Unpaid Leave

English: Logo for the United States TV series “The Office”. Français : Logo de la série télé “The Office” diffusée aux États-Unis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the first time in 9 years I am taking unpaid leave from my job. I am going to Colombia to visit family and leaving my colleague, the husband (strictly speaking my underling as I am Chief Executive and he is my deputy with special responsibility for “financial services and support”) in charge.

Now without wishing to cast aspersions on my colleague’s abilities, I do have my reservations about leaving him to run the “office”. I am not convinced that he really understands the full extent of his new responsibilities and what the day to day running of this extremely busy “office” entails. Not only will he have to deal with the administrative nightmare of scheduling but he will also have to deal with three of my most difficult clients for a whole week. These clients can be particularly demanding and do expect to have someone on call 24/7. It is not unknown for them to call me at 3 am and expect me to perform a full laundering service or the like.

Of course, being such important clients, it is vital that my colleague and I manage a seamless handover of responsibilities and that these clients are virtually unaware of the temporary change in their client relationship manager. I have warned my colleague not to expect much praise or affirmation from these clients – indeed rather to expect numerous complaints and a regular and often harsh critique of services provided.

Unfortunately for my colleague, the “office” driver, chef and laundry assistant are also away the same week as me so he will have to perform their duties too. I realise that he will feel this goes way beyond his job specification and I can only apologise for asking him to do the impossible and carry out my job responsibilities and that of three other “office” workers.

I am of course aware that I am asking a huge amount of him. To this end, I have produced a manual which outlines all the responsibilities and the schedules of our three most important clients. I have stressed the importance to him of ensuring that the schedules run like clock-work and that our clients will not tolerate lateness or a lack of preparedness.

I am very grateful to the large number of female colleagues in different “offices” who have offered their support in my absence and have provided a telephone tree of emergency numbers in case he should find it all too much. I am much comforted by the thought that there is a strong network of very capable women ready to leap into action if required.

I am very keen to let my colleague find his way on his own, prove himself to me. To this end, I would encourage my female friends in other “offices” to hold back unless strictly necessary. Examples of situations which do not require intervention: one or more clients dressed in totally inappropriate, clashing-coloured clothing (to be expected), one or more clients arriving at least 20 minutes late for any appointment and one or more clients appearing in unexpected places at unexpected times. An example of a situation which does require intervention would be if you see my colleague with two clients but not the third – in this situation it would be perfectly acceptable just to ask him where the other client is (just check – in case he has dropped one of the juggling balls).

So I am going to go off on Thursday and try very hard not to think about work for a week (of course I shall be available for nightly skypes with my three most important clients) and leave my job in the very capable hands of my colleague. Hasta Pronto!

If I could turn back time…

Posted on May 11, 2013 by kabe1 | Leave a comment

je ne regrette rien (Photo credit: Diana Torres tatuajes)

Imagine your life so far as a film played in front of your eyes. Imagine you have editorial power and you could cut out or change various scenes. What would you change? What would I change?

- Perhaps I would have done a different degree at university. Latin and Ancient Greek are all very well but let’s face it, they are not particularly relevant in professional terms in 2013. People always ask me whether I speak Latin/Ancient Greek – no, I reply, they are dead languages. Really useful. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my degree subject but I hold it partly responsible for my total lack of ability to decide on any one career. Classics is not what you would call vocational (unless you want to be a classics teacher of course) and apart from all that very worthy “it is invaluable in learning any of our modern European languages” blah (which is, by the way true), the only time I have used Latin since 1996 is when people ask me to translate inscriptions on monuments – something which I fail to do almost 100% of the time, thereby looking like not only someone who did a fairly irrelevant degree but was also not particularly good at it.

- I would have had long hair when I was a child. Looking back at photos of me between approximately the ages of 3 and 15, I had a deeply unflattering short layered cut. My sister, who is only 20 months younger me, had very pretty long hair in plaits, bunches and the like. Why didn’t I, you may well ask? Well, some misguided hairdresser informed my mother that the only way to thicken up my very fine hair was to have this hideous bowl-like short hair style. My mother, rightfully bowing to this woman’s supposed superior tonsorial knowledge, kept me shorn for the next 10 years. Result – I’ve still got very fine hair and I’m emotionally scarred from my hideous childhood hair.

