Castle life

So you think you can rely on your friends to keep your blog on track and what do they do? Enjoy the Easter sunshine, forget their responsibilities and fail to put anything of any interest on your blog. Thankfully, what with the rather fabulous weather over the Easter holidays, I doubt there were many people who were sitting on computers and happening upon my usually frequently updated blog.

I have to confess, I am more to blame. It turns out our castle did have wi-fi, and there was a wirelessly enabled laptop, or 3 to be precise and I too neglected my blogging. Call it a break from my daily responsibilities and a cleansing exercise, which is lovely, except now I feel guilty and have far too much to fit into any one post, so much like my lack of holidays blogging, here comes the castle roundup.

Here’s where I’ve been staying for the last 5 nights, like a proper princess. A style I must confess I have become accustomed to, four poster bed, aga, 4 course dinners and fine wine and lots and lots of eating. It was a wicked weekend, although quite sedate once everyone had chilled and got used to the idea of having a castle for a home.

Me and Steve arrived on Friday morning (in our flukely upgraded ‘we’re from out of town’ 6 seater 4 litre Mercedes people carrier which was such a touch and so fun to drive) and quickly bagged the honeymoon bedroom- that’s definitely the benefit of having a boyfriend who has massive sulks when he doesn’t get his own way- who was I to question it?! It was tough having the best room in the whole castle with 2 en suites, but we managed it. The only downside was that Steve got so battered that I had to carry him up the turret windy staircase every single bloody night and undress him and get him into bed. No mean feat when you consider our bed was 5 feet off the ground and had stairs to get into it.

Anyway, so our party consisted of 18 adults, one dog called Wilson, and 2 babies, one 10 months, one 8 months. It’s quite tough to please everyone including the babies and dogs, so we tended to splinter off during the day. Plus I got bored of looking and cooing at the babies, and was far more at home in the company of the dog.

My biggest achievement for sure was my first Munroe. Me, Wilson, Steve and Rob scaled Lochnagar…it was awesome. The wind was so strong on top that I had to lie down for fear of being blown away. Wilson the dog enjoyed the snow at the peaks and did some wicked skiing and snow munching…Steve took a piss into the wind at the top…into. I ask you. It wasn’t very pretty.

Anyway, I’ll leave you to look at the pics of the castle and will keep you amused with silly stories over the next few days….there are plenty.

An Apology...

I have let the side down... I'm sorry. I was entrusted by Ali to Blog here whilst instead I've been enjoying the unseasonably sunny and warm Easter Holiday weather and neglecting my duties. Sorry all!

Here though is a short clip which combines two of my favourite things whilst I was growing up. A funny one for the boys maybe...

Off and away

I'm about to be signing off and once more placing my lovely blog in the hands of a guest blogger...I'm not going to give any clues away, but I'm sure you'll have no issues guessing who that might be.

The castle that we're staying in is called Lickyhead castle....but I can't find it anywhere on the web, so I'm slightly concerned that it doesn't exist. If that's the case, I'll be back blogging before you know it!

Over and out x

Romance is on cream.

What a strange quiet journey into work. The mass exodus for the Easter break is clearly upon us, and after having eaten my first Easter Egg already last night (thanks Shipley, or should that be Ifty)I am totally ‘feeling it.

Last night I hurriedly packed my bags before preparing Dan a hearty dinner of erm, pre-packaged goods from M&S quickly heated in the oven and settling down to watch another fabulous episode of The Apprentice.

What to take to Scotland is a bit of a dilemma truth be told, it’s difficult to hit the correct balance of glamour and functionality. Why glamour in Scotland? Well, why not. And of course, there’s the fact that we’re bound to have a ‘lets all dress up and have a fancy dinner’ evening and I’m not about to be outdone by any of Steve’s other friends….ohhhhh no I’m not. Petty? Yes. But absolutely imperative.

Anyway, the topic of today’s blog is romance. Steve asked me the other day what romance was (slightly worrying maybe), or rather what my definition of romance was, and you know, it stumped me slightly. He also asked me if I thought he was romantic (to which I answered no) and what the most romantic thing he’d ever done for me was.

It got me ’a pondering.

Girls always harp on about wanting their men to be romantic, but what does this actually mean and if they got romance, would they actually like it, or would they feel a giddy mix of nausea and distrust most of the time (why the flowers? Why the dinner? What’s he done this time).

When I think of the truly cliché forms of romance, I think of things like coming home to find the bed sprinkled with rose petals and covered in sickly sweet scented candles, or having a fine dinner cooked and a table laid with crystal glasses and fancy napkins and the room gently lit by candle light , or maybe even being told to pack and whisked away to some undisclosed European city break, a bunch of roses/lilies/tulips delivered with the details of a restaurant booking for that evening, or the ultimate, being bought an outfit by your other half for a glam night out.

