Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Of course you can drive my car. If you can find it!

In fact, be so afraid that you willingly get off the roads. You see, we have a learner driver in our midst, and if Son is anything at all like his mother…

………well, you have been warned.

I bought Son driving lessons for Christmas and he is soon to get out there and start the learning process. That process otherwise known as reeking fear and wanton distruction. When I sat my driving test in the main street of Dunedin I slammed the driving instructor’s car into a truck, whilst sitting my test with the traffic officer sitting beside me. Needless to say I didn’t pass that day, but I they gave it to me a week later.

I was only 18 but by then many of my friends had been driving since they were 15. I didn’t actually drive until I was 21 and had returned from backpacking adventures and even then, despite being more mature I had a number of ‘collisions’. Letterboxes, traffic cones and trees all seem to throw themselves into my reversing path.

It was an expensive time, but nothing compared to what lies before us now that my own teen is keen to get behind the wheel and paying for driving lessons was only the tip of the financial iceberg.

What the hell will we do about insurance?

Will he drive my car from time to time and be added to my car insurance? Or will he drive his own car and need his own policy?

Either way, it’s going to cost truckloads.

Here are some things I’ve found out:

• The Guardian says that insurance companies regard teenage drivers, particularly 17 and 18-year-old males, as a much higher risk due to their lack of experience.
• Insurers say that premiums are high because young drivers are more than 2x as likely to make an insurance claim as older drivers. The BBC’s One Show revealed that the average value of each young driver claim is 3x greater than older drivers.
• According to the AA, young female drivers are more cautious than young males, with much lower-value accident claims. (Which doesn’t help us much unless he can start cross-dressing! He’d look good in a skirt!)
• The first year’s car insurance premium for our teen could easily exceed the cost of the car they are driving. £500 for a car – £1500 for insurance?

It’s so damn expensive, but it comes down two options – pay for the insurance himself, or go on my policy as a second named driver and contribute towards costs.

Having his own insurance policy could help him to build up a no claim discount, which will go a long way in lowering his future insurance premiums, but that’s if he can find cover. Less than half of main stream insurers won’t cover teenagers.

If I listed him as  second driver on my policy, (and he drove my car) his insurance premium would be grealy reduced because I am also listed on the policy and I am in one of the safest driving groups, and with some insurers he could even build up his own no claim discount on my policy. Of course the downside is that my insurance premium will be significantly more and …

…..what. if. he. pranged. the. car.

Gulp.

And I don’t want to have to fight for access to driving my own car. I don’t like much like sharing my toys.

Of course, there is another way. A shadowy way where parents add their kids as a named second driver when he or she is actually the  main driver or owner of the vehicle. I didn’t realise that this is actually illegal until quite recently, and if found out I could be prosecuted and lose all hope of ever getting insurance ever again.

What to do, what to do?

Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to stick my head in the snow and encourage him to take up a virtual life – no driver’s license required – but in actuality I guess I’m going to have to decide what situation suits us best. What do you think is best?

Own car, own insurance policy, own risk,own cost?

Or should Mum and Dad help our teens get on to the highway of life?

NB/ This was a guest post. But even so, it is an issue we are actively considering. No vehicles, or letterboxes were damaged in the writing of this blog post. Well, not recently.

A blood orange rose in the eastern sky.

A blood orange rising in the eastern sky

We got there!

While those in the Southern Hemisphere have been aching for January to continue on and on, those of us in the northern hemisphere are breathing a sigh of relief that January – surely the longest January on record – is finally behind us.

For northern hemisphere dwellers, unlike southern hemisphere dwellers, January does not mean holidays and languid days at the beach. Instead it means five long weeks until payday, freezing cold and struggling to get work done. Christmas is a distant memory of which we are reminded every time we look in the mirror. The fat retained through excessive alcohol and ham consumption remains a hefty reminder that ‘yes, we did have a good time’. A long, long time ago. Of course none of our work clothes fit, and we have no moolah left to replenish the wardrobe.

The fitness regime that we religiously pledged on New Years Eve, is also now a distant memory, as the fervour could not match the pain of getting up on freezing mornings to catch the gym. We’ve fallen off the wagon – the gym wagon, the diet wagon and the alcohol wagon.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. For February is finally, oh thank God, finally here. The nights no longer close in at 3pm, there’s still a glimmer of light in the sky when we head home at 5pm and the first signs of Spring have started to appear.

