…Terry and I got married:
(Yes, that’s the same Forth Rail Bridge we visited this weekend. What can I say, clearly we have a thing about bridges…)
As with my birthday, and other anniversaries, the evidence of the passing of time always freaks me out a little. The wedding was such a great day, and I seriously can’t believe it’s been two years already. How time flies. And never again will I walk through the streets of South Queensferry dressed like a Princess…
Well, I mean, I probably won’t. You never really know with me, though, do you?
(Yes, those are Terry’s shoes in his hands. Handy hint there for anyone thinking of getting married: BREAK IN YOUR SHOES BEFORE THE WEDDING. I certainly did.)
Today Terry will be celebrating by visiting the hospital, where he’ll have blood taken as part of his regularly scheduled “Let’s make sure the kidney is still working” tests. That’s just to stop us getting too smug/complacent, you know? After that, we’ll be going here for dinner, and will raise a glass to the past two happy years, and cross our fingers that there’ll be many more to come. Naturally, I have a new dress to wear for the occasion. This time, though, it’s definitely not by Vera Wang…
Tagged anniversary, kidney transplant, Wedding
After my fun walk through Bandit Country, Terry and I decided it would be better if, for my next trick walk, we went somewhere far, far away from the Banditos. Or far enough away that I’d find it harder to get into trouble, anyway.
So we went to South Queensferry:
 Forth Rail Bridge Rubin was determined not to look at the camera here because he was too busy crying like a baby, so desperate was he to begin his walk.
He was crying like a baby in this one, too:
That’s the Edinburgh skyline you can see in the background: the big hill is Arthur’s Seat, and you can see Edinburgh Castle to the right of it if you look closely enough. We didn’t, of course, because Rubin was too busy struggling to get out of my arms and down onto that beach. Once he did, though, he was totally in his element:
Well, sort of:
Incoming waves are scary, apparently…
We walked for about two and a half hours altogether (and Rubin was still tugging at his leash by the end of it), ending up at Dalmeny House:
 Dalmeny House You can totally imagine arriving here in a horse-drawn carriage, in the 19th century, can’t you? You, a poor governess with nothing to your name but the clothes you stand up in, the house rising before you, home to the dashing Earl of Blahblahblah, and his mad wife, who is locked in the attic…. (It’s actually the home of the Earl of Rosebery, and I don’t think he keeps his wife in the attic, but you know what I mean…)
Then we turned and came home, only it took us quite a long time because we’d walked so far. Still, it was worth it to be able to walk somewhere without being verbally abused for once, you know? And I think Spring may well be my favourite season now. If we lived somewhere else I’d have said it was summer, but the weather’s always so awful here in summer that it never fails to be a bone-crushing disappointment. You wait all year for it, only to realise that it’s going to be all rain, all the time, and actually, the weather was nicer in Spring. We DO sometimes get a sunny day or two in Spring, you see, and it’s that time of the year when the horrors of winter are over at last (oh please, oh please) but summer is yet to disappoint us, so the days stretch before you, all sunshiney and hopeful. Love it.
So, a good day was had by all. And no one called me “ginger” even once – bonus!
Tagged beach, coast, scotland, Walks & Days Out
I’ve mentioned here before that while the street Terry and I live in is as pleasant and suburban as it gets, some of the areas around us… aren’t. Well, they don’t call our part of town “Bandit Country” for nothing, put it that way.
 Where we're livin' Just yesterday, for instance, I met a group of the local Bandits while I was out walking Rubin. The Bandits in question were mostly in their late teens/early twenties, and they were sitting in a little huddle outside the Ghetto Superstore, drinking. You’d think it would be too much of a cliché for me to say they were drinking Buckfast, wouldn’t you?
People, they were drinking Buckfast.
You’d also think it was too much of a cliché for me to say they had a pit bull terrier with them, no?
*Deep sigh*
As soon as the pit bull laid eyes on Rubin, of course, it went crazy. In fact, before I knew what had happened, it was over beside us “worrying” at Rubin. Now, I should say here that it wasn’t barking or growling, or anything like that. For all I know, this might’ve been the friendliest pit bull in all the land, but I didn’t really want to take the chance on that, and because Rubin likes to think he’s a wolf (he completely ignores small dogs, but will often bark ferociously at larger ones, because… well, because he was born without a brain, obviously), I was frightened enough by the dog’s attentions that when it still hadn’t left us alone a few minutes later, I snatched Rubin into my arms and… ran off like a girl.