- I would have been slightly more circumspect about my teenage crushes. Boris Becker (why o why?), Bruce Springsteen (cried when he got married for the first time???) and James Dean (he was dead for God’s sake). OK so things have improved since then but I can’t help but feel it says something rather concerning about me that my room was a shrine to a dead man, that I fell for a middle-aged rocker and Boris Becker…well, what can I say about that…

- I would miss out my slightly goth stage (admittedly it was a blink and you miss it one) – purple paisley shirts, dark hair, dark mini skirt, dark tights (ripped), dark boots, dark eyeliner, dark lipstick, white face and a penchant for Jesus and the Mary Chain. It was definitely not one of my finer moments. Although, now I come to think of it, I am not sure that my “brown suede jacket from Kensington Market” (which was second hand and stank) stage was that much better.

- I would definitely not have worked in a Harvester restaurant when I was 15 (despite making one of my best friends there). Not only did we have to face the daily humiliation of wearing a see-through brown and yellow checked outfit, but we had to ask the same mind-numbingly repetitive questions to each and every customer – “Have you been to a Harvester before?” and “Can I show you to the salad cart?”. The tedium was only temporarily relieved when a customer found a large piece of concrete in his lancashire hotpot.

- I would have passed my driving test first time. I know everyone says that the best drivers don’t pass first time but that is just one of those rubbish statements made up to make you feel better (along the lines of acute morning sickness is a sign of a strong pregnancy). Anyway, it is not relevant to me as I didn’t even pass second time. Admittedly going through a red light in my first test was fairly fatal to my chances and doing my 3 point turn in about 17 turns didn’t boost my chances in my second test. I eventually passed third time and this was probably only because I don’t think I saw another moving car during that test. I imagine that my chances of passing nowadays with the theory test would be slim at best. Although perhaps marginally higher than those of someone I know who when presented with a road sign of falling rocks, declared that it meant “No falling rocks allowed here”?!

- I would have taken a different career path – journalism. Now, I would be a successful writer with best sellers to my name and the odd Airport exclusive…and as I count backward from 10, you will open your eyes at 3 and be totally awake by 1…instead of a 40 year old blogger who has tried her hand at more careers than most and who blogs about largely irrelevant issues and just doesn’t seem to be able to start that novel…

Actually, as Edith Piaf sang “non, je ne regrette rien” – all of the above have made me who I am today. I guess it’s good to still have dreams at 40 and actually, you know what, just perhaps this is my time to start fulfilling some of those dreams. Watch this space.

The Jeans Diet

Posted on May 7, 2013 by kabe1 | Leave a comment

Finally we are having some good weather here in the UK…don’t get excited, the rain is returning tomorrow. It seems to me that David Cameron et al are missing a trick here. When you have just been trounced in the local elections, why not just go for a really cheap but effective publicity stunt – make today a spontaneous bank holiday. After all we have fewer bank holidays than most other countries and let’s face it, the sun only makes the odd rare appearance in the UK of late. I am not suggesting that we are fickle voters, but an extra bank holiday in the sun might just get a few more people off their politically apathetic behinds.

Anyway, it’s not like me to get political, so let’s return to much more important matters - not matters of state but matters of weight.

When I was in my twenties, I could eat anything…and I mean anything, as often as I like and in whatever quantities I liked and I never put on an ounce. All to do with metabolism apparently. I would happily eat an entire box of Cadbury’s chocolate fingers (a personal favourite) in one sitting. Now, even if I look at a chocolate finger, I can feeling it pointing accusingly at me and saying, “go on, eat me, I dare you, you know you can’t just eat one and even if you manage to stop at 3 or 4, you will immediately gain a pound”.

