Tinkerbelle

When I heard that the Spice Girls musical was being made, I was excited. Not the quiet, adult excited that most 26 year olds display, but the running to my friend Fi and proclaiming that we absolutely MUST go type of total excitement.

As a child I loved the Spice Girls. I zig a zig aaaahed with the rest of them, not really knowing what it meant (does anyone?) but not wanting to be left out of the revolution that was spicing up ones life. At 10, they were the best thing ever, and there were regular arguments when playing at school over who got to be which Spice Girl. My little sister loved them too, totally confused as to why but knowing with total certainty that if her big sister was doing it, it was absolutely something that she should be doing too.

But, like any 10 year old, I desperately wanted to fit in with the crowd, and as we got slightly older, actually admitting that you liked something was so uncool.

One Sunday evening, we were forced into the car and dragged to London by our Dad on the premise that we were taking his best friend to work. No one works on a Sunday I commented. Can’t I just stay at home with Mum? Little Princess stamped her feet and protested car sickness, going through all the normal avoidance techniques practiced on her Daddy in the past, but he was having none of it.

We sat in the back of the car and sang along to the Top 40, doing the dance moves and being laughed at by the grown ups in the front of the car. My Father remarked that if I remembered school work like I remembered song words I’d be the next Einstein. How rude!

The Spice Girls came on to the radio and my sister and I chattered away at the lyrics, doing the dance routine, until we were asked “So you girls like the Spice Girls?”

“Noooooooooooo! Theyre terrible! Sooooo uncool!” was our response. Typical belligerent little girl stuff.

We pulled up outside Wembley Arena, and were escorted to our seats, ready to watch the Spice Girls. I remember the gut wrenching embarrassment of being so rude when we were being treated to such a present, and the toe curling excitement at being told we were going backstage to meet them after the show. Turns out my Dad’s best friend worked with them and had organised a treat for us. We jiggled through the concert with excitement until the time came and we were whisked through to a room backstage. At this point, my darling little sister ran off, and spent the rest of the evening throwing up, overcome with excitement. She returned briefly for us to have our photo taken with Mel B (which looks scarily like Harry Potter’s female alter ego and a blonde, child version of Mel B with mental blonde curls) before running back to resume throwing up duties.

Fast forward a few (nearly 20) years, and the Olympics was on, complete with Spice Girl boogying on a bus at the ceremony, and everyone was so excited again that they could cry. I watched the closing ceremony with my housemates, and at one point i was torn; I was desperate for the loo but the Spice Girls still hadn’t been on. I ran out the room shouting “If they come on call me, use the code phrase!!” They asked what the code phrase was and heard me screaming from the bathroom “SPICE UP YOUR LIFE, OBVIOUSLY!”

I think that’s set the scene. For most of my life, I have unashamedly loved the Spice Girls, so the idea of going to see the musical was the best thing ever. We dreamed of glittery mini dresses and Union Jacks; cabaret versions of our favourite songs and lots of Girl Power and animal print.

It wasn’t to be. To say it was the most painful two hours of my life would be a total understatement. At one point, Fifi started rummaging in her bag and I was concerned she was looking for a pen to stab herself in the eye with. All ten of us cringed and winced as the Mum and Dad sang 2 Become 1 in some seedy B&B in Spice Girls land, and when asked if I wanted a sip of water I politely asked if there was enough to drown myself with. It was horrible.

See this as a warning (although a good few people have asked me what I expected..) if you loved the Spice Girls with all the space in your teeny tiny little pre teen heart, DON’T GO AND SEE THE MUSICAL. My work here is done.

Call me a hippie, but I believe in karma. Like the song by Culture Club, Karma Chameleon ( which as a child I used to think was “come here come here come here chameleon”) it comes and goes. I don’t think that there is some higher being that decides whether you are on the good or bad route though, but I honestly think that it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Screw with someone else, and you subconsciously worry yourself into thinking that you have something bad coming to you, and as a result, something goes wrong.

So in that respect, surely good karma comes to you if you act respectfully, treat people as you would like to be treated, and pay it forward. A close friend told me recently about her high school teacher, who always paid for himself and the car behind him at a toll road, in the hope that one day someone would do it for him. The chances are in the society we live in today it will never happen, but from positivity breeds hope, and I’m sure that his life is that tiny bit more fulfilled because of his generosity.