We made it through the dark of deepest Winter, and now everything is looking up, not only towards the respite of Spring and hopefully Easter, but that spark on the horizon that warms the very cockles of my heart – Summer holidays!

Has January been the longest ever for you too, and what are you looking forward to now that February is here?

For two days she waited, cigarette in hand, nerves jangling in the hot Fijian sun.

Me aged 5. Moving kids when they're this age is easy, not so much when they're teens

For two days, no meals were served, no cleaning done, no golf played. Instead this dutiful mum waited, positioned within earshot of the telephone counting down the hours until that call, the most important call of all, came. And when she heard that he was safe in the bosom of his English boarding school, she finally allowed herself a careful smile before getting on with the arduous days of missing him.

He was only ten.

I remember those days when I was an expat child, living in the gold fields of Fiji, when the big kids would head off to their boarding schools, some to Australia or New Zealand, but many to England. The journey was not the technologically connected one it is  today. Instead these kids would travel right across the globe making airplane connections in far flung airports like Dubai, or Singapore, sometimes both, and their Mums would sit and wait for the call to come. Sure the kids often had air stewards accompying them and often they travelled with siblings, but even so, it was still a long way to go and a long way from their parents. I often wonder whether they resented the comings and goings of their expat life and whether they felt their parents had been somewhat selfish. Did the value of the expat experience outweigh the negatives of a disconnected family life, and an interrupted education?

I’ve been thinking lots about this question over the past month. It’s the beginning of a new year and change has flown in on the breeze and started picking away at the timetable of our life, and our friends’ lives. A dear English friend is moving from her expat base in Australia to a new spot in deepest darkest Peru, other expat friends are debating whether it is time to seek a better financial life back ‘home’, and all are grappling with ‘when’ is the right time to move the kids.

I believe that living abroad is a gold-plated bonus for kids’ education, and that’s not just because I have gilt memories of hazy tropical days climbing mango trees. I also remember knowing words of eight different languages when I was five, of the multinational community that lived in the gold fields and that almost undefinable understanding that the world is a much bigger place than my own home in New Zealand. These lessons must surely help to make a child feel like a global citizen, and fill them with a confidence that they can make their home anywhere in the world. Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home.

That’s all good, but of course I was only seven when I left for New Zealand with Mum and my sister  leaving my father to work out his contract, a move that later had repercussions for their marriage. I was little and not yet getting into the serious school days, but even then both my sister and I had black spots in our education – for me it was adding and subtracting, for my sister it was multiplication tables. We moved back to Auckland before my sister started at her private girls’ school and the serious business of preparing for School Certificate and University Entrance. Living abroad worked when we were little kids, but when we grew into our teenage years we  had to leave to seek further education ‘back home’.

Of course the move may not be as big as a move from one country to another, some people would say that for their kids, even a move from one city to another would be negative. So how far should parents go to ensure that their own careers and work life is not negatively affecting their teens’ lives?  What if moving them means another change of educational facility and even a change in course or having to redo a school year? What if moving them to another country (or back home) means leaving a young love behind, or even a close set of friends?

Whilst our own teens aren’t embroiled in their first flashes of love, and were happy to take on the challenge of leaving NZ and moving to England with me (something I shall be forever grateful for), I cannot help but wonder if moving them aged 14 and 12 unsettled them irrevocably, and whether next time we move, will they come too?

And if not, is that ok?

One part of me rationalises the situation by saying that they need to live their own lives and make their own decisions, about university, and friends and jobs, with our guidance of course. That’s a natural part of growing up. The counter-argument that rages in my head is the one that says – They are too young, we will be too far away, they must stay close, or I’m doing a bum job as a Mum.

There is also that unspoken sadness… the one that whispers in the safety of my head – But I will miss them. Give me back my babies.

Do you think that living abroad has a use by date and is there a right time and a wrong time to move the kids?

I love books, but I can’t very often manage a whole one.

