatally depressed and it brought me no joy whatsoever, but then again, neither did anything else, so I can’t hold that against it. However I refused to ditch it and it’s now enjoying a revival. Occasionally there are benefits to being a hoarder.

So may I ask, in the interests of pure nosiness, if any of my Sour Wee Readers own the polka-dot Zara dress which I’ve just slated? If so, I offer profuse apologies and I’m sure you carry it off very well. There’s actually something most endearing about it, and I’m always thrilled to see a fashion item which is kind to you when you’ve been on on the wine and crisps.

(Photo credit must go to the lovely Amberlea from @starlingstart)

It was wonderful to return to the Black Box last night and meet up with the Tenx9 crew and some new friends. I’ve recently joined Women Aloud and they are a great bunch, welcoming and very, very funny. One of the wonderful things about Tenx9 stories, is that they’ve allowed me to revisit episodes in my life which were shite at the time but looking back, actually quite humorous. Cases in point are: my school formal; my wedding day; the time I decided to foster a dog and had a nervous breakdown, and then, there was this holiday to Portugal. Sometimes the fact that LSB and I are still going strong just amazes me.

Here’s the story, and the theme was ‘Getaways’

‘This looks nice, doesn’t it?’ I said, showing my boyfriend an article in The Guardian Travel supplement. It described a delightful and unexpected find in the Portuguese countryside, and the photo showed a rustic house, bathed in the early evening sun. It had a natural ‘eco-pool’ and meals were served in a shady courtyard and you could stroll in a cork forest by day before relaxing on the terrace of the spacious rooms. There would be no children, (as a teacher this was very important to me) and no hordes of gay Adonises to make my partner feel shite.

I’ll explain. The year before I’d been in Madrid all summer and suggested that my boyfriend meet me for a beach holiday up in Barcelona. We’d come to Sitges, a resort where all the gays in Europe chose to congregate. My boyfriend was so white he was almost blue. He had been working on Wall Street, during the financial crash of 2008, so long days were followed by even longer nights drinking in a pub called The Killarney Rose. ‘Here comes the salad dodger!’ the waiter used to say when he came in of an evening and ordered his burger, stipulating: ‘Meat in a bap, nothing else.’

He was therefore self-conscious on the beach, surrounded by bronzed, svelte men with six packs and very small Speedos. I, on the other hand, coped quite well.

We therefore had to compromise.  I needed sunshine, a warm pool and access to pina coladas. But he didn’t know what to do on a beach holiday. His only concession to the 40º temperatures In Spain was to pack three short sleeved shirts. He arrived in jeans, and trainers, with socks on. He didn’t bring sunglasses, because he didn’t own any. He seemed content, to fry the corneas off himself. He had neither shorts nor flipflops. Sun-cream baffled him. He did take off his shoes, but forgot to apply sunscreen to his feet, and the one bit of exposed skin turned beetroot that evening. It was sore when his trainer rubbed against it, he conceded later. I didn’t offer much sympathy.

So we agreed on sunshine, but no beach part. We booked two nights in Lisbon first, to temper our retreat with some bustling city life. It sounded like a perfect, well planned getaway. Then we got there. As we stepped off the bus in the main square, we were accosteded by two men ‘Coke? Grass? Acid?’ they said. ‘Very good price!’ Looking back, our first mistake was not to take ALL the drugs. They would have made our first night infinitely more bearable. A crotchety receptionist directed us to our room, in the deepest entrails of a shabby hotel. The lift was broken and we huffed and puffed, bumping our case up the stairs. I still think about the bed, which took up almost the whole room. If there was a Tenx9 for beds, this bed could tell several tales. The springs threatened to break free and lacerate us as we slept. We rammed our case underneath, firstly, as there was nowhere else to put it, and secondly, to lend the mattress extra support.

‘You needn’t be thinking they’ll be any…’ I started to say, but Himself interrupted, ‘In that?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t going to suggest it. I don’t have a death wish.’ The bathroom was built into the sloping roof, like a cupboard with a toilet. Even at five feet one, I had to duck my head to get in. I turned on the fan and as it wheezed into motion a cloud of dead mosquitoes fell onto the bed. ‘FUCK ME!’ I shouted. I thought we said that was off the menu,’ said my boyfriend. This is not even funny, I fumed.

