Is It a Bird, Is It a Plane?

It's a Northern Ireland bread delivery van of course.

This was chased down by my Mum in my hometown of Carrickfergus.  Possibly the best bread delivery van in the world.

The Long & Short Of It

According to the rather amusing TV show Better of Ted, being female, “ . . .Isn’t just about the genitals.  It’s a lifestyle”.   Now I’ve bemoaned the chores of being a woman on here before, from waxing to plucking and all the other tortures in-between I thought I’d experienced the worst of what the female pampering regime could throw at me.  That was until I entered the world of false nails.

In a rather foolhardy attempt to make ourselves presentable at my sister’s wedding my Mother and I thought we’d spruce up our nails by buying some falsies. As I’m not used to having nails (I was a biter!) I opted for some shortish ones. After all, I wouldn’t want to put someone’s eye out.

With a glass of wine in one hand and my very patient Aunt prepping the other we set about beautifying our nails. And beautiful they were. Red, sexy, and tapered. They looked great. I was so chuffed. Truly they were a thing of beauty. Then I had to pee . . .

Now you’d think I would have realised that gluing several centimetres of plastic onto my nails would make life somewhat difficult, after all, this extension has no feeling, no spatial awareness and as I found out, absolutely no respect for the human body.

I quickly learnt to be wary of my new nails and I thought I was adapting well. I went to bed full of hope that I’d be fully used to them in the morning. However after almost gouging my husband and myself several times during the night not to mention getting the flipping things trapped in sheets every 5 minutes I decided that this maybe wasn’t for me and I would take them off.

I went to share this plan with my mother only to find her prising her own nails off with a file. It would seem I wasn’t the only one that had been suffering during the night! Together we finally got the things off and were both left with short bloodied stumps. So much for being presentable for the wedding!

I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m obviously not as committed to the feminine ideal as I thought. I draw the line at self-harm. It wasn’t all bad though. I was so ashamed of my brutalised nails at the wedding that I’ve since stopped biting them. While not quite as pristine as my false ones had been they’re more than presentable and more importantly. I haven’t killed anyone with them yet.

Alice, Alice, Who the F*ck Is Alice?

Well this week I’ve had my rather fabulous Mother over for a visit. Unlike most people I adore my parents coming to stay and we have a lot of fun. Over the last few days we’ve drunk too much, ate too much, walked too much and no doubt, spent too much. What could be better than a Tuesday afternoon spent sipping Champagne cocktails by the water, eh?

Apart from the wide variety of cocktails, one of the things we did was go to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. If you haven’t seen it I would highly suggest you do.

The 3D is pretty damn stunning & the movie itself is just beautiful with one of the best casts I’ve seen in a long long time. Stephen Fry is sublime as the Cheshire Cat, Johnny Depp’s performance as the Mad Hatter is very touching & Anne Hathaway’s prissy White Queen made me laugh every time she was on screen.

Huge props to the young girl who plays Alice though. She was superb. I believe she was a complete unknown and yet she manages to hold her own in a rather spectacular cast. I imagine my performance in similar circumstances would have been a lot less accomplished & a lot more X rated (Johnny Depp still manages too look hot! How the hell does he do it?).

All in all it’s a fantastic film & if you get the chance, go see it, preferably in 3D!

As for my Mum, well she went home yesterday which is always depressing. However, spending the night dancing to Hey Big Spender in my latest Burlesque class helped ease the pain (metaphorically speaking. Physically my knees are killing me from ‘dippin it low’ all night).

Tonight I’m off to see Dirk Benedict from the A team aka The Face as Columbo.  I like my life.

Inappropriate Conversation Starters

Now I love my parents. Even better still I feel I can be open and honest with them at all times. That being said, I do think my Mum needs to reconsider her opening line as she answered the phone to me this morning.

"Oh sorry, I was just messing around in the bedroom"

I'm hoping for a hello next time I call.