I used to be able to before I had kids, and work, and dishes and laundry, but since these little joys came into my life you can more often find me scanning a magazine, than reading a book. Which is a bit rubbish really, especially since I’m fairly keen on writing a book or two, and I have it on good authority that to write good books it helps if you read them!

So in the general mood of self-improvement, I’ve decided to rediscover this old love and set up a book review spot on the blog. As luck would have it, I was sent my very first review project shortly after this New Year resolution was made and last weekend I finally had some time to sit down and read.

I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to lose yourself in a good book – it’s the perfect antidote to the daily stresses.

Pear Shaped – Stella Newman

A novel about love, heartbreak and dessert.

This first novel by London writer Stella Newman is a delicious treat but comes with guilt-free bonus – the descriptions of puddings of the most unimaginably scrumptious kind, are food for the mind not the hips. It’s witty, wise and came with a free chocolate brownie recipe. What’s not to like?

Sophie Klein, Queen of the Puddings and typical thirty-something London girl, cannot stop herself from indulging in a relationship with the wrong kind of man.

The novel opens with: Two girls walk into a bar. There is no punchline.

What there is however, is a serious of bitter-sweet observations about relationships and how easy it is to be sucked in. Sophie is drawn to James, a charismatic though elusive older man who appears to be ready to settle down with a nice girl after a string of relationships with vapid hosiery model types. Of course, though Sophie is a nice girl, she is also a keen cook and not the type to push food around a plate.  A conflict immediately arises between who the reader knows Sophie truly is and the player type we suspect James is.

The resultant car crash of a relationship is sad but recognisably survivable.  Stella Newman writes poignantly about the total despair of heart break and then lifts the mood with the kind of self-deprecating humour that ensures the novel doesn’t slide into an EastEnders’ soap opera. The description of a very pissed dinner date later in the novel was absolutely priceless – it almost made me wonder if it had been lifted in its entirety from the writer’s own life.

Stella Newman’s characters are vividly drawn, and I found it easy to identify with Sophie despite the odd description of her being a curvy size 10 with ‘tits and an arse’. ‘Real curves,’ James tells her. Liar, liar pants on fire, the reader can’t help screaming at him. Yet I also wondered if short, size 1o girls really do have ‘real curves’ at all.  It does seem to be an unusual body type, curvacious women tend to be size 12 or 14 at least, but maybe that’s just me being picky after eating all that Christmas ham!

It was ultimately heart warming to see Sophie’s character grow and eventually forgive, but my hope that James might be redeemed was the spur that kept me reading fast to the end. Would he finally realise his superficiality? Would there be a happy ever after, not just for Sophie, but for James also?

The description of Sophie’s yummy puddings were almost as satisfying as actually eating it, and the sharp observations of the food service industry and advertising and marketing industries were hilarious. Somehow I can imagine that a male ad exec somewhere has actually come up with an offensive brand name like Fat Cow!

It’s not surprising that soon after finishing the book I was keen to race out to my nearest M&S Food store to check out their puddings, or to look out for some of the haunts that Sophie had so lovingly described, on my next trip into London.

I enjoyed Pear Shaped and can happily report that I did indeed manage to consume the entire serving in one sitting.

Vegemitevixen Rating: 4/5
Ease of Read: Easy – able to read and enjoy whilst still occasionally nodding to children or partner’s requests         Chick Lit – 5/5 Something for a long plane trip, or for losing yourself in on a cold winter’s afternoon.

Buy it now via Amazon. Click on the image link above.

Enjoy more of Stella Newman’s writing on her blog.

I once thought cold meant putting a cardy on. Or switching to the winter duvet.

I don't need a straitjacket, honest, I just need one of these.

I didn’t realise cold meant frozen dog poo in the garden, missing digits and toes and the onset of insanity. I’d iced cakes (and de-iced them when the icing was less than exemplary), but I’d never de-iced my car before. The first morning I needed to do it before driving up the M3 to work, I took it on the chin like the big girl I am.

I cried.

Then I threw a tanty, and when I was late to work I muttered about catastrophic pile-ups on the motorway. Due to the ICE! Of course. And I changed my screen saver to that passive-aggressive picture of a turquoise beach with golden sands as if to say ‘bugger you Blighty’ this is my homeland.

