I WAS actually joking when I mentioned “Formspring Friday” last week, but I’ve started to get a few repeat questions over there, which made me realise that some people might not realise I was answering some of the questions on the Formspring website, rather than here. So I’m giving this whole “posting on a Friday” thing one last go. If you have something you want to ask, the box is on the right, or feel free to post a comment!
If you could buy a how to guide for anything, what would it be? by azkadelliamj
I’d buy a guide on how to stop losing things all the time – it would revolutionise my life!
Amber,I have two questions.One why is it that you’re majorly pretty and a fab dresser and people complain about your red headedness?And two where the frigg did Terry learn to photoshop so well?
Haha, thanks for the compliment
On the first one, I’ve no idea why people bash redheads: I think it’s just a combination of stupidity, plus the need to try and hurt other people in order to feel better about themselves. Pretty sad, really, but says a lot about them and nothing at all about me.
Terry is a web designer by trade, so his Photoshop skills are a result of that.
Tell us about your best friend.
My best friends are really Terry and my parents, which is a boring answer, I know, but a true one!
As far as friends who aren’t related to me by blood or marriage go, my best friend is someone I met on my first day of university, and have been friends with ever since. We share the same kind of sense of humour, taste in shoes and other important things like that
Unfortunately for me, she lives in the south of England, so I don’t get to see her very often, which is hard, especially now that she has a gorgeous little boy who I’d love to see more of!
do you know jane from sea of shoes?what can you say about her taste in shoes?
I don’t know her personally, no, but I’ve seen her blog. She has some amazing shoes, as far as I’ve seen – I love her “shoe wall!”
What were the last 5 movies you watched?
Avatar
My Life in Ruins
Mean Girls
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Lovely Bones
Which of your blogs is your favourite? And which would you give up if you absolutely had to? xx
I don’t really have a favourite, but I guess my personal blog (foreveramber.co.uk) means most to me because it’s basically a personal journal, while the others are business concerns, and are much more impersonal because of that.
If I had to give up one, I would give up whichever of the business blogs was least profitable/successful at the time. At the moment that would be my writing blog, which I just don’t have the time to update, despite the best of intentions – there just aren’t enough hours in the day!
If you ever leave Scotland, Will you come to America? Pretty please?
I would love to, but the American government won’t let me in! We’ve looked into it really carefully, and it’s horrendously difficult to immigrate to the US from the UK, so unless we suddenly become very rich, we wouldn’t qualify for a Green Card under the current rules – boo!
Do you see yourself living in Scotland for ever?
I really hope not! We can’t afford to move at the moment, unfortunately, but I would love to be able to move away at some point – it’s never been my plan to live here forever!
Do people recognise you in the street? Like a blog celebrity?
Haha, I certainly hope not, given that I sometimes go out of the house wearing two different boots!
No, I’ve never been recognised from my blog (to my knowledge)- it’s not well-enough known for that to happen, and I don’t think I have many readers in my town, other than my friends and family. So I fly below the radar
How often do you get your hair cut/ trimmed?
When it gets to the stage where I can’t stand it any longer! I know you’re supposed to have it cut every six weeks, but I really hate going to the hairdressers, so it’s probably more like every 2-3 months.
Do you ever feel that your business is more difficult not living in London?
Other than “I am not a shop”, the phrase I use most often on a day-to-day basis is “I do not live in London”.
OK, actually it’s not: the phrase I use MOST often is, “Rubin, get out of the bathroom and stop licking the toilet seat!” But “I do not live in London,” is definitely in high rotation, and that’s because every week I get dozens of invitations to events in London, all sent by well-meaning people (most of whom work in public relations) who are absolutely astonished to learn that I don’t actually live in The City That Is the Centre of the World.
I’ve never really understood this. Sure, if I was running a magazine, say, I could understand the assumption that I must be based in London: most of the traditional media in this country IS based in London, after all. The whole point of blogging, though, is that it’s completely democratic: pretty much anyone, anywhere, can set up a blog, even those of us living ”all the way up there in Scotland!” Does a non-London location make it harder to make a living out of blogging, though? Hmmm.
I think there are two ways of looking at this one. Personally, no, I don’t find that my location makes it more difficult to run my blogging business. What I don’t know is how much easier it would be if I WAS based in London. Undoubtedly, it would make a difference: I’d be able to accept all of those invitations, for one thing, which would possibly open the door to opportunities I just don’t know about right now. I’d be able to “network”. To “make connections” with people who could perhaps help my business in a variety of different ways. I’d be able to attend all of the press days and launches and fashion shows and oh, all kinds of other things. Here’s the thing, though:
I don’t want to.