And honestly, when you read that list, didn’t you think…oh GOD….no?

We all desire the occasional romantic treat, but if someone insisted on sprinkling the bed linen with petals all the time, can you imagine how annoying that would be? All that cleaning and hovering and petal stains. You can keep it. And surprise trips away….no thanks. You’d miss out on all the exciting pre-planning of top places to visit and the lovely build up of anticipation.

So the answer to Steve’s question, what is the most romantic thing he’s ever done for me? Well. You know it was the letter he wrote me when we weren’t together, telling me how his life was incomplete without me. And you know what, it worked. It took a while, but it sunk in deeply and it worked. Sometimes a heartfelt expression of emotion is the most romantic thing. I’m not talking about a cheesy poem, but something someone has planned, and executed with excruciating levels of heartfeltness.

Funny, as perhaps I ought to have said taking me to Kenya, or The Maldives. But that doesn’t even come close in terms of romanticism which really gets to you.

Yesterday he announced that he’s taking me to Paris, well, he’s in Paris on business and did I want to come and meet him for 3 days afterwards which is a really lovely idea and yes, of course I bl**dy do. So I guess I ought to eat my words and I think I owe him an apology.

On the flip-side, what can us girls do to romance our men, or prospective men? I know Dan would be won over by a great folk music compilation with a natty homemade front cover, Jonathan would be bowled by the choice of an exceptionally good book, Dave would love a good new release of some video game and an extra ‘control’ for a night of intense passionate dual-gaming, Sam, well you’d just have to take him to an all you can eat place, but a good one, Tom, you’d get him a signed Man U shirt, Chequers, a year’s subscription to Casablancas, Stev/Gavin a life’s supply of weed. It would be so easy.

But none of these are ‘romantic’ per say.

So I guess what it boils down to, is that ‘romance’ is whatever someone you love does for you, which leaves a significant positive emotional impact, or if you like ‘La Fuzzy Feeling’.

From this I can deduce that if I had to put myself in Steve’s shoes and pick one thing I’d done which really hit the spot, it would be the PVC nurses outfit every time. Who says romance is dead?

Skinnys and Scottie

I’m so glad that yesterday’s post managed to convert one of my ‘most cleverest’ friends to the joys of The Apprentice. I have rather foolishly agreed to meet said friend in the pub this evening for a pint, at 9pm. Anyone spot the scheduling error…..yes, it’s tonight’s episode! So I now propose we sack off the pub, get takeaway and wine and watch it, and bitch. Jonathan? Dan? Are you with me? Or are you sitting in Zuma wondering where the hell I am?! I suppose only time will tell. Don’t forget Anita and Stev are away, and we really ought to trash the flat at least once in her absence*.

Today I’m feeling rather pleased with myself, I oughtn’t really, as I’m still snotty and headachey and I don’t think I even need to mention that Lindsey and I are still homeless and my weekends are being booked up one by one as I type, so I’m not sure if I’ll ever really move (not helped by inept estate agents not being able to deliver on simple guidelines such as ‘2 bedrooms’ or budget : “hey Ali, I’ve this great studio apartment in Wapping, right up your straza, for only £350 a week”. No no No). So why the smugness then you might ask? Because I have just been to Gap, sent by heaven to the curvy women of the world, for my latest fix of skinny jeans. Introduced to the fashion world by the likes of La Moss and worn with either pumps, or tucked into lovely boots (flat ones look better I think). Also worn with tunic type long floaty tops over skinny jeans, perhaps with a big chunky pendant. Sorry I disgress.

For anyone who loves these as I do will understand, ‘skinny’ is a misnomer. These jeans are not only for skinny people and are sold up to size 16 here, there and everywhere. They also look great on larger bottomed girls and are a celebration of our wobbles and jiggles. The only thing that really needs to be skinny to manage to get these jeans on are your ankles, and unless you suffer from hyper water retention, you’re away.

Anyway, back to Gap. Gap tend to oversize all their clothes, so a size 12 girl, such as myself, might find herself buying size 10, or 8 at a push and rejoicing internally (and externally by telling everyone, doing ‘lunges’ to make the label pop out “oh, my size 8 jeans label, how terribly and embarrassingly rotten”). Today, was even better, there must have been a labelling mix up as I managed to squeeze my arse into a size 6, granted with some degree of muffintopism.