‘No,’ said the receptionist when I went to complain. ‘There are no other rooms.’ Even a meal of steak and fine red wine couldn’t dispel our gloom that night.

In the morning, such was my sourness, that they gave us a new room with a balcony that smelt of lemon scented verbena. But despite sauntering the cobbled streets, and hopping on and off the tram to stop for tapas, I was still in puerile form. Beside our hotel was a bridal shop displaying garish dresses of a lurid yellow hue, like something you would cough up after a chest infection. ‘I could see you in that one,’ said Himself, winking. I think I told him to piss off.

The next day we boarded a train for Evora, from where we would reach our eco resort. The lady at the bus station looked bemused when we explained where we wished to go.

‘Where?’ she said. ‘There are no buses there. You’ll have to take a taxi.’

So we stayed the night in Evora which was beautiful and atmospheric, but I managed to ruin the moment by trying the local delicacy, which was a bowlful of snails, swimming in a sickly garlic broth.

‘Should we just stay here?’ asked Himself. ‘I like this town.’ He liked how they served beer in tankards at the Bowie themed bar we found. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I WANT TO GO TO MY RETREAT!’ The next day a kamikaze taxi driver sped us through a desolate landscape with acres of barren scrubby fields. ‘You’re going here?’ he said. Even in broken English, his tone still conveyed incredulity.  When we rocked up in a cloud of dust, the staff looked at us in surprise. They didn’t expect two young people. They looked embarrassed on our behalf that we’d gone. There was an honesty bar, boasting one type of shit local beer and thankfully, gin. We couldn’t get lunch, because the staff were hosting a conference for very earnest looking Portuguese people. ‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘let’s go to the pool.’ The eco-friendly credentials meant that they eschewed adding chlorine, and instead let the ‘natural pond life feed and cleanse the water’.  At worst, it looked like a sewer, and at best, an overgrown duck pond. I entered its brown murky depths and felt the reeds tug at my ankles.

My disappointment was acute. ‘Shall we have a walk in the forest?’ suggested my boyfriend, with a note of desperation creeping in. Off we trudged. The scorched earth was red and dusty. Cork trees are not famed for leafy foliage. It mirrored my mood which was now apocalyptic. Then we got lost. We hadn’t brought pebbles like Hansel and Gretel and even my boyfriend’s usually good sense of direction failed him. ‘Is that a fence?’ I said. It was. A barbed wire fence, to be precise, but we’d been in this bastard forest for two hours and I’d had enough. I was astride the fence, when I heard barking and two angry mongrels bounded towards us, snarling. I jumped back into the forest smartish and didn’t notice the gash on my hand until later.

Dinner that night was a subdued affair. In the absence of a menu they plonked down two bowls of tomato soup with fried eggs floating on top. There is nothing that my boyfriend despised more than eggs, but he valiantly slurped up some of the soup around it and ate the bread. He was still trying to rescue the moment.

‘The courtyard’s nice, isn’t it?’ he said. I conceded that it was, indeed, romantic.

‘It would be nice to get married,’ he went on. ‘Not here, obviously, but somewhere like this, only you know, better.’

‘Hmmph,’ I said. He looked sadly down at his soup.

We returned to Lisbon two days early where it was hot and busy and I was still pissed off. Then the day after we came home our cat ran out in the road and had to have her tail amputated. ‘This summer’s been a blast,’ I lamented. However, we were still talking and even managing to have the odd laugh. At the end of August we went to look at a house that was for sale near where we lived. Then we went to St George’s Market for a sausage sandwich. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Do you reckon if we’re looking at buying a house we might get married one day?

‘Yea totally,’ said Stevey.

‘Should we look at a few rings then?’ I said. (I wasn’t planning this by the way. I was wearing my running shorts and trainers.)

‘Sure,’ he said.

We trotted into a jewellers 15 minutes later I came out with a very shiny diamond ring. It went really well with my shorts.

‘Fancy Portugal for the honeymoon?’ he joked.

‘Why not,’ I said. As long as it’s with you.

I liked a post on Facebook which said ‘Kids don’t need more plastic toys, they need new experiences.’ How true, I thought and gave it the big thumbs up. I may even have shared it. ‘My children have plenty of new experiences,’ I even have thought to myself. ‘Here they are in Mallorca, in a nice (if extremely rustic resort where a lot of things are broken but still) but there are pools and there is sunshine and there are little horses to stroke.’