That was three and a half years ago now and I’ve learnt a few more things about coping in the cold. Or at least I thought I had, until Tuesday evening at 5.30pm when I realised that actually the cold was making me nuts! 

I’m going to share with you now the evidence I have of this alarming realisation.

Exhibit A

My sunshine comes in a bottle.

I should really be taking it in a bikini. With a Mojito. On a beach

Like thousands of others I find the cold, dark days of winter leave me severely Vitamin D depleted and this worsens my tendency to depression. I now take my sunshine in a handy spray that tastes like peppermint. Fussy, I know, but I do prefer the old fashioned way – In a swimsuit, on a beach, with a Mojito!

Exhibit B

In the showdown between cleaning my house and going for a run, I chose …..cleaning my house. I even told myself that vacuuming was great cardio and that putting the shopping away was excellent for building biceps. I lied to myself, simply because I was too chicken to go out in the cold!

And if that isn’t enough evidence for you, and those who know me know how much I loathe housework, here’s the piece de resistence in my case.

Exhibit C

Gimme a kiss!

On Tuesday evening as I was waiting to turn into the supermarket carpark, with my little toe cryogenically frozen and my grey matter addled by the chill, I did something completely nuts. A truck coming towards me slowed down and flashed his lights at me. In the UK, that is the symbol for ‘giving right of way’ (in NZ and Australia it’s the universal symbol for ‘quick get outta here the fuzz is down the road’). I was sooooo grateful, that I didn’t just flash (my lights) back, or even raise a demure but thankful finger, oh no…. in broad daylight in front of a never-ending row of traffic and a fair few onlookers waiting to cross, I blew the truckie a kiss!

Like Marilyn might. Or Miss Piggy after a feast of oysters.

Or even a Kiwi whose brain has started to shut down with the cold.

Does extreme weather cause you to go a little bit nuts too, or is it just me?

Image:FlickrCC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmazzola1/

“But why would you want the world to know what’s happening in your life?” Mum asked.

Relationship status: It's Complicated

I muttered. And changed the subject. My elderly mother just doesn’t get Facebook, but then I could hardly explain when push came to shove. I simply muttered and changed the subject.

Am I in love with Facebook?

Relationship Status has changed: It's Complicated.

But the conversation, made me think about how much time I spend on Facebook and whether it is really a good thing. There’s been lots of stories written about why Facebook is a bit of a tart. And the film about its strange conception as an awkward birth child of a socially inept founder, (The Social Network) did little to help me feel secure about putting all ma stuff on Facebook.

Facebook doesn’t respect your privacy. Facebook is vacuous. Facebook just wants to commercialise our lives. Facebook is the work of Satan.

Ok I made that last one up, because as we know even God’s main man the Pope is on Facebook.

Poor old Facebook has quite the reputation as the fallen woman about town. And yet, I think Facebook is like a diamond in the rough. The potential is there, it all depends how you polish it and how you use it. Facebook can be an excellent tool for connecting with family and friends, particularly those who are a long way away. It’s been my lifeline in my expat life.

Here’s my Top Five Tips on How to Play Nice with Facebook

1/Circles – It’s all about the circles and the company you keep. You don’t have to share your every thought and breakfast diet with the whole world (there’s Twitter for that!) you can lock down your Facebook page so that only those you love and actually know can see your profile. Go to the Toolbar at the top of your Fb page and click on the Settings, and a dropdown box will appear. Now click on Privacy settings, take a deep breath and go and make a cup of tea. Turn off all phones and distractions and now go read this page carefully! This page changes (frequently!) and tells you all about how much information you are sharing with your friends, and in turn how much information they are sharing with their friends. You might be surprised by what you find out. And no, the new Timeline feature will not reveal all your details since you first started on Facebook if you have those details locked down. In fact the new Timeline feature means you can go all the way back and retrospectively change your privacy settings.

2/Sharing is Caring – Now you’ve got your privacy settings sorted you can start sharing. But only if you are not drinking, high on crack or vengeful. Just remember -

Mates don’t let mates drive Facebook drunk!

