Category Archives: Real life

Letting go of perfect

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Striving to be a perfectionist has its benefits – never submitting a piece of sub-standard work, half-heartedly cleaning the flat or choosing a duff holiday or friend’s birthday present, for example – but it can also wear you down. When you fail to live up to your own exacting standards – as you inevitably will – your inner critic comes charging into the forefront of your consciousness like an army major and starts reprimanding you for all the things you’ve done wrong. And when that voice is constantly pointing out your areas of weakness it can become both depressing and a self-fulfilling cycle.

The truth of the matter is (newsflash!) there is no such thing as perfect. Even the most diligent of cleaners or copywriters will miss a speck of dirt or an erroneous apostrophe every now and then. Does that make them bad at what they do? Far from it – it just makes them human. We weren’t made to be perfect beings – God (if you believe in Him) made us in his image, granted, but Adam and Eve saw to it that we would always be a bunch of hopeless sinners. Instead of aiming for perfect maybe we should really aim at being the best that we can be. Not that we should drop our standards – far from it, it’s important to set our goals high, it’s just that when we don’t always achieve the top grade in life we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves for managing a perfectly respectable B.

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Don’t be S.A.D

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Much as we may hate to admit it the signs are becoming increasingly harder to ignore; daylight hours are waning, the sun is slowly starting to retreat out of our reach and there’s a desperate aura surrounding the pavement drinkers that says that they know their outdoor drinking days are numbered. In the words of my beloved Game of Thrones (the most amazing TV series since 24, for those of you who may not be familiar with it and have clearly been living beneath a rock for the past year): Winter is coming.

It’s not as if we can bemoan the lack of decent summer weather this year, though as a nation of moaners I’m sure many people will. After last year’s wash out the past few weeks have been almost entirely pleasant – we’ve even had a mini heat wave for goodness’ sake! (Bless). You can’t say fairer than that, eh? And so as the nights draw in we must accept the fact that no matter how well the weather gods treat us, the summer season will never feel long enough.

There will never be enough days spent languishing bare-legged and brown-skinned in the park, or sipping cocktails on a rooftop at the many pop-up bars that spring up like rabbits as soon as there’s a hint of summer blooms scenting the air. We will never eat enough ice cream (FACT), nor spend enough time building sandcastles on British beaches like we did when we were five years old. We will never have our fill of wandering by the river on a hazy summer’s eve as the sun starts its unhurried journey towards the horizon, pulling a veil of pink across the sky.

It’s true that winter creeps up like a thief, wrapping its cloak of darkness around our shoulders almost before we know what is going on. But lest we complain about the changing of the seasons we should remember the positives that each season brings. Winter may be cold and dark but it also offers cosy nights in pubs drinking mulled wine, and even cosier nights in sipping on hot chocolate. It also boasts the accolade of being the festive season, which brings families together and puts delicious food on the table. So you see, it shouldn’t be feared but rather embraced.

The changing of the seasons is Mother Nature’s way of showing us just how wonderful this world we live in really is. Granted, the seasons in this country tend to be particularly harsh, but if it was always summer and never winter would we really appreciate the summer as much as we do? What would we have to grumble about then?

Give us this day our daily rant

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Cycling on the pavements

I’d already decided that today’s post would be about my latest pet peeves, but as I sit down to type this another one is being added to the list; scorned foreign gay lovers who are oblivious to the social faux pas of solidly hammering upon their (presumably now ex) boyfriend’s door for twenty minutes, interspersed with five solid minutes of doorbell ringing and pathetic pleading to be let in to explain. What makes this even more annoying is the fact it was my own boyfriend who inadvertently let the crazy perpetrator of this socially unacceptable act into the building, as he was heading out to catch a train.

Crazy scorned foreign gay lovers aside (I realise now how specific that particular peeve sounds but believe me, if you were sitting here listening to him pounding down the front door of the flat below you would, I’m certain, sympathise), the two peeves I specifically wish to reference today are as follows:

  1. Women who wear tights (particularly black ones) in hot weather
  2. Cyclists who cycle on the pavement

Male readers of this blog (no offence intended) may lack the capacity to fully understand how vexing the first of these points is for relatively normal women like me. Living in a country where we’re lucky to get a month of really warm weather out of every twelve, I simply cannot fathom why anyone would choose to keep their lower limbs swathed in clammy, cloying fibres when they could afford them the brief freedom of shooting the breeze sans inhibition. It makes no logical sense – and, what’s more, it looks ridiculous.

Then there are these bloody cyclists who ride rough shod over the pavement, clearly not having grasped the fact they are not, in fact, pedestrians. Don’t they see the road beside them? Have they never learned that people on wheels use roads whilst people without walk on the side? That’s why they call it the side walk, you cretins! And not the side cycle! I’ll admit there are some cycle lanes that do encroach on pavements, but those are clearly marked and designated. I take no issue with people using them. It’s the ones who cycle on normal pavements who really get my goat. And the worst thing about them is the way they meander and weave amongst the walkers, as if they’re actually courting a rush hour beating (not that I condone violence, but honestly, these people test my patience almost beyond measure).