But you’ve guessed it. My kids, despite all my attempts at indoctrination, still wanted more plastic shite, but they know better than to ask me to buy it for them. Here’s a tale from the holiday to illustrate my point.

Two weeks ago, I took the bus into the city from our resort to lose myself in the cobbled streets by the cathedral and sit in a cafe and read my book in peace. As I attempted to calm my VERY sun-kissed cheeks with my new Tropic mineral foundation, I issued LSB with instructions.

‘Reapply sun-cream after the pool. Make sure they drink loads, even if it has to be Coke. Don’t buy them anymore Haribo. Keep an eye on them at the deep end.’

‘Not my first rodeo,’ says LSB tightly, narrowing his eyes.

‘AND DO NOT buy them those bastard rabbits.’ I add as I leave. There is a shop at the resort which sells necessary items like sun cream and armbands and wine, and then shite such as battery powered rabbits (not THAT kind, you dirt birds) but badly made toys on leads which small children can trail about after them. They make a horrible droning sound, so of course my children are transfixed. At €12 each, I imagine they cost the equivalent in cents to make in a factory in Guangdong Province in China.

I spend a hot afternoon in Palma and am unimpressed because the shops either cater for teeny bops in chain stores or for the rich set, who can afford to shell out £400 for a top in posh designer stores. I spy a dress which I fancy because it’s white and airy and in an effort to ‘pack light’ I’ve nothing clean left. Despite being in the sale it is €85. I read that Mallorca is more expensive than mainland Spain because everything is imported, and I confirm that disappointingly, this is true. The shopkeeper is a picture of bronzed elegance. The look she gives me suggests that I am not the clientele she wants in her shop. I give her a sour look as I leave.

My phone beeps as I receive a text from LSB which alludes to his great misery: ‘Pls go to a pharmacy and get me plasters. My poor feet. They bleed.’ Prior to our trip he had dug up an overgrown shrub in the garden, but some ants took a fancy to his ankle and left a trail of bites along his foot. These were irritated by his choice of footwear on holiday, when his socks stuck to them in the heat. He’s not a fan of the flip-flop, my husband. So the whole afternoon, in Palma, I buy nothing other than Elastoplast and a mango ice cream.

A small over-heated child screams for a solid hour on the bus back and I return to our room hot and sour and frazzled. I hear the a dull electronic noise before I even reach the terrace. The children’s mouths are a deep shade of electric blue, so there’s no hiding the fact they have eaten bubblegum lollies. ‘Look at our bunnies!’ says the Small Child. Georgina’s is called Lola, and what’s mine called again? ‘Lily,’ her sister reminds her.

They have flung all my things out of the dressing table and used the drawers  to create ‘hutches’, complete with water bottles and sweets for food and beds made from socks.

The bunnies accompany us for dinner, on their leads. Children beam and parents smile wryly at us, obviously thinking ‘You’re a pair of mugs, giving in to them.’

The next day Bunny Lily comes a cropper when she gets dropped or trampled on and a leg snaps off- a piece of plastic adrift in its cheap polyester casing. ‘That looks like I nasty break,’ says LSB, but the Small Child is devastated, and even a game of ‘Let’s take bunny to the vet’ does little to appease her. ‘I suppose that’s what happens when you buy cheap tat,’ I mutter darkly to him. ‘I got an hour to read my book in peace while they played with them and you went off on your own,’ he says. ‘Don’t knock it.’

The Mothership has been appointed ‘chief fixer of toys’ and the children have devised a plan whereby she must cut open the material, superglue the  leg back on and then sew it up again. I’m sure she can’t wait until we’re home.

Just warning you- there’s going to be swearing and plenty of it. At breakfast LSB said to me:

‘What about a feature called ‘Melter of the Month’ for your blog, you know, as content?’ He’s been full of ideas this trip, about my blog. He’s thinking of a ‘Sour Wee Book’ full of nuggets of wisdom from me and The Mothership.

‘Wisdom? Me?’ I said.

‘Well, you know, nonsense that you pass off as wisdom,’ he replied.