Only at this point did the Youth of Today dispatch a Junior Bandito (about 8 years old, I’d say) to call off the hound.
So, that’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with.
Because I never learn, though, I decided to take Rubin on the exact same walk today. In my defence, it’s pretty much the only place I CAN walk him without having to get in the car and drive somewhere, and I rarely have time for that, so Bandit Country it is. I was about ten minutes into the walk, Rubin almost hysterical with joy by my side, when I became aware of the sound of a bicycle, directly behind me.
I was on a footpath at this point, and there were no actual roads nearby, but people often cycle on the footpaths round here, so I thought nothing of this, and moved to the side of the (wide) footpath to let it pass.
The bike moved with me.
I moved even closer to the side, until my arm was brushing the branches of the trees which grow along the pathway.
The bike moved too.
At this point it struck me that this bicycle was moving very, very slowly, given that it was able to stay behind me, at my slow walking pace. It could also have passed me at any time: the path is a wide one, and I hadn’t exactly been filling it up even before I moved.
Clearly, then, it was following me. Great.
I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, there he was: another Junior Bandito (not the Pitt Bull handler, this time), grinning unpleasantly as the front tyre of his bike almost brushed my heels. I’m no good at estimating people’s ages, but I’d say he was probably 10 or 11. Young, but old enough to know better than to harass people in the street, I’d say.
I decided the best thing to do here would be to ignore him, so I looked away and continued walking.
“HEY! UGLY!” the bandit called.
At this point all I can say is that something snapped in my head. Because, honestly, I’ve HAD IT with people thinking it’s perfectly OK to insult and harass each other. ENOUGH.
So I stopped dead in my tracks (he almost ran into me) and turned round to face him.
“Did you say something? ” I asked pleasantly.
Well, the bandit almost fell off his bike. The look that crossed his face was almost comical as his brain struggled to register the fact that the worm had apparently turned.
“No,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “I didn’t say a thing.”
“That’s strange,” I said, still calm. “I’m sure I heard you say something to me. What was it?”
The kid quaked. He clearly had no idea how to deal with this, so he decided to go with denial. Nope, he’d said nothing, not him. Why, he was just riding along on his bike, minding his own business!
“Well, there’s no one else here,” I said, “So I’m pretty sure it was you. What did you say?”
“I just said hello,” blurted the bandit. “That was it.”
“Really?” I said, puzzled. “That’s funny: you just told me you didn’t say anything. So now you’re telling me you DID say something: is that right?”
Silence. Pinned into a corner by his lies (I should totally be a crime writer, right?), the bandit had no choice but to get on his hoss bike and get out of town. Unfortunately for me, he managed to do the first bit OK, but, once on his bike (he’d jumped off for our “chat”) he decided to go back to following me, albeit at a slightly further distance this time.
“GINGER!” he shouted this time.
So I turned round and karate chopped him. No, OK, I didn’t. But I did turn round, and, once again, the kid almost fell off his bike in fright. You’d think he’d have learned the first time, no?
“Ah, so you DO have something to say to me!” I beamed. “I thought so! But I didn’t quite hear you. Tell you what, why don’t you come and say it to my face, rather than waiting until my back’s turned? That would be the brave thing to do, don’t you think?”
No, I have no idea why I was talking like this to a child. I mean, clearly it wasn’t exactly my finest hour, and equally clearly, I wouldn’t have been nearly so brave had he been just a little bit older. Of if he’d had The Friendliest Pit Bull in All The Land with him. But, like I said, I’m absolutely sick of not being able to walk my dog close to my own home without being taunted and harassed by idiot kids. This has happened several times now, the worst time being when I was held at branch-point in the woods, and had to phone the police. And although this was a young ‘un, I still think he was old enough to learn that following strange women in the street and calling them names is not a pleasant thing to do. And that sometimes, when you choose to do this, you just might get yourself in trouble.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the words themselves that bother me. I am not so insecure that a child calling me “ugly” will make me feel I actually AM ugly (Sorry, blog commenters who say more or less the same thing!), and the “ginger” thing is just stupid. It’s the fact that people today apparently think it’s OK to taunt strangers in the street IN ANY WAY that makes my blood boil. To follow people, and call them names, and to then try to deny it is stupid and cowardly in the extreme, and I don’t care if you’re eleven or eleventy-one: if you behave like that towards someone, you should expect to get called on it.