Me in my jeans




I know all this is ridiculous, nonsense, matters not to anyone, bears no reflection on me as a person, or my happiness, is terribly vain, self centred, and shallow, but it gave me a little brief period of joy and heel-clickery. And even though I know I’ll never ever be a size 6 and nor would I want to be as it would surely be the demise of my bosoms and arse, it felt temporarily good. In the same way it would if I ever by mistake put on a DD bra and filled the cups and some, and that’s something which isn’t going to happen until I’m 6 months pregnant at least. Actually, it might happen if I ingest my own body weight in chocolate as my slammers are always the first to expand at the same rate as my arse, followed closely by my thighs.


Anyway, so enough of that rambling. It’s Easter weekend soon, didn’t you know? And so I’m sure we all have marvellous plans of fun new things we’re going to do. I for one am choosing to spend my weekend in bonnie wee Scotland, Aberdeenshire to be precise, and a lovely castle, to be even more precise.

18 of us have dug deep and forked out just over £3k for the privilege of staying regal stylee at Lockleyhead Castle, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. This is a proper turrets and flags affair with a grand table with seats 20 and is so long, I’ll need my specs to even see who’s at the other end. Why? Because it’s Steve’s 30th birthday and what better than a castle to make a boy feels special and loved.

Logistically of course, said castle is a nightmare. Well, getting people on the same BA flight, hiring 4 people carriers, splitting people into transit groups and cooking groups, eating preference groups, cleaning groups and activity groups and groups of groups and subcategories of groups and well, groups for the sheer hell of it, it seems.

Why? Because a disproportionate number of our ‘group’ (for want of a better word) are primary school teachers. And frustrated ones at that. This is all the more complicated as we are now grown ups and this means the addition of baby x2 and dog x 1.

I am in the ‘blue team’ alongside Steve, Mac and Janice and Neil and Nicky. I have been informed that this means we are responsible for feeding the castle on Sunday. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have a budget of £20 per person (per day), which means we have almost £400 for a day’s food. Sounds a lot doesn’t it?

Not only that but we must serve dinner at, or before 7pm, to allow for the mum’s to join us before the rug-rats go to bed. We are also responsible for the washing up and tidying of the castle on that day. I reckon we ought to just sod it and pay a chef and a cleaner to come in for the day and cook for us all, whilst we put our feet up and laugh retrospectively at all the other’s slaving in the kitchen on Friday and Saturday, and I intend to put this to my team in due course. We might even have enough left over for a stripper. I’ll let you know.

Either way we fly on Friday morning and I fully intend to make the most of the gorgeous landscape, lots of fresh air, walking, pony trekking, gully jumping, pot-holing and perhaps a spot of xtreme abseiling, intermingled with whiskey appreciation and dog walking. Ah, the joys of being a grown up.

*only joking Anita

Sir Sugar's Apprentice

I am a self confessed 'naff' TV addict, and despite Sir Alan vehemently denying the Apprentice could ever be classified as 'Reality TV' I would beg to differ. How else would the last series have created it's very own class of 'e' list celebrities, the 'badger' (that matronly scary one) who now has her own TV show, that gobby asian guy who frequents the likes of Nobu and other London celeb haunts and most famously got the winner, Michelle Dewberry, up the duff within a month of her being awarded the holy grail...a 6 figure (yep, count em) salaried job in one of Sir Alan's many business ventures.

Anyway with some fairly serious PR, I'm sure you can't have failed to notice that Sir Alan is back on the prowl in his helecopter circling and swooping and trying to nail an Apprentice for 2007. Why he couldn't just employ a high brow head hunter we'll never know, but I guess then we'd miss out on all that FUN!

Last year, Sir Alan was none too impressed with the calibre of his wannabes, and so this year, he endeavoured to really get his teeth into the selection of the 'finest young business brains in Britain'. And didn't they do well?

I'm sure if you saw the first show last Wednesday you would have delighted alongside me watching the two teams, led by Andy the car salesmen and Jadine the erm, annoying women with a big chip on her shoulder, setting up coffee companies and trying to flog cheap nasty coffee and kelloggs cereal bars to discerning punters in Islington, and other spots around town. It was brilliant TV. I'm no bright spark so watching a quantum physicist fumble her way through basic common sense calculations whilst the rest of the team stood around and nodded was great. They based their ordering calculations not on forecasted demand for coffee, but on the capacity of the machine. So, they calculated the machine that could make 1,000 cups a day would require 200 litres of milk to do so. 200 litres! How very very embarrasing. I haven't even mentioned the fact that they purchased the wrong coffee, that one of team leaders called back their mobile unit from it's most lucrative position only to stand dormant and unused, it was heinous business error after error. Not complicated ones either.