I don’t think I pay it forward often enough. When I had a car I would sometimes hand the ticket to someone on my way out if there was money left on it, but I think in the great scheme of things, that’s not what paying it forward means.

But I think that the idea of doing something selfless means entirely that. You can’t do something in the hope that someone will do something back for you, because then the action loses its meaning and becomes a means to an end, right?

How are you paying it forward?

There are some works that invoke a though upon contact with the brain, and these return an image, an ideal or a concept. They shape in your brain before you have had time to think, like swirls of smoke, and form an idea of what you perceive that word to look like, how it feels and what it means.

One such word is lonely. As soon as the sound makes contact with our ears we think of being alone, possibly identifying it with age, and we often think of suffering. A person with no one to pick up the phone to, no friend to meet for a lunch date or no mum to pop in on of a weekend.

But lonely isn’t a word that always means alone. It’s possible to be in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, surrounded by people you know or nameless faces, and feel entirely lonely. That not one person who asks “how are you?” is genuinely waiting to hear what the response is. It’s a phrase that is so regularly followed with “fine thanks, you?” that it’s part of a robotic make up, a dance if meeting words, rather than a direct response to an interested question and it leaves you feeling a bit hollow.

We live in a society where we are constantly surrounded by people, acquaintances, but how many of those people do you actually count as friends, who mean something to you and will run to catch you if you start to feel like the carpet may be pulling from beneath your toes?

Just a thought.

I’ve been in California for 2 weeks now, 2 fun weeks of skiing (in a manner of speaking) smiling and shopping. The latter 2 are my favourite. But I have also had a lot of time to reflect, and come to the decision that I am very much a split screen.

Screen 1 – London Belle

When in London, I am smart and organised. I went through a phase last Christmas of being super stressed, snappy and a massive b*tch to anyone that dare come in contact with me. In my defence, I was going through a lot behind the scenes, but that isn’t an excuse and didn’t make it OK. As a result I drove people away who didn’t deserve it, and was generally a complete mess. Moving to London was cathartic for me; a clean page of the notebook, a new set of people to discover, places to explore and time to waste. My confidence boosted back to where it should have been, my heart healed from hurt and my body began to resume its shape, shedding the comfort food layer that had become my hiding. In fact, the awesome Belle was back (because you can’t spell awesome without ‘me’, right? ) and I love London. I love that there is always something to do, rain or shine, that everything is so close together and that I live in one of the most historically rich, architecturally spellbinding capital cities of the world.

London Belle dresses her best daily (come on, we’ve all seen Enchanted, where the Disney Prince springs out of the gutter and rescues the girl, right? Or more’s the point, in memory of my Auntie telling me once that a girl should always wear matching undies in case an ambulance man ever has to cut her out of her clothes), eats a healthy breakfast and is never far from her phone, in case someone, somewhere is seeking her infinite wisdom (or trying to remind her to pay her phone bill, in reality).

Screen 2, San Diego Belle

Oh how schizophrenic my two personalities seem. San Diego Belle likes dogs (although London Belle still rises when the dogs try to sleep on her bed, and refuses). She doesn’t wear much make up, always has sand in her shoes and is the calmest of the calm. She buys things like yoga pants, running shoes and hoodies, and is often found nose down in a book, unable to locate her phone (No don’t ring it, it’s on silent!!!!) Nothing stresses her. She is surrounded by the background noise of teenage boys (current fad, a soundboard where you make your own drum and bass music, accompanied with Beavis and Butthead laughter at all times of day and night) and teenage girl (Disney channel, ohmygaaad chattering with friends and regular questions about nail polish and math). Bothered? Not in the slightest. San Diego Belle’s hair is a mess, cheeks are glowing and feet could constantly do with a wash where she is out and about sans shoes.

This trip I am trying to merge the two personalities. Shopping trips have come back with me buying nothing, as I have a habit of buying teenage girl clothes that I couldn’t possibly wear to the office in London, and my hair will soon be cut and coloured ready to make my (sad) trip back across the pond to resume daily life. I intend to transfer offices as soon as I can so that California becomes my home, but in the mean time i want to adopt some of the happiness I have here and convert the two ladies into one, solid as a rock. If that means that I am open to new possibilities in London, or the relighting of old ones, then the pleasure will be all mine. I have ten days left here in the place my heart feels at home, but then the 2013 adventure begins. And my, what an adventure its set to be.