So there you have it, Belle’s Pet Peeves of the Day. Maybe I should make this a regular feature, it’s really quite cathartic.

Emma & Harry’s wedding: The aftermath

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Needless to say the rest of yesterday’s wedding festivities were a rip roaring success, though they led to a fair few sore heads this morning. Fortunately for those of us staying at Cameron House Hotel the spa facilities were on hand to soothe the pain, and after a sauna and jacuzzi things began to look up.

The bride and groom had organised a barbecue at the rugby club in Helensburgh for those wedding guests who didn’t have to shoot off, and the turn out was predictably good. We had a fun afternoon going over the previous day’s antics and continuing the celebrations before people gradually began to drift off to the airport and train station and make their long journeys home.

Fortunately for us we’d had the foresight to book an extra night in Helensburgh so have had a leisurely evening stroll to the Wee Kelpy fish and chip shop and are now back to veg out and watch the Shawshank Redemption before bed. We may be in a Travelodge but it’s possibly the best appointed one I’ve ever stayed in, looking right out over the sea and the wild Scottish landscape. Right now I feel a million miles away from city living and (residual headache aside) I have to say it feels fantastic.

Congrats Emma & Harry x

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I’m writing this on the coach to my gorgeous friend Emma’s wedding reception after attending the ceremony in a beautiful church overlooking Loch Lomond in bonny (if slightly rainy) Scotland. The service was wonderful and the bride looked absolutely stunning.

It’s such an honour and a privilege to be invited to a friend’s wedding, and this one in particular was particularly special as I met Emma during my travels two years ago, not long after she had met her lovely (now) husband Harry. Emma has an effervescent and infectious personality which is why I loved her from the moment we first met, and nothing could make me happier than seeing how happy and radiant she looks today, on her wedding day. I know that she and Harry will be very happy together.

To top off an already fabulous weekend we found out on Wednesday we were being  upgraded from the Travelodge to the 5* Cameron House Hotel due to an overbooking error by the Travelodge. As a result we spent this morning wandering the grounds around the loch and making full use of the leisure facilities (which, to my great delight included an impressive water slide).

Things can only get better (and probably slightly drunker) from here on in…CONGRATULATIONS GUYS, I love you loads xxxxx

What’s MY problem? My only problem is YOU!

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The older I get the more I come to realise the virtues of self-awareness. I should preface this post by acknowledging that I’m far from perfect myself, but I do – for the most part at least – have a fairly competent radar for detecting when I’m being a bore and/or getting on someone else’s nerves. Some people, however, seem to have been born without such radar capabilities and are therefore able to spend vast swathes of their daily lives in a state of blithe obliviousness as to just how many of their fellow human beings they are driving to the brink of insanity with their behaviour.

The most maddening type of un-self-aware person is the person who gets constantly upset by other peoples’ behaviour without making any connection whatsoever between others’ behaviour and their own. In other words, the cause and effect principle is so completely lost on them that even if you held up flash cards to highlight that they, in fact, were the root cause of your irritation they would merely tell you that you were being ridiculous and heap insult upon your character (or, more likely still, accuse you of heaping insult upon their character, as a sneaky means of deflection from the true problem – which is, ostensibly to everyone but themselves, actually them).

As such people are prone to having delicate sensibilities, it’s often hard to know whether to grin and bear the extreme irritation their mere presence evokes or to attempt in some way to address the issue and tell them their behaviour is unacceptable. Whichever option you choose will have consequences, and possibly far-reaching ones at that. Remember the rule of cause and effect? Well, that. Ultimately this is a battle of your sanity against theirs, and only a brave man (or woman) will risk toppling the house of cards that is a fragile person’s entire personality. You have been warned.

A roller coaster day

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Today I rediscovered my inner child on a work trip to Thorpe Park. After an absence of ten years (and the rest) I wasn’t sure it would elicit quite the same thrill but I’m pleased to report it was just as good – if not better – than when I went all those years ago. It was funny experiencing it through the eyes of an adult chaperone rather than a young person though. Our group was a diverse but lovely bunch and I couldn’t help but pick out the ones that reminded me of my group of friends when I was that age (needless to say these were, generally speaking, the ones at the gobbier end of the spectrum), and observe the way in which they interacted with the quieter members of the group.

There were moments when I felt the ‘adults’ (I will never get used to referring to myself as such) were more excited about the rides than the young people, and none more so than when me and my colleague ran off to buy fast track tickets for two of the rollercoasters – Saw and Colossus – and the two boys we were with at the time just ambled off to the arcade games, completely disinterested. In the end though there was something for everyone, and I think it’s safe to say the day was enjoyed by all, whether or not they partook in the rides. It was just lovely to see all of the young people interacting and enjoying the experience together – amazing when you consider these are kids who were deemed at risk of dropping out of school and becoming disengaged before they took part in the Teens and Toddlers programme in year 9 or 10 of secondary school. It just goes to show that encouraging young people to believe in themselves and develop to their full potential really does work.