I know lots of people would give the old, “Ah, but they’re only kids!” argument, here, but that one won’t wash with me, sorry. If they’re old enough to be out in public unsupervised, then they’re old enough to be taught that it’s not nice to follow people and be rude to them. If your kid ISN’T old enough to understand that message, then you keep him under supervision until he is: simple. Quite apart from anything else, it’s pretty damn dangerous for kids to do this kind of thing, because while the worst thing I’d ever do would be to tell them off, if they pick on someone a little more aggressive, they could end up in some serious trouble.
So I told the bandito all of this. At length. And … he turned and ran away. “Leave me alone!” he sobbed, jumping off his bike a few metres down the path.
“I don’t really see why I should,” I said, reasonably. “I mean, you haven’t been leaving ME alone, have you? You’ve been following me and calling me names, so maybe I’ll just follow YOU now, and call you some names, how would you like that?”
He wouldn’t, was the answer. And he agreed to stop following me if I just stopped talking. So I did. And you know, that little Bandit was as good as his word. I like to think he will grow up to be a better Bandit now: a Bandit with a basic understanding of how to behave in public, and why it’s Not Nice to follow people and shout names at them. And thus, a new era of peace will be forged between the Banditos and the ordinary people of Bandit Country, all thanks to me.
Actually, I know I’ll just be lucky if my windows don’t get broken next time I’m out. Such is life.
(ETA : not that it particularly matters, but in the interests of accuracy, this all actually happened on Saturday -I wrote the post then, but then totally forgot to publish it. Ooops.)
Tagged Gingerism, I See Stupid People, red hair, redheads, the ghetto
So, you know the recession? The big, scary one that’s been keeping us all awake at night as we wonder what the future holds, and just how we’re going to pay for all those dresses we keep buying if it all goes badly wrong? THAT recession?
That would be the perfect time to decide to give up your last remaining freelance writing job and strike out on your own instead, wouldn’t it?
Oh. Good. Just checking.
Today I wrote my last ever post for Shoewawa, which, as some of you know, I’ve been editing for Shiny Media for almost two years now, and writing for it for even longer. (The post itself won’t go up until Tuesday, which is the end of the month, but like the Boy Scouts, I like to Be Prepared, so I wrote it today…) Shiny, as I said above, was my last remaining freelance client. When I first launched The Fashion Police, in 2006, I was still writing for lots of different people. As the site grew, though, and we added Hey-Dollface, I gradually got rid of them one by one (“got rid of” in the sense of stopping writing for them, I mean. There aren’t ex-clients buried under my patio or anything. Well, not many of them…) until Shoewawa was the last one standing.
It’s always been a bit of a balancing act. To start with, obviously, I needed the freelance work to pay the bills, but as my own sites have grown, I’ve been more and more aware that if I want them to continue to grow, I would need to dedicate much more time to them, and that’s time I just haven’t had because it’s all been spent on the freelance stuff. Catch-22.
Now, though, I’ve decided that the time has come to jump off the ledge, basically, and go it alone. It wasn’t an easy decision to make: I mean, I’ve been being paid to write about SHOES, for God’s sake, and if there are jobs out there that are better than that, well, I don’t know what they are. I’ve also met some abssolutely amazing people through Shoewawa (Gemma, Erin, Fi and Emma, to name but four), and,well, it’s going to be a bit of a wrench to leave it after all this time.
BUT.
I’m also really excited. You see, I never, ever wanted to have a “job”. I’m at my happiest when I can be my own boss, answer to no one but myself, and just generally make things up as I go along. Now, after an entire lifetime of working for other people, I’m going to be able to do that, and it honestly feels fantastic. I have lots of things planned: all of the sites in the Midas Media network will be moving to WordPress and getting a bit of a face lift, there’ll be various different features being added, and maybe even a new shoe-based project too, because clearly it would be too much to ask to expect me to stop obsessing about shoes. Oh hell, no.
I will probably be panicking quite a lot, too. It’s only fair to warn you about that.
In the meantime, though, I’m going to mark the end of my time at Shoewawa in the most fitting way I can think of: by buying shoes…
Tagged Pro-Blogging, shoewawa, work
As well as jelly sweets, one of my other favourite food groups is the Crispy Cake: you know, just like your mother used to make?