At 26 (i’m still 26, goddamit!) I have never been skiing. Its not something that ever appealed to me; I’m more of a bikini on the beach girl as opposed to having to put on all the clothes I own for fear of catching hypothermia, and heading out into what is essentially frozen rain, which in my opinion, is worse than normal rain.

But, from afar, it does look fun, doesn’t it? Riding to the top of a mountain and then skating down a massive hill covered in fresh, sparkly snow. The Princess in me has always thought that the sparkly was fascinating, and wondered that if so many people enjoyed it, it could really be the bad (or that hard), could it?

I had failed to remember of course that at about 8 years old, my Dad had taken my sister and I to the ice rink, I had tried ice skating for about ten minutes and then thrown a strop over being cold and the fact that my sister was getting it and I wasn’t, and demanded to go home, never to return.

Glossing over that.

So this year, I decided to join my (super sporty) family in Mammoth Lakes, California, for three days of skiing / snowboarding / generally making piece with the cold. I was armed with a shed load of cold weather clothes, chap stick and an open mind on falling over in the snow, something that I do on a regular basis.

I got off the plane at the really cold airport, and went to get a taxi to meet my family, who had been snowboarding since Boxing Day. As I opened the taxi door and went to hop in the truck taxi, I slipped and slid under the car, mechanic style.

I can’t help to think, that with hindsight, this was an omen.

The day before I flew to LA I had been trying to be a big girl and carry my luggage down the stairs, slipped and fell and landed on my coccyx, so I had an achey bum to start off with, but I soldiered on.

The next day, I enrolled into ski school. Can’t be that hard, I thought, there are teeny tiny kids out there doing it.

My lesson consisted of 20 people, including a hot man called Craig who I made a beeline to with immediate effect. Craig (my new arch nemesis) took to skiing like a duck to water, and smugly checked in on my every now and then as I failed to do anything with any success.

Skiing looks easy. My thirteen year old cousin reinforced this belief, by telling me she had got bored of it and turned to snowboarding instead.

ITS NOT FRICKIN EASY.

The idea was that you made a pizza shape with your skis to stop, and the shape of two fries net to each other to go. Eaaaaaassssyyy.

I got that fairly quickly, but it turned out that I have an overwhelming propensity to veer left, for no discernible reason whatsoever. My group found it endearing the first few times, until I got to the top of the teeny slope, skied down a few metres and then veered left, taking out my entire class INCLUDING HOT CRAIG. Jesus, my fool proof plan of meeting and marrying an American and never having to leave San Diego had suddenly taken  turn for the worse.

Luckily, we then broke for lunch. I informed my Aunt that, as an adult, I wouldn’t throw a monumental strop and I would go back (complete with torturous ski shoes) for the afternoon portion of the lesson. slightly encouraged by hot man, obviously.

When I got back to the group, we had been split into two. Hot men (or as they called it, ‘apt skiers’) and complete idiots (‘taking slightly longer to feel confident’). upon reflection, I am eternally grateful for this.

The afternoon session saw us walking to a different part of the mountain that was slightly steeper, to learn a bit better. I got half way, and as we began to walk up the hill, I somewhat successfully managed to ski about 10 yards down the mountain, BACKWARDS. The t**t of a ski instructor caught up with me and informed me that he couldn’t understand why I “Just hadn’t gotten it yet’. *!&#* I clearly wasn’t being a skiing idiot on purpose! I followed him up the mountain and promptly did it again, but this time I fell at the end of my dramatic (and impressive) backwards ski, got my skis stuck in the snow and totally lost the plot. I got up in tears, dramatically threw a pole, closely missing a small child and declared I was giving up. I sat there for a while and had a flash back of when the surf board hit me in the face a few years back, and decided I didn’t want to be labelled by my family as a serial giver – uperer. I went back.

So, to sum it up, the afternoon lesson was cut short by my ability to veer left. I successfully veered left into the flight path of the chair lift on two occasions, before tearfully sticking ym skis in the snow and retiring my short ski career.

At least I tried.