It’s nothing personal, London. You’re a fascinating city, and I love to visit you from time to time. But the whole “attending events/networking/making important business connections” thing? It’s not for me. I know that will seem really strange to a lot of people, but the truth is, I’m a bit of a homebody at heart. I’m neither a mover nor a shaker, and the phrase “working the room” is enough to send chills down my spine. I’m shy. I’m a bit socially inept. I don’t enjoy making smalltalk with strangers, being schmoozed by PRs or answering the question, “So, what do you do?” over and over again. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these things: they’re just not for me, and when I set up this business, I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a super-busy career woman, because I had long-since realised the error of that particular “ambition”. I did it so that I could hopefully make a reasonably good living doing something I enjoyed. Turns out that what I enjoy most is just writing, and being free to do that all day, without all of the associated other things that would be expected of me if I didn’t have my handy, “Whoops, I’d love to come to your [insert event here], but I can’t because I don’t live in London,” excuse at the ready.
Yeah, I’m pretty anti-social.
I’m not totally convinced that living somewhere else would make that much of a difference anyway, though. Sometimes, for instance, I think that being a bit of an outsider (which is what inevitably happens when you’re based a few hundred miles away from most of the rest of your industry) isn’t necessarily a bad thing for my blogs. It gives me a certain degree of freedom in terms of what I write, and how I write it, and I like that. I also like the lifestyle it allows me to have: I’ve spent a lot of time working in stressful jobs which made me utterly miserable, and now I really value the slower pace of life I get from not being right at the very centre of things all the time. The only people who have expectations of me are my readers, and that’s no bad thing.
I wouldn’t change things, is what I think I’m trying to say here, although I WOULD change my location if I could. Just not to London…
P.S. If you want to ask a question, either leave it in the comments, type it into the box in the sidebar, or visit Formspring here.
For the last year or two (or seven), I’ve desperately wanted to move house. The problem with that, though… well, actually, there are LOTS of problems with that, but the main one is that we just can’t afford it right now, so, in a bid to make the best of the house we have, way back in December we made a list of improvements we’d like to make, things that need to be replaced, etc.
And then we ignored all of them*, and went out and bought a bright red chair which we then spent the best part of the evening trying to cram into our tiny living room. Along with the new rug that also wasn’t on the list. Or rather, Terry tried to cram them into the room. I just… supervised.
Here is a quick glimpse of our rock n’ roll lifestyle. Or, as I think if it, “The Sims Come to Life”.
* OK, not quite ALL of them: Terry DID replace the bathroom foor on Friday. Yes, AGAIN. Take it from me, kids, never use white floor tiles in your bathroom. Or, indeed, anywhere else you might actually want to STAND.
I had two questions on Formspring about how Terry and I met, so I decided to answer those first :
How did you and Terry meet and fall in love?
How did you and your husband meet? You seem like a perfect couple – Do you ever argue?! Haha.
You know, I’d love to be able to answer this with some romantic, tear-jerker of a story. Probably one involving a chance encounter, a railway station platform, and me wearing a kicky little hat. Because every time I entertain this fantasy, it’s always the 1940s for some reason. Moving on…
The reality, as always, is much more prosaic than that, and like most people we know, Terry and I met at work. When I say “like most people we know”, I mean that literally, by the way: most of the people Terry and I know met their partners in exactly the same place I met Terry. Which was a call centre. No one’s ever going to want to make a movie out of this, are they?
So, the call centre - or the “Phone Farm” as I always used to think of it. Terry and I both worked the weekend shift there, in order to help pay our respective ways through university. And then when we left university, we stayed on, to pay our way through the Benefit counter, and the shoe department at House of Fraser. (Can you guess which one of us I’m referring to here? Yes, Terry really needs to ease up on that cosmetics habit of his!)
I started work at the Phone Farm first, and by the time Terry joined the company, I had already worked my way up to the giddy heights of “Personal Trainer”, which meant that I was responsible for moulding the minds of the constant influx of new recruits (Which could be anything from 10 – 40 people per week at busy periods. It was – and is – a huge organisation.). That’s why, to this day, the Phone Farm has a large number of staff who believe whistling is banned AT ALL TIMES, and who would not, under any circumstances, use the phrase “just sayin’”.
Although I was to come to hate and detest the Phone Farm more than I would ever have believed possible, at that time, I had yet to realise that the job was slowly SUCKING THE SOUL RIGHT OUT OF MY BODY, and was weirdly ambitious about it. I was a Personal Trainer now, but by God, one day I might become an ‘Experienced Operator’ (snigger) or even a Team Leader! (I did, in fact, become a Team Leader, but by that point I had lost all hope and accepted the job only because it came with internet access, which the rest of the staff were forbidden, on pain of death.) I also had this weird idea that when I finally graduated, I would probably become a high-flying business woman of some kind, and that the Phone