But what's really amazing about this show are the boardroom appearances where Sugar interviews the startled candidates to select someone to fire. This is an unadulterated forum for blame, backstabbing and humiliation to try and save your skin. In life you'll rarely bear witness to people stooping so very low for their own personal gain. In some ways, I admire their absolute dogged perseverance, but in others it's truly terrifying. I'm such a softy when it comes to work, 'ambition' and general 'go gettery'. I have no qualms when people younger than me overtake me at work and it makes me feel queasy just thinking about putting myself in a situation where I'm pitting myself against someone so self-assured.

So grab your cushion...because you will need it for the cringy moments. Even Steve, Steve, Steve of the (corporate) jungle had to hide behind one when porky car salesman met his fate in a most unbecoming manner. Grab some decent wine, tune in on Wednesday and enjoy a damn good heckle.

We all love to pretend we could have done better than all of them, but only from the comfort of our nice, cosy sofas.

You too can have a perfect life....at a cost

Well, it turned out to be quite a hectic weekend, a quick dash to the Natural History museum for the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the year exhibition- well worth a visit if you happen to find yourselves around the South Ken area, and then Gavin's 30th birthday party, which strangely enough, marked the end of any further weekend activity. Not to mention the fact that it has left me without voice, and with a nasty hacking cough.

This is the mark of great party I suppose and thanks to Sam and Gavin, for a heck of a bash. I haven't arrived at a party at midnight recently to find the carnage is already so extreme that there are several bodies in beds, and people pegging it to the toilet to empty their stomachs at regular intervals. I was well positioned in the bedroom to watch all these antics with great amusement, and it made me happy to see well, we can all still be very childish when we want.

Sunday morning I was lying in bed battling with the sleep demons and I received a call from an old work colleague. Strange, as this was someone who never calls, and whose number was really only my phone due to an occasional 'car share to work' agreement some years ago. When you get an out of the blue call like that from someone fairly distant, it always alarms me somewhat. I suppose it's out of my comfort zone.

Perhaps it was rude, but I was too hungover and pickled to consider answering a call and making small talk so I let the call go to my voicemail, and out of curiosity, listened to the message. Alarm Bells. My friend spoke of a 'great thing' she's been doing, a course in London which has 'changed her life' and she wanted me to come along on Tuesday night so 'I could experience it'. She ended the call saying she was so excited about the prospect of sharing this with me, and would phone back in a couple of hours.

I could think only of two words.

Landmark Forum.

If you're someone who's ever had any dealings with this organisation, either directly or through a third party, then you'll be familiar with my reaction. Perhaps if you have 5 minutes you could even go as far as to plug Landmark into google and see what is said. I think you'll find that it will go some way to validate what I am about to type.

The reason I'm familiar with Landmark is that one of my close friends got involved with them and enrolled in several of their courses a couple of years ago. At the time she was perhaps somewhat vulnerable, questioning what she wanted and needed from her life, questioning the way she interacted with others and basically suffering from a period of low self esteem. She discovered Landmark and she loved it. It had an alarmingly powerful impact on her, and she preached it's effectiveness to all who would listen. She was increasingly encouraged to promote the course to all her friends, to organise introduction meetings and to 'push' the ideas.

The frightening effectiveness of the thought process behind Landmark makes its success easy to understand. Once you are enlightened to their thought patterns, you then take it upon yourself to spread the word. To improve your friends lives as well. It's a lovely sentiment. I want to make my friends lives richer, happier and more content.

But is it? Is it a nice thing to make people feel that if they don't want to attend this course, it's because of fear and cowardice. That they owe it to themselves and their friends to undertake this and to spread the word and that if they don't they are somehow living a lessor life.

These are the Landmark Forum's 'seven commandments' for being an extraordinary person:

· Be Racket-Free: give up being right - even when you know you were.

· Be Powerful: be straight in your communication and take what you get.

· Be Courageous: acknowledge your fear (not necessarily get rid of it) and then act.

· Be Peaceful: give up the interpretation that there's something wrong.

· Be Charismatic: give up trying to get somewhere. Be entirely fulfilled in the present moment.

· Be Enrolling: share your new possibilities in such a way that others are touched, moved and inspired.

· Be Unreasonable: in expectations of yourself and others beyond what you would think they are capable of.

Funny how they don't mention the ability to be an effective salesperson, to be manipulative and glib and make money by trading on people's fears and vulnerabilities. This is essentially a massive commercial organisation, and they make a lot of money. People are encouraged to pyramid sell, to friends and families.

I love the idea of enlightenment, but I don't believe it should come at a financial cost, or that it should come as a result of peer pressure, guilt or self-doubt. If you make a decision to make your life happier, turn to trusted sources for ways to help you, and if you ask me, don't trust the Landmark.

By the way, the friend I mentioned who completed all of their courses, she won't have anything to do with the forum now, and certainly wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Be wary.