Cheeky f**ker.’ (Incidentally, I didn’t know that ‘CF’ was a thing on ‘Mumsnet’, but then I never really read ‘Mumsnet’ so I hadn’t even a clue what ‘AIBU’ meant until recently. I live in a sort of SWB bubble, which is perhaps why I’ve been writing this blog for nearly 4 years and it hasn’t gone very far. Just as well, I suppose: I’ve enough anxiety issues without adding fame to the list: I mightn’t be able to cope.)

I digress. ‘Melter of the Month?’ I said, ‘What about “Melter of the Morning”’? Sitting opposite us at the table was the Small Child, with an expression that would have withered your wisteria in 3 seconds flat. ‘What’s the matter now?’ I said in despair, dipping my homemade chocolate cookie into my cappucino.

‘I don’t like the FOOD,’ she replied.

Let me tell you about the food. There were eggs, fried to perfection; creamy yogurt with an infinite number (ok, five) things to sprinkle in it, and luscious slices of watermelon, cantaloupe and blood orange. Piled on trays were croissants and muffins and cake and breads of every kind including one which was soft and pie shaped and dusted with icing sugar. It made my heart do a little flip and everything in the world seem alright. I tried cajoling: ‘Up you come with me and let’s see what we can find! Oooh, let’s put some Nutella on that mini croissant!’

Do you know what the wee s**t finally said she wanted? ‘If only there were crisps, then I could make a crisp sandwich,’ she said. I kid you f**king not. It was 9am.  Her daddy actually smirked a little bit, because he was the f**ker who introduced her to a crisp sandwich, as though it were a good thing, and something which they ‘bonded over.’ I mean, there was a veritable smorgasbord of delights but she declared that the mini doughnut she deigned to sample got ‘sour towards the end’ and the cookies were ‘not to her taste’. I must confess that I taught her that phrase as I objected strongly to foodstuffs (particularly items which I had lovingly prepared) being declared ‘revolting’.

Her sister, on the other hand (and God how I loved her at the moment) was hoovering up banana chips and slathering her muffin in strawberry jam and humming happily to herself.

Later, we went to the pool. There was some playing and pretending to be mermaids (a game where I have to be Queen mermaid and they swim about  saying: ‘I’m Eve and my tail is purple with white bits and I’ll collect you prawns for lunch) and this contented them for approximately eight minutes and until they got bored and wanted to go ‘back to the room.’

‘No,’ I said, with feeling. LSB had the shits which he claimed was down to the teeny tiny bit of mayonnaise which was on his pork gyoza in a sushi bar last night, but I would suggest the ever present glasses of chilled beer in his hand since we arrived on the island 7 days ago would more likely be the culprit. Anyway, he was away for paracetamol, and I was landed with the two feckers who, every time I found something interesting to read on Twitter, would insist on annoying me.

They don’t like to take on fluids my children, unless it’s Coke or Sprite and I worry for their teeth since mine are like chalk and tend to disintegrate and therefore my dentist and I have such a close relationship that every time I sit on the chair I just say, ‘What’s wrong now’ and he tells me and I say ‘FUCK’ and he just nods, sadly, and tells me to book in for fillings ASAP. So I bought them a lolly each as it was already 28º and I feared dehydration would do little to improve their moods. Sitting down with a sigh I reflected: ‘FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE GOD FIVE MINUTES OF PEACE’. The Older One then opened her Super Twister and there was f**k all super about it, as it had melted into an odd and sticky mess where stick and lolly were indistinguishable.

Fortunately, LSB chose this moment to return from the pharmacy and I declared that HE could sort the BLASTED LOLLY OUT and that I was parking myself ‘far, far away’ from all family members. It was 11.35. How dreadful to be so fed up at 11.35, especially when the day had started so well with the Small Child acquiescing to put on a wee dress and white sandals and looked altogether edible, which was ironic as she deemed nothing from the extensive breakfast buffet was remotely edible at all.

It is now 12-55 and they have all retreated to the room where the children have resumed their game of ‘toys on a mission!’ which involves attaching their soft toys to flipflops and trainers with a playing card as a ‘map’ to fly about. Clearly, there is no need at all, to book for a hotel with sea views in Palma when you could stay in Belfast, manhandling a seal called Oscar and a badger called Trevor into a shoe (from henceforth known as ‘mobiles’) and flinging them about. Barney the Bear came a cropper apparently, and was ‘on oxygen’ back at the hospital (aka the dressing table) with half of a plastic ball they got from a machine over his face to help bring him round.