The BK lounge (and Starbucks drive-thrus)

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If you’ve never heard of Dane Cook then I urge you, right now (or perhaps after you’ve read this post), to open your web browser and type “Dane Cook BK Lounge into your browser.” Once you’ve listened to the audio clip the search throws up you may return here to profusely thank me for the recommendation (listen to his other clips too, he’s a funny guy) so I will say in advance that you’re most welcome. De nada. No really, it was nothing.

So anyway, on the topic of drive-thrus (I refer you back to the above so you will understand the reference), I was today amazed to find a Starbucks drive thru at a motorway service station. Not just amazed but somewhat thrilled, given that not half an hour previously I had remarked they really should be drive-thru coffee shops besides motorways for weary travellers who just needed a quick pick me up without the fuss of a proper stop off (clearly I have the mind of a forward thinking marketeer).

Despite having obviously made a fanfare of this ground breaking new development (as evidenced by the array of green and white balloons around the entrance) Starbucks had failed to do one very important thing: Signpost the drive=thru for the humble, tired and caffeine deficient motorist to easily find. By the time we found it we had circled the normal Starbucks cafe twice, driven around the car park for five minutes and taken a wrong turn at the petrol station which nearly saw us crash into an eighteen wheeled truck. Then when we did finally locate the drive thru entrance the muppet in front of us took exception to his beverage and spent a further five minutes admonishing the teenage boy serving at the hatch, whose excitement at landing the job was clearly waning by the second.

In short, it probably would have taken half the time to park up and go into the Starbucks in the service station. But when the boy handed over our iced coffees with a beaming smile and we pulled effortlessly back onto the motorway all was forgiven. “What a great idea,” I said. “If only I’d thought of that.”

Escape to the country

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It may be rose tinted glasses syndrome that’s responsible for the long, unbroken childhood summers in that are forever etched in my memory, but I can’t help feeling the last few summers have been distinctly underwhelming here in this great country I call home-which is precisely why I’m squeezing every bit of enjoyment out of this one and have this weekend been down to Devon for a bit of country living in the August sunshine.

City living’s so fast paced it’s easy to get totally swept along with the tide and lose all semblance of tranquility. That’s why I love escaping every now and then to a place where the phone signal and electricity are intermittent and the pace of life considerably more sedate. Not sedate for the people who live here, perhaps, but certainly for those of us who are fortunate to be able to visit once in a while.

At first it’s quite a shock to the system being partially “offline” and adjusting to not having to check your watch every five minutes. But once you have adjusted it’s blissful going with the flow and spending time with nature instead of being constantly “plugged in” to one form of technology or other.

This weekend we’ve been to a village fete – where we spent ages trying to beat one another playing a simple game involving putting bits of pipe onto a board in the fastest time (take that Candy Crush) – and attended the obligatory post-event booze up in the local pub. We’ve also driven and walked through beautiful Devonshire countryside and sat down to a lovely roast pork dinner. If not exactly relaxing (we haven’t really stopped at any point to rest per se) it has at least been refreshing for our minds and bodies to take a break from the normal frenetic London lifestyle. Without the odd weekend like this I think I might go slightly mad, so long may they-and indeed this glorious and long-awaited summer-last.

 

Marshmallow dreaming

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I would have been good at that marshmallow experiment they used to conduct on children in the ’60s (you know the one, where kids were offered one marshmallow to eat now or two if they waited twenty minutes – to test the effects of delayed gratification). Why? Because I’ll take build up and anticipation over instant gratification any day (unless it involves wine on a Friday night, but that’s another story).

Apologies in advance for stating the obvious, but once you’ve had something pleasurable, whether it be a holiday, birthday party or a cream cake, it’s over – the exception being, of course, if you’re lucky enough to be able to have it over and over again (though surely then you run the risk of being desensitised to the pleasurable outcomes in the long run anyway?) However, if you have to wait for that pleasurable thing, whatever it may be, then when it finally comes around it will not only be all the sweeter, you will also have enjoyed the anticipation of its arrival. Hence the overall experience will have been more gratifying. Or at least I think that’s the theory behind the marshmallow experiment (don’t quote me on that, there’s a reason I never made it beyond undergraduate level in Psychology).

How about this for an example: Most women will know the heady feeling of excitement that accompanies an impulse shopping spree, yet they will also be familiar with the speed with which that excitement wanes and the items become consigned to the back of the wardrobe, ready to be replaced when the next moment of impulse comes around. If they have had to save up for one premium item over the course of several weeks or months, however, the feeling of anticipation will have built up so much that when they do finally have the item in their hands they will cherish and love it for far longer.

Over the years I’ve been known to fall victim to the occasional impulse shopping spree, but by and large my ‘thing’ is not material items such as clothes but rather experiences – because at the end of my life it’s not the clothes I’ll be looking back and reminiscing on. Planning holidays is the perfect example of delayed gratification. From their conception to the moment they eventually come into being they create a buzz of delicious excitement and anticipation. I like booking mini breaks far in advance (not least because it’s so much cheaper, especially if you’re going abroad and need to book flights) and spending the weeks leading up to them daydreaming, imagining walks by beautiful rivers and lazy dinners in the early evening beneath the setting of the sun.

Then, once they’re over you can start the process all over again – it beats buying a new skirt from Hennes any day of the week, at least in my opinion! Now where did I put those marshmallows…