And, lo! The Crispy Surprise turned out to be:
Three crispy cakes, all covered in chocolate and made with Terry’s own fair hands!
Mmmm, ambassador, with these crispy treats you’re really spoiling us!
Tagged birthday, surprises, Terry
On Sunday night Terry offered to run me a bath. Well, of course I agreed, but little did I know that Terry was about to spring the WAX SURPRISE – duh duh DUH!
Because I am stupid, it took me a few minutes (and, OK, then a few more…) to work out that the “wax” of the name came from the candles he had lit in the bathroom. But really, who cares about candles when there’s a big ol’ gift-wrapped box sitting right in front of them?
Underneath the wrapping, Lush’s ‘You’re a Star’ gift box:
So-called because it contains products used by the “stars”, apparently. And now by me too, yipee!
Inside the bath, though, an even more exciting surprise awaited:
DUCKS! Because, seriously, who doesn’t love ducks?
Tagged birthday, lush, surprises, Terry
I was going to call this one “Post That Isn’t About Surprises Surprise!” but I figured that may mislead people into thinking it’s going to be more interesting than it actually is, so I’m just going to be upfront and admit that, yes, it’s The Friday Five.
Now, I haven’t done a Friday Five post for ages now, mostly because the questions always tend to revolve around stuff that’s of no interest to me whatsoever. This one, however, was on the theme of “things you’d take to a desert island”, and because I actually spend more time than is really healthy thinking about things I’d take to a desert island, I decided to do it. And you, of course, should feel free to do it too, either in your own blog, or in the comments! So,…
It’s the “stranded on a desert island” question! You can only take one thing from each category. What is it and why are you taking it?
- A food that can be planted and regrown.
Oh God, it’s a question about food. I’ve said before, I’m no foodie, and the idea of planting and growing ANYTHING is really quite alien to me (this is why there’s currently a giant dead plant in a pot in our garden, and also why I regularly fantasize about living in the city and not having a garden) so I don’t really know. Will I have to plant the food myself? Will there be, like, ovens and things on the desert island? If there will, I will take potatoes and have them baked, or turned into crisps. (Not by me, natch. By the friendly island natives who will be keen to do this for me because they have never seen a woman with such pale blue skin before, and so they instantly assume I am some kind of God and are eager to serve me. With baked potatoes.)
If there are no ovens, I guess I’ll take… um… strawberries? To have with champagne? DESERT ISLAND FAIL.
2. A person you haven’t seen in a long time.
My best friend, Stephanie. As well as being on the same wavelength at me, she is also good at cooking and knows how to put duvets inside their bags. Which will come in handy on the island.
3. A book you (were) read as a child.
Well that’s easy: Five on a Treasure Island. It will inspire me to search for secret passages and capture smugglers.
4. A celebrity.
So, obviously if I say “Sawyer from Lost” it will annoy Terry, so I think I’ll take Vivienne Westwood and get her to run me up some clothes out of palm leaves or something. Which I will use to bribe the natives to bring me some baked potatoes, and maybe also jelly sweets.
5. The entire episode run of a television show (it’s a very nice desert island).
Well, Friday Five, I’m so glad to hear that, because if there are TVs there are surely also ovens, so my whole “potato” thing in question one seems less stupid. Only a bit, mind you. Um, a TV show. I think I’d have to go for ‘Lost’. Sure, it’ll make me just a little bit paranoid about the whole “being stranded on an island” thing, but I may pick up some handy tips from it, and failing that, at least I’ll have time to try and understand it…
OK, your turn!
Tagged friday five
Well, would you look at that: looks like I DIDN’T find anything other than my birthday surprises to write about this week after all! Let’s just pretend I did, OK? I won’t tell if you don’t…
Anyway, as I mentioned last week, I was a little apprehensive about what “Rubin’s Surprise” was going to turn out to be because… well, he likes to pee recently. Mostly in places he shouldn’t, and by “places he shouldn’t” I mean “on the radiator in the office”. When I turned around from my busy, important work today, though, and saw this:
I relaxed a little. I mean, I don’t think even Rubin would gift-wrap pee, although you never really know with him. As you can see, though, he’d gone to a not inconsiderable amount of effort here:
So I decided to risk unwrapping it, and here’s what I found:
Aww, books about doggies! He must have had to save up his pocket money for ages to buy those! And now I need to go and finish my work so I can read them…
Tagged birthday, rubin, surprises, Terry
One day soon, I will write a post here that ISN’T about the surprises Terry gave me for my birthday. Maybe tomorrow, in fact. Or, you know, maybe not, because I’m actually quite enjoying writing posts that don’t require me to engage my brain for more than a few seconds at a time (“What?” I hear you say. “You’ve written posts where you DID engage your brain? Show me them!”), so, meh, we’ll see.