Facebook is a good place to share stuff and let friends know about what’s happening in your life, and share applications, and games and things you might enjoy together. Warning though – The Facebook status question – What’s on Your Mind – isn’t a deep question.  It doesn’t really want a full description of your existential angst, or last night’s activities in bed or the size of your estranged boyfriend’s manhood. This is TMI and best left for Facebook Chat and other private spaces.

3/Respect Your Differences – Some people just love the quirky old apps that Facebook keeps on coming up with. As for me I don’t really give a toss about bejewelling the world (unless it’s my own fingers!) or what my porn star name would be should I wish for a change in career. (Apparently it’s Tongue-ya Harding!) And if I wanted to raise chickens and tend crops I would actually do so with ones that cluck and grow, rather than do it virtually on Farmville. Don’t insist all your friends and family join your little fantasy trips, some of us have real life, and real work to do!

4/ Spit It Out – Sometimes Facebook can be a bloody handy little tool, and no more so than when you have some difficult news to tell. In my four years on Facebook I’ve seen more and more people use the Status line to break the bad news – of breakups, divorce, and even death. Whilst it may seem at first glance a heartless thing to do, I actually think it’s a small mercy at a difficult time. Of course it’s a given, that you’ve actually told the other person first (and not in a text message, email or on Facebook chat!)

One of the hardest things I had to face was telling friends and family of my marriage breakup, and I’m sure that being able to quietly put a note about would have been far easier. After all isn’t it just modern version of the jungle drums of a death or birth notice in the newspaper?

5/Close the Distance – Facebook provides the most wonderful way of sharing your life with those who aren’t with you. Share those pictures of the kids – ‘My haven’t they grown up!’ – and of the pets and of your life now. Share a joke that you know will make your friends smile, and lighten their load. And as you share you will be building deeper connections between you and your friends and family. That is what Facebook is all about. It’s like a magazine featuring you, your life and your world.

For that reason whenever I hear someone say they are going to go overseas or embark on an expat adventure I suggest they get into Facebook (as well as other internet media such as Skype) because I firmly believe that it can help lessen that tyranny of distance.

What do you think?

A Like for Facebook? Or an Unlike?

Image: Flickr CC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/codemastersnake/

“Does that mean you’re going to be a star?” Miss 11 almost 12 asked, when she heard the news.

Wanna be famous?

“Nah, not really. Why do you want me to be one?”

“Yes…well, no” she replied hesitantly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll have to travel lots and you won’t be around and I like you being around.”

It’s good to be wanted!

I like having you around too, kid…

I thought lots about how much I value the journey I’ve made, we’ve all made, from NZ to the UK, from single Mum with three kids to remarried Mum, from uncertain to certain.

From searching for love, to making a nest within it.

It filled me with satisfaction as I realised how much I love being surrounded by my crazy family. It’s like being bathed in hot chocolate pudding. Bit messy sometimes, but warming, satisfying, reassuring.

Why all the introspection?

Because sometimes you just have to stop and count your blessings.  Also because yesterday I was interviewed by Radio New Zealand Nights. They’d read an account of my journey on this blog and spoke to me for 20 minutes (I know ‘WOW’).

But more than anything, I was reminded by that conversation with Miss 11 that once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, when I was a little girl I had wanted to be a star. A writing, film, singing star… whatever flavour.. it didn’t matter. But now that I’m all grown up, I realise I no longer want to be a star.

No, I want to be a storyteller. Like most writers I want to tell as many stories as I can. I want to reach people, to give hope, make em laugh, entertain…

And yesterday as I prerecorded this interview I realised finally that this journey is heading in the right direction. I may be still climbing that mountain (and whinging about the climb at times) but hell, I’m sure enjoying the view and the journey!

Thanks to you all for listening and reading my witterings.

If you want to hear the interview (it’s just aired in NZ) and more about the journey that started in Paris and lead from Pavlova to Pork Pies click here

Or go to the Radio New Zealand Facebook page

Or join us on Vegemitevix’s Facebook page (and don’t forget to like us while you’re there!)

And finally the story about our meeting in Paris is here and our romantic engagement is here

Hope you enjoy!

My 74 year old mother has never been one for technology. She says it confuses her.

Brain Drain

But being that she’s living in the technological age, and that she lives in technology savvy Australia, technology has started to make an impact on her life, whether she likes it or not.