It doesn’t seem fair that as well as having to deal with the injustices of ageing, we also have to deal with a slowing metabolism. For women, this weight likes to sit around the waist sort of like those rubber rings you had for swimming as a child. Apparently, we’ve got to build up our cores (which incidentally, biologically did not exist before the year 2000). Well, I’m sorry but my core is less steel and more jelly and I don’t believe that will ever change. My theory is that anyone born before 2000 is at a distinct disadvantage in all this core business as we were born without the genetic modification required to have a core. Having a core will be seen in generations to come as a part of the evolution process and I was very much born pre-core.

My problem is that since I don’t even have the discipline to stop myself having two large slices of swiss roll (at 9pm last night), how am I ever going to have the discipline to follow a diet. In any case, most diets are so flipping complicated, you need a degree in nutrition to follow them. Also these diets always tell you to have one day off to eat whatever you like. The problem is that whenever I read about celebrities on diets, what they eat on the day off (the naughty day) is usually what I would be eating on the diet days – they allowed themselves a piece of bread…shock horror.

So I have decided a new approach is necessary. As my husband said yesterday, I am 40 and I have had three children, so just accept that I am not going to look like I am 21 ever again. OK so that’s not rocket science (my eldest son’s favourite expression at the moment) but it is completely true.

We women stress so much about weight, do men? I don’t see many men calorie counting obsessively, or eating quinoa (or whatever that stuff is) or substituting beef mince for quorn (frankly, a crime against bolognaise in my book). I am not suggesting that I am going to go back to eating a whole box of Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers in one sitting (tempting as it is) but nor am I going to starve myself for the next 20 years in an attempt to get down to some magical weight that is totally unrealistic. Anyway, until someone invents a low calorie white wine which doesn’t taste like rats’ p***, then I haven’t got a chance in hell – life is too short to give up all the pleasures.

One practical thing I have done to put my new attitude to the test is that I went through all my jeans (I have (or rather had) more pairs than the average Levis shop) and threw out all the impossibly small pairs that I really am never ever going to get into again. I did the knee test – i.e. if I had trouble getting the first leg above the knee without cutting off the circulation, out the pair went. Very therapeutic. The jeans diet – cut out all the pairs you will never wear again. Slim down your wardrobe rather than yourself. Don’t cut out all the foods you love, just cut out all the jeans that will never ever fit you again. Much simpler and I can highly recommend it.

How to tell if a woman is over 40…

a-ha 11 (Photo credit: thierry.cote)

Do you think she’s in her late thirties or early forties? How often do we guesstimate someone’s age? All the time. At my age, the obsession of looking young/old for your actual biological age becomes fanatical. So to make this job easier, I thought I would devise a little test which will accurately pin down whether a woman is under 40 or over 40. I realise this is of no great consequence nor life-changing in anyway but it’s kept me amused for the last half an hour and on a Monday I’ll run with anything that I find semi-amusing.

So, here goes, a woman is over 40 if…

- she has begun to express a desire to or has actually started to visit garden centres on a regular basis. The odd trip to a garden centre to buy a ready planted-up hanging basket does not count and should be taken as a sure sign that a woman is still in her thirties. The sign to look out for that this has been replaced with regular and much longer visits is the acquisition of a garden centre loyalty card.

- she suddenly cuts a fringe into her hair. This budget Botox alternative is a desperate attempt to cover up the wrinkles on the forehead but is almost as obvious an admission of ageing as the inability to raise your eyebrows after Botox.

- she has a glass of water for every glass of wine. This is a combination of middle age sensible, responsible behaviour and a morbid fear of the forties’ hangover. Although largely effective at avoiding the “hammer in the brain” feeling the next morning (and for the next 5 days when you are over 40), it does have the rather undesirable side effect of requiring numerous bathroom visitations through the night.

- she visibly shudders at the mention of wearing little shorts with opaque tights underneath. Never in the history of fashion to my mind has there been a trend which is so not designed for the over 40s. Any woman sporting this trend is either under 40, an ex-supermodel or frankly delusional.

- she knows exactly who Morten Harket and John Taylor from Duran Duran are. Say no more. Enough said. She also knows who Harry Styles is but is acutely aware that she is old enough to have gone through school, university, two years of a job and then given birth to him.