Anyway, just to prove that not all of my birthday surprises involved food, on Sunday afternoon I called in the “H&M Surprise”, which basically involved a shopping trip in which I was allowed to choose two things to buy. Clearly there was a limit to this, which is why this post isn’t called, “HOLY CRAP I GOT TWO PAIRS OF LOUBOUTINS, WHOO HOO!”, but I have to say, it was still a whole lot of fun.
And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I bought a black dress or some shoes, aren’t you? Well, you are wrong! For once I decided to go against my usual dress-and-shoe-buying-instincts and buy something else. This was mostly prompted by the fact that pretty much ALL I can think about at the moment is summer, and holidays, and weather which can be described without use of the phrases “aaargh!” or “shoot me now, please.” So I got a pair of shorts and a sweater:
And I was totally lying about the “not buying shoes” thing, because on the way back to the car, I spotted these little canvas flats:
“Buy us!” they seemed to cry. “For we, too, will be the perfect addition to your summer holiday wardrobe! Also, we are cheap as chips!”
So, naturally, I bought them. I bought them myself, though, so they’re not part of the surprises, and really have no place in this entry. Sorry.
(P.S. Terry says thank you very much for all your lovely comments about his surprises, and you’re welcome to use the idea in any way you wish! I, meanwhile, say, “No, you can’t have him!”)
Tagged birthfay, clothes, Outfits, shoes, surprises, Terry, Things I Bought
Social media is great. Seriously, isn’t social media great? It lets you connect with people you might not otherwise have interacted with, it gives you access to new and sometimes fascinating pieces of information, it provides a bit of light relief, and, yes, it can be a great tool for marketing and PR.
It’s that last point I have the problem with.
Or, actually, that’s not quite right. I don’t have a problem with sites like Facebook and Twitter being used as a PR/marketing took per se. I can see how those sites could be useful to people in those occupations, and actually, I don’t really mind people using them to pitch me the occasional story idea. Well, I don’t mind too much, anyway. Personally, I tend to use Facebook and Twitter for the third reason listed above – a little bit of light relief during the working day – but I know not everyone uses them that way, so it’s not a huge deal if PRs want to use those channels to contact me about something.
What I do have a problem with, however, is a certain breed of PR I’ve come to think of as the Social Media Stalker. I encountered one today, as a matter of fact. In the course of just a couple of hours, this person:
- Emailed me a press release
- Sent me a friends request on Facebook
- Sent me a message on Facebook
- Started following me on Twitter
- Sent me a direct message on Twitter
- Left a comment on one of my blogs
- Emailed me the same press release again
Now, taken in isolation, none of these activities is a problem. As I’ve said, I have no problem with PRs contacting me, and as long as they’re polite about it and the thing they’re promoting is relevant to one of the sites I write for, I don’t really care which communication channel they choose to do it. My preference would be email, but I’m not going to get upset if someone chooses to use Twitter instead.
The kind of behaviour described above, though? That’s not communication, that’s bordering on stalking. And OK, when I say “stalking”, I mean it in a harmless “on the internet” kind of way, rather than a “standing outside my house, taking photos of me” kind of way, but all the same, when I get seven emails or notifications from the same person, in the same two hour period, about the same thing, I am going to feel just a little bit harassed by that person.
And – here’s the important bit – it’s not going to make me any more likely to write about the thing they’re trying to pitch to me. In fact, if it gets reallyannoying, it could just have the opposite effect.
This wasn’t a one-off, either. It’s becoming increasingly common for people to use multiple communication methods to try and pitch me stuff, and it’s totally unnecessary. Sure, follow me om Twitter, friend me on Facebook, join every other social network you can find me on, but when you decide to send me a press release choose one method of communication and one only.
Otherwise, sorry, but I’m just going to think you’re a social media stalker…
|
|
|