First there was the whiz bang answering machine, that is purposefully looped as my Mum is hard of hearing. Then came the new TV, and laptop and medical wizardry. Luckily (for me and this blog! Though it wouldn’t be a problem if she read it, would it? Love you Mum!) she is still on dial-up, but technology is creeping into her life so quickly it is surely only a matter of time until she is whizzing along the WWW.

God help me!

Until then, here’s two stories illustrating how confusing the older generation can find tech.

My Mum has worn hearing aids for many years and as she ages her hearing is getting worse, so it was with relief that she received a shiny new set of hearing aids just before Christmas. She was thrilled with the quality of the sound that helped her pick up conversation (especially in the harder to hear range) rather than amplify the background noise. She was delighted with the fit, the feel and the assurance that it was really top knotch tech. Beaming from ear to ear, with hearing aids in, she headed off to Bridge. Mum is a superb Bridge player, she’s quick witted and numeric and holds an excellent poker face. She is quite the darling of the Bridge playing older single set, everyone wants to be her partner.

She is so popular at Bridge that she actually attends two groups, but the meeting today was held in the clubhouse of the beautiful local golf course. Sitting there with her partners, dressed carefully I imagined she looked the epitome of elegance.

“It was a good game,” she told me.

“Until, there was this strange buzzing sound. I looked all around to see if a fly had got in through a screen somewhere, but no. And then it stopped, so I got back to my game.”

But not for long! Within a few moments, a strange disembodied voice said in her head -

“I am losing battery power.”

Mum looked up with alarm. Was her Bridge partner waning? No, he was still studying his hand. Then she heard it again.

“I have completely discharged battery.”

IT WAS IN HER HEAD.

OMG! She thought ‘I’m losing my marbles’ And just as she was debating if she should quietly excuse herself and ring the doctor, she heard the most worrying message of all.

“I am shutting down now!”

Mum waited with sweaty palms for her brain to shut down. She glanced, panicked, around the table to see if anyone else could see the signs of imminent shut-down but everyone was chatting until there was a slight ‘pop’ and she couldn’t hear anything much at all.

“And you know what Vix? It was my hearing aids running out of batteries. It gave me the fright of my life.”

I think she did remarkably well, not sure how I’d react if the little voice in my brain stopped telling me how much I need chocolate and threatened to shut down!

Next time: Texting troubles

I’ve learnt to be super careful when I go to London for work.

My cup runneth over and made for the door

It’s not that I’m concerned about my own personal safety, or health (though I often need to wash the grime off my fingers when I return. The Tube is filthy!) No, I learnt early on that I needed to dress carefully.

I’ve become quite slack in my work day dress. It’s not that I work in my PJs or even type in the bath, but I typically wear trousers and casual long sleeved t-shirts. Not clothes that scream professionalism, but then I live in a very non-descript little North Hampshire town, we’re not big on workwear here, unless it’s fluorescent yellow ‘Elf and Safety vests.

So when I go to London I need to make a bit of an effort. You know, to look like the cut and thruster I obviously am. I even wear a suit on occasion, but mostly it’s a good top and trousers. I learnt to not wear skirts from that one time when my skirt rode up and became a muff-tickling-scarf. A-hem!

Yes, that’s the other thing. I need to dress carefully because of all the wardrobe malfunctions.

There was the time I broke my heel in the middle of Cheapstreet on the way to the Financial PR. I hobbled in looking pink as a pig in a pickle and not at all cool calm and collected and ready to deliver a bollocking brief! The next time I went to London I wore flat soled shoes. But there was a problem. My feet swelled with all the walking, my shoes did not. It’s the cobbles, they’re a killer.

Then there was that other time when I realised that the sweater top I had carefully matched with my grey suit was decorated with large coffee stains across my decolletage, and I had to buy a replacement at the Monsoon at Waterloo station on my way to my conference. It wasn’t until the day was done and I was taking off the brand new pink finely woven sweater that I realised every single person had been spying my black bra showing through, all day!

Add to this the memories of – evening dress furry stole breaking and having to be pinned together with a large broach (once again thank you Monsoon at Waterloo); my handbag breaking and having to carry it all out in front as if it was the chamber pot; the wasabi incident (don’t ask) and the open trouser zip and let’s just say, I dress carefully now. Lesson learnt.