It’s the first of January, and that time of year when we make resolutions and vow to stick to them for the rest of the year. We promise to ourselves that we will try harder to stick to diets, the gym, the plan that we set for ourselves, but really its just another day isn’t it? Yesterday was Monday, today is Tuesday, and it’s the same as the turning from any Monday to any Tuesday, but with a hangover and an end to the over indulgence of the Christmas period. Tomorrow most people will return to work, and soon it will all be another distant memory.

New Year has always felt a bit special to me though. Sure, its everything that went before, but there is a cleansing feeling, a sense of turning a blank page and smoothing it, ready to start a new story. Technically we could do this every single day of the year, but it feels great to be able to draw a metaphorical line in the sand and say goodbye.

2012 was a good year for me. New job, moving to London, new house… but there were some things that really didn’t work. Separation from family, the idea of a relationship lasting from the year before that was really just a ghost that hadn’t quite moved on, and the ability to be back on the right path and surrounding myself with people who aren’t really complimenting me.

So I found this, and intend to live by it, here in San Diego (forgot to mention that ) through January:

Repeat after me -

Good Morning World!

And hello January.

Stand back, first month of the year, for I am coming through.

Yes, come rain or shine or snow*

(*or that annoying drizzle that gets you wet in 5 nanoseconds)

I shall be the happiest person I know

I will be cosy and make the most of snuggling when its freezing outside

I shall embrace comfort foods and the sofa

I shall do everything briskly and with a smile on my face

I shall also do cheeky winks with people a lot

Yes January, you will be one brillllllliantly happy set of days, oh yes you will.

What are your New Years resolutions?

Theres something about London; there is always something fun and exciting to do and you can turn a corner and find the unexpected.

This week I have had the chance to be a part of two really cool things that I wouldn’t have been exposed to had I not moved to London.

The first was the Google Christmas party. The invites dropped onto our desk on Wednesday, and on Thursday we went along to Soho to take part in the first Christmas party of the year. Exciting! the invite said “smart casual or your festive finery” and people had definitely bought into the festive theme. All around me were men (it’s quite a male industry) with the most epic Christmas jumpers. Snowmen with sticky out carrot noses, a man whose father Christmas jumper had a tassley beard and a whole heap of reindeer. What made it all the more amusing was that it was one of the last days of Movember, so these jumpers were paired with some of the most disturbing taches I had ever seen. Freddy Mercury’s, 80s porn stars, circus performers – the vast range of taches were there.

They also had some really great things to do, my favourite being the room se up where you all dressed up in Christmas dress and posed with props like bottles of wine, Brussel sprouts and a turkey.

This was the result.

Yep, I was being bashed over the head with a wine bottle as this was taken….

Then today, I was invited along to a lunch date with the girls. My best fiend had booked it for her work mates, and someone had dropped out so I was offered the ticket. It was amazing. We turned up at this tiny little café and were escorted to a room in the basement, which had all sorts of props like ball dresses, hats and furs to dress up in. once we each had an outfit, we were served with different types of tea, tiny little finger sandwiches and a variety of cakes and scones. It was awesome!

What did you do this weekend?

There are some things in life that you can let pass you by, that irritate you slightly, make the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle, but that you will let pass like pooh sticks in a stream, floating away over the horizon until you can’t see them anymore.

And then there are things that you simply cannot. Whether it is the girl on the train who has bagsied a seat for her bag, or the kid on the aeroplane kicking the back of your chair, it annoys you too much to simply let it go.

And mine is “reply all”.

There are instances where reply all is totally necessary, or else they wouldn’t have invented it, but there are times when an email comes round, and you want to grab the nearest stapler and start attaching bits of paper to your face to distract you from what you know will be a mass flurry of “reply alls”.

We have just become part of a much bigger company at work, and so “reply all” has far more of an issue now than it ever had before. Previously, an email would go round, the same people would respond, copying in all of us (mostly about their Playstation football league) and a mass sigh would go round the office, till one of them had the common sense to remove everyone who wasn’t relevant. Clever chaps.

Now however, the reply all is the bane of my life. We are being merged with a team of people who, in some cases, we have met once and in other cases, not at all. And names and faces are difficult when you are presented with well over one hundred people, so should we have met them, we probably would still be at a loss.

So when an email came round this week to “All (department specific)” it annoyed me. It was one of those emails about a leaver, an envelope and signing a card.

“Please come and put a pound in the envelope, he is a jolly good bloke and we want to give him an awesome send-off” read the email, or something to that end.

An hour later “As of yet there is nothing in the envelope, and as (we shall call him Paul) Paul is a good ole fellow (?!*) let’s give him a good send-off”

I looked at the guy I sit next to. “Do you know who Paul is?” “No” he replied. “Come to mention it, do you know who (let’s call him Ed) Ed who is sending the email is?” “No” he replied.

Fine.

I’d just like to point out at this juncture that we are currently still working in different offices, so even if we knew who Ed was, there was no way we could throw our contribution far enough for it to reach the envelope, on the other side of London.

This went on for three days. We received regular updates on the envelopes contents, how many signatures were on the card and what a ‘jolly ole fellow’ Paul was. People responded about times they had shared with Fun Guy Paul, and how the too encouraged people to reach into their pockets and go and sign the card, until it all became too much. I snapped.

I sent Ed an email.

“Hi Ed” it read “I don’t want to come across as at all rude, but please can you take us out of this “All” email? None of us have a clue who Paul is, and although I am sure he is, as you say, A JOLLY OLE FELLOW, we can’t really contribute, as none of us know who he is. Or who you are for that matter. Many thanks, Belle”

It’s hard making friends.

What drives you past rational sanity?

Boobs. Tits. Honkers. Norks… Anyone got any more?

No, I haven’t developed Tourettes (although the thought of walking down the High Street shouting all the names I can think of for boobs is pretty appealing…. I haven’t got much planned this weekend). There is a point behind my ramblings. And I KNEW you’d all be slightly worried at the title of this post, which has me chuckling as I type. Oh, me!

Whatever you choose to refer to them as, half the population are blessed with them, in all shapes and sizes. From Midget Gems (a girl in the office’s fond nickname for hers) to Jordan sized melons and everything in between, they are the subject of much wonder, one two of the differentiating features between us and the men folk.

As one of my male friends so eloquently puts it, the difference is my ‘bumpy jumper’, and I quote ‘more like speed bumps than mole hills’. Err, thanks, I think.

So when I was asked to get involved in the CoppaFeel campaign, I jumped at the chance (well, typed back quickly while sitting down – less effort required). CoppaFeel is a fantastic charity, started by a girl called Kris, who, at 23, discovered she had the most advanced breast cancer that you could get. Forget going out, dancing round her handbag and falling out of the taxi on the way home, she had to deal with the dreaded C word and all that comes with it. The severity of this situation almost goes lost on us who have never experienced such a terrible illness, and if there is anything that can be done, then I for one, will do it.

Everyone’s favourite cheeky chappy might offer to help out if you are pushed….

And it doesn’t take much. It’s basically squeezing your melons. Or getting someone else to squeeze them for you. Wahey!

The Risk – my boob squeezers of choice, support CoppaFeel

The lovely ladies at Panache sent me one of their Sports Bra range, especially developed to support the campaign, which came at a fantastic time. I have a very old, let’s say – loved(?) sports bra and I have been contemplating purchasing a new one, since the sales video from working at Shock Absorber is still etched on my brain. It showed the amount of ‘bounce’ a boob would experience in both an ill-fitting sports bra, and without one at all, and quite frankly it gave me nightmares for weeks. I’m lucky that my boobs defy gravity (have to be good at something I suppose!) but all I could think of were children singing the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low” and subbing ears out, in favour of boobs. But a sports bra is really expensive, and seeing as I don’t ACTUALLY do a lot of sports, the cost per wear of this bonus member of kit would have been high.

I’m no showing you it on me – you can’t unsee things and brain bleach doesn’t yet exist!

Luckily, the Panache CoppaFeel range came to my rescue, and I now have a very fetching bright pink over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, in case I get a whim to do some exercise.

Davina prefers to go solo

Support the CoppaFeel campaign by heading over to Panache for their sports bra range, or visiting the campaign page here.  The CoppaFeel campaign is a girls version of Movember, where guys grow a ‘mo for November, to raise money for testicular cancer. Lets CoppaFeel this month ladies, and do our bit too. Happy squeezing!