- she remembers writing SWALK and LOL (original meaning) on letters. She also can’t quite bring herself to writing ‘u’ for ‘you’ and ’4′ for ‘for’ when texting and always texts in full sentences – noun, verb, object etc.

- she always tries to stay in on either Friday or Saturday night. The ability to manage two nights out in a row significantly diminishes after the age of 40 and becomes nigh on impossible after 45. Anyway, staying in with a bottle of wine, a takeaway and Ant and Dec on the TV is ideal, isn’t it?

- she remembers when the Blue Peter garden got vandalised and it couldn’t just be fixed with double-sided sticky tape and “who shot JR?”. These were her first encounters with crime.

- she suddenly understands the point of a lip liner pencil. Having always thought it was yet another one of those beauty cons, she now realises that without it she runs the risk of being mistaken for a clown in Billy Smart’s Circus.

- Finally, she starts blogging and banging on about it being her time now….

Mad Science

Posted on April 27, 2013 by kabe1 | Leave a comment

Mad scientist (Photo credit: BWJones)

You know how the saying goes…if you fall off a horse, you’ve got to get straight back on again. Well, it’s taken me 2 years but I have held another “Mad Science” party for my son’s birthday and I have survived.

Two years ago, this would never have seemed possible. That party – twelve 7 year old boys in my house (first huge error), one mad scientist and two shell-shocked, utterly horrified parents – ended with me bursting into tears of sheer relief when they all left and only narrowly avoiding an extended stay in The Priory. The only word I can think to describe that party is apocalyptic – “Lord of the Flies” South-West London style.

It was a seminal moment in my child-rearing – the moment at which we lost total control. The boys were in charge and it wasn’t pretty. I genuinely think I suffered with a sort of post-traumatic stress disorder after that party. One thing was certain – never ever ever would I hold a child’s birthday party in my house again. I have kept to that. The other thing I thought was certain – never ever would I wish to hear the words “mad” and “science” in the same sentence let alone combined with the word “party”. Somehow my resolve weakened on this.

That brings me to today – “Mad Science” party 2. Not content with twelve 7 year olds, this time I upped the stakes and we had twenty four 7 year olds (all boys), one mad scientist (female) and four potentially shell-shocked, utterly horrified parents (yes, this time, I shared the annual burden of the birthday party). Before the party, as I contemplated my idiocy in agreeing to endure another two hours of utter hell, I tried to work out what sort of person would choose to endure such a party again at a significant financial cost with absolutely no visible upside. Clearly, I am a lunatic.

Well I survived and you know what….it wasn’t actually that bad. Admittedly the memory is already fading at the edges thanks to the indecently large glass of wine that I am currently attacking like some sort of slightly deranged, dehydrated dipsomaniac. The mad scientist certainly earned her money this afternoon and I am fairly sure she is reconsidering her career choice (she’s just completing her teacher training) after 2 hours with 24 boys, a load of goo, dry ice, bunsen burners, potentially lethal chemicals and a non-launching rocket. I am also certain that being a mad scientist and spending 2 hours trying to control a roomful of crazed 7 year olds must be one of the most effective forms of contraception on the market.

I know I probably shouldn’t say this but I don’t believe I’m alone – children’s birthday parties are an ordeal, something to be endured, an annual burden. But they are a necessary rite of passage and I remember (just) the excitement I felt in the build-up to my birthday parties when I was a child. Of course I wouldn’t want to deny my children that excitement and celebration.

Two things bug me though: firstly, children’s parties were simple affairs when I was a child – some games, home-made cake and a party bag full of nothing much. Nowadays, we are expected to shell-out hundreds of pounds on entertainers or hold our parties in ever more exotic venues, buy in the cake (gone are the days when an 8 inch round with chocolate buttons on it sufficed; no, now kids expect an entire football pitch replete with favourite team and realistic-looking icing turf) and a party bag brimming with the latest must-have toys.

Secondly, “thank you” would go a long way. Not from the kids at the party – they were all very polite; from my own children. After every party we hold for our children, the conversation goes like this: me: “Did you enjoy your party?”, child: “Yup”, me: “Do you have anything to say?”, child – silence, me: “It would be really nice if you said thank you after all the effort we’ve made”, child “thank you”, me “not now, before would have been good…”

Time to collapse in a post-party heap. Ticked that box for another year. Conquered my fear of “Mad Science” parties. Yes, it has been a good day on the whole.

Things I shall never do (or never do again)

Posted on April 22, 2013 by kabe1 | Leave a comment

Cartwheel – Evolution #1 (Photo credit: Thomas Z. Photographie)

The sun has at last been out this weekend and my children have come blinking mole-like into the daylight from enforced indoor imprisonment for the last 5 months. Hurrah! Finally they can partake in wholesome activities like cricket rather than the definitely less appealing screen-based activities which form such a large part of their lives, particularly in winter, only relieved of course by the odd game of Cluedo (see previous post).

As I sat outside and watched them play, my daughter who is currently going through a purple-gymnatics-rapunzel stage (sometimes all at once), attempted a roly-poly (technically called a forward roll I believe). For one insane moment, I thought I might show her how it’s really done and then thankfully I remembered the “cartwheel incident”.

A couple of years ago, showing off, I thought I might demonstrate my childhood gymnastic skills by cartwheeling on the beach. It became abundantly clear half way through the cartwheel that this was possibly one of my more foolish decisions. Too late. 38 year old women who only irregularly partake in exercise should never attempt anything that they did with ease in childhood.

My cartwheel was less beautiful circle in motion and more immediate and somewhat explosive irreparable puncture. As my son pointed out at the time, he had learnt something from my cartwheel demonstration just not what I had intended – how not to do a cartwheel and how to keep a straight face when your mother starts her gymnastic demonstration with the grace and flair of Olga Korbut but ends it splattered on the sand looking as though she has been run over by said cartwheel. Utter humiliation.

So somersaults are something I shall never do again. It got me thinking. What else will I never do (or never do again)? I will never dive or even jump off a diving board again. My relationship with swimming pools has definitely changed over the last decade. When I was young and on holiday, you could never get me out of the pool – pools and I had a largely harmonious relationship. Now, it’s a little bit more fractious, and honestly I’d be perfectly happy to spend 2 weeks in the sun sitting around a pool without ever getting in it.

Why? Well for the reasons outlined above with regard to my gymnastics prowess, it would be potentially mortifying to dive/jump/bellyflop off a diving board at my age – the permutations for embarrassment and humiliation actually make me shudder.

As for swimming itself…I know it sounds a bit pathetic but I don’t really like putting my head in the water now – not because I’m precious about my hairstyle (far from it…largely as I don’t really have a hairstyle as such to be concerned about) but I just don’t really like it. A nice leisurely, but regal, breaststroke is about all I can manage these days with my head firmly out of the water. I’ll leave the more energetic strokes to those a little younger than me. To be honest, I never really got the point of backstroke anyway – why would you swim on your back, unable to see where you are going, towards a concrete wall? Backstroke is pointless and to my mind potentially dangerous.

What else? Oh yes, I am unlikely to spend an entire day (unless ill) watching back to back soap operas like I (obviously occasionally) did at university. There was a brief period after the birth of each of my children when I dabbled in Neighbours, Home & Away, Hollyoaks and even, on a particularly bad day, Doctors, but I managed to wean myself off them once I no longer had the excuse of sitting on my sofa for hours ostensibly feeding a baby.

However, at university, (obviously occasionally) soaps determined my daily schedule and it was not unknown for me and my best friend to spend an entire afternoon watching back to back soaps just because we could. Now however I have much more intellectually challenging tasks to complete such as deciding whether pesto pasta is on the cards for dinner (which it is today incidentally) or driving my “taxi” around the local area, picking up my non-fare paying customers and depositing them at their various required locations for tennis, football etc. I do allow myself one little indulgence though – EastEnders. Love it. I always watch it and feel so hugely lucky and grateful for my little life – however miserable my day has been, at least I don’t live in Albert Square.

There are, of course, hundreds of other things that I shall probably never do or do again equally as trivial as the above. There are lots of things, not just trivial things, which I wish I could do or wish I had done. Equally there are lots of things that I can do now which I couldn’t have done when I was younger and that’s where the focus should be I suppose. What would you never do now or never do again?

Woman, 40, makes anti-ageing discovery of the 21st century…

Posted on April 16, 2013 by kabe1 | Leave a comment

Shar Pei (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OMG (heavily into my text lingo now that I’ve finally realised that LOL is “laugh out loud” and not “lots of love” which I am fairly sure everyone of my generation thought it was) – today has been a revelation.

I have discovered something totally life-changing. I feel like I imagine Isaac Newton felt when an apple fell from a tree on his head and he formulated his gravity theory. OK, my discovery is not sort of life-changing in an understanding-the-world sense which gravity clearly is, but for me it was a Damascene moment.

What you’re asking? What have I discovered? Well, you know me, always keen to share. I’m not going to keep my little secret from you like a scientist might with a new theory until he had tested it fully. I don’t need to do that because it is so beautifully simple, so utterly straightforward…the “retouch” button in iPhoto.

As you know I have been sweating all the turning 40 stuff over the last few months and one of the things that has caused me serious angst has been the appearance of wrinkles, sneaky little things creeping up on me so that I have seriously begun to question whether I part-share the same genetic coding as a Shar Pei.

In a previous blog post, I debated to B or not to B – to Botox or not to Botox. I concluded that it wasn’t for me although I have been sorely tempted. In yet another desperate attempt to halt the ageing process (I’ve given up on reversing it to any visible degree), I have been trying out these CACI facials. Apart from having a name which it is extremely tempting to mispronounce – it is pronounced “CAYSEE” rather than “CACKI” – it is yet another ridiculously expensive way of not having Botox. I think although I can’t be sure (far too much technical lingo for me) that a little probe thing delivers micro currents to your face and reduces wrinkles and yanks up your jaw and cheekbones.

It hurts. It is not supposed to but that is complete rubbish, it hurts. Also your teeth feel as though you are rubbing a metal spoon over them repeatedly. Does it work? Well, I’ve had five sessions and only ONE person has said “you are looking well” – which of course could be referring to the fact that I have bothered to apply make-up that morning and so do not look like an extra from the Rocky Horror Picture Show rather than a comment on a reduction in my wrinkled forehead.

I had resigned myself to five more sessions and then a monthly “maintenance” – until today that is. Today I discovered the “retouch” feature in iPhoto. No more CACI facials for me, no Botox, just au naturel.

I downloaded my holiday photos this afternoon and for the first time started playing with the editing features (just the simple ones) and used the retouch button in what would be a particularly nice photo of my daughter without the piece of chicken nugget on her chin. To my amazement – one minute chicken nugget on chin, next minute no chicken nugget on chin.

In a state of rising excitement, I flicked to a photo of myself – could it be…could it just be that this would work for my wrinkles. Hardly daring to breathe, I started to “scrub” at my forehead with the retouch button – all gone, smooth as when I was 21. Admittedly, I did have to be quite enthusiastic with the retouch button in order to erase all the wrinkles but it was so worth it.

For the next hour, I scrubbed at my face in every photo and watched the years rolling away. This discovery was right up there for me with when I discovered eyebrow waxing a few years ago after years of painful plucking. The beauty of this is that most people in this internet crazy world will only see photos of me, not the real thing. Let’s face it my friends and family know what I really look like and would know if I had Botox so I might as well not worry about them and just put out these ever so slightly doctored pictures of myself to the rest of the world.

However excited I am about my discovery, I suspect I am not the first but I don’t care if everyone has been doing it apart from me as I feel re-juvenated and exhilarated (although perhaps ever so slightly too smooth foreheaded). Try it! I highly recommend it as both an anti-ageing measure and as a natural serotonin booster.

turningtwicetwenty