I went to London on Wednesday. I carefully dressed. Smart casual, you could say. I popped a pair of flat shoes in my bag, and a lipstick and I even hovered over a safety pin. I had enough in my work bag to survive on a small desert island for a week. Like every good Girl Guide I was prepared.

Flat shoes – check.

Spare lipstick – check.

Mobile charger – check.

Cheeky stop off at Boots to spritz with lovely but mortgage busting tester Gucci Guilty Intense parfum – check.

Clean knickers in case of emergency trip in ambulance after bus running me over – check.

I was looking good. I was smart, professional, working girl about town in my velvet coat (a designer recycle special) and my spotty scarf. I wielded my Oyster card with intent. I strode purposefully through Covent Garden in search of the cute little Notes cafe (damn good coffee). I smiled and greeted Joseph from NZ News UK with enthusiasm and as I went to all-in-one-movement-take-off-coat-and-sit-down….. I felt a devastating snap, and a sharp lash of elastic.

Elle McPherson was no longer cradling my girls.

My right sister was without full support. My cup runneth over and started for the door and the blue skies of freedom. She’s served me well, that red little lacy number, but when it came to the rigor, the harsh unrelenting stress and demand of working in London, Elle had let me down.

And with that wardrobe malfunction came the realisation that my professional working personna is dead, or at least needs to be clothed more sympathetically.

Do you think I could get away with a kaftan?

I avoid mirrors. And shop windows and anything with a reflection. I canno’t bear to have my own image – that comfortable forgiving mental image – shouted down by the reality I see reflected back to me.

Real beauty or unhealthy images?

Mirrors, shop windows – they are all too argumentative.

I’m sure I’m not the only sane, intelligent woman who has thoughts like this. I’m not the only one who has grabbed handfuls of skin and wistfully imagined a tool that could slice off this lump, shave off that bump, and sew together all the rest. I imagine some kind of saw, or even an exceptionally sharp cook’s knife cutting away the excesses of my life, but I don’t think of the pain or the blood. The crimson tide of life slipping away.

I couch these mental fantasies as self-improvement, and do not see them for what they really are, self-mutilation. Albeit psychological. If someone was to shave off the extra bits of my daughters’ bodies, I would tear them apart with my bare hands, and yet here I am imagining the very same of myself, and seeing it as desirable.

Why?

Because, like every other woman in the western world I am constantly bombarded with images of what a perfect body should be like. Despite being a professional marketer and understanding the language behind the advertising campaigns, I still succumb, albeit privately, to the insidious messages…

My body is not good enough.

I am not worth it, unless I buy this product or look like that. Even if that, is a teenage male model!

I am not enough as I am. I will always need a new pot of salicylic acid, or hydoxy-bullshit.

But I do love the pots of promise so much…

What’s even more insidious is that not only do women expect this of themselves, but I think the men in our world have started to expect nothing short of physical perfection.  I fall way too short of that bar.

And yet, this is how it’s done (for everyone with the possible exceptions of the Middleton sisters and Elle McPherson!)

Why do we accept this when we understand the powerful imagery and advertising techniques at play? We need to purposefully reprogramme our minds to consider other examples of beauty, not just thin, flat-chested, pale skinned beauty. We need to stop this madness now.

We don’t need a rebound into accepting physical laziness or unhealthy obesity, either. Of course we need to promote healthy, strong, fit female bodies. Bodies that can raise merry hell, or a bawling babe. Bodies that can survive and thrive and suck the marrow out of life. Bodies that can express our love and passion without shame, with abandon and with the light on.

We need to be able to make peace with that woman in the mirror……..or one day our daughters will stand in front of their own bedroom mirror confronted by a mad woman (mentally) wielding a knife.

And that woman will be themselves.

The next time I stand in front of my bedroom mirror I’m going to focus on one thing I feel is beautiful about my body. I’m going to take that one thing and I’m going to promote it to myself. Whenever I think negatively about my body I’m going to counter those thoughts with this self-promotion.

Wanna join me? What aspect of your physical self will you celebrate?

NB/Fab Fotoshop video pointed out by the cool dudes at Social Media New Zealand.