‘I’ve booked a massage,’ I tell LSB,’They’re all yours.’

‘I though as much,’ he replied, with a heavy sigh.

The Mothership is only off the phone. She was in a quare mood, I can tell you. ‘I’m raging,’ was her opening gambit, after a cursory enquiry as to my state of health; (I have had a sinus infection, which has been shite.)

She’s often raging, is my mother. Sometimes it’s about the Tory government, although she doesn’t have any confidence at all in Labour, especially with Corbyn at the helm, but then again, who could blame her. She is in a perpetual state of rage about FGM, and is often exhorting me to sign petitions and donate money as she is incredulous and AGHAST (‘Helen, I AM AGHAST’ that this is still going on ‘EVEN IN THE UK!!! IS NO ONE LOOKING OUT FOR THESE WEE ONES,’ she will say). Today though, The Mothership is raging about toasters.

THE MOTHERSHIP: I was just down the street this afternoon,

ME: Mmmmmmm (trying to sound interested)

THE MOTHERSHIP: and I was in ‘The Ultimate Factory Shop’ and they had a very nice toaster, which took four slices.

ME: (TO MYSELF) Kill me now, (ALOUD): Oh right?

THE MOTHERSHIP: and I very nearly had it in my basket, and then, I said to your dad, ‘Ronnie, can you read that writing, beside the dial?’ and he said, ‘Just about’ and I said, ‘Well you’re lucky, because I can see nothing!’

Do you know what the idiot manufacturers had done? They had put red writing, on a dark blue background, rendering it UNREADABLE, and I like to be able to see the gauge, to see how I like my toast done.

ME: So did you not buy the toaster?

THE MOTHERSHIP: I did not, because those ones don’t deserve custom,  coming up with such a bad design. And do you know who else should be put out of business, except I hope they’re not, because they makes the nicest toast, are the crowd who make Hovis 50/50. Whomever they have loading those loaves into the crates, needs stringing up, because they are increasingly misshapen and I don’t want my bread all bashed about before I even have it home. And Heaven forbid, if you need to make a loaf of sandwiches!

(The Mothership appears to be on some sort of funeral committee at the church and is always making sandwiches and the occasional traybake if her oven is performing. It regularly isn’t, which is another long and dreadful saga.)

THE MOTHERSHIP: It is simply impossible, these days, to get a nice triangular sandwich out of a loaf. Your Nanna always liked a triangular sandwich, but hardly anyone goes in for them now; well now we know why, it’s impossible.

ME: (and I have no idea why I said this, I must be demented) Is anything else annoying you?

THE MOTHERSHIP: (Doesn’t miss a beat) Good Housekeeping. Now that is a magazine for ‘Older Readers’ and they are forever putting yellow font on a white background, so you can’t read it. Not that I like Good Housekeeping, but I keep getting landed with it. I might get on to them later, and tell them to sort that out. You have to know your readers, and cater for them.

(Hilariously, a rather strait-laced aunt once bought my mum a subscription to Good Housekeeping and in the very first publication she received, there was a whole article on vibrators, in a sort of Which? style, giving them various ratings out of ten.)

ME: I’m going on out now….

THE MOTHERSHIP: Before you go, and you did ask, but Marks and Spencer and the tops they design for older women. They have these FITTED sleeves, RUBBISH they are, which make the tops of one’s arms look MOST unbecoming. I’ve seen so many blouses and I’ve thought ‘That’s the VERY thing, and then I’ve said to myself, ‘They’ve gone and done it again with those STUPID SLEEVES.’ Men. Men design these tops, and they know nothing about women’s arms.

I hate to blaspheme but Dear Jesus.   

*****

So good people, I have a favour to ask. Should any amongst you, who read the SWB pages, have any sway at all with the designers of the aforementioned products, do get in touch and voice the concerns of my mother. I remember reading Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee and his mother was forever writing off to people, (I recall the makers of Nestle’s Carnation Milk was one), and she was always getting free samples. Perhaps I shall encourage that, and I may get a free magazine, or even a toaster.

And should any of you have a grievance, do share, and we can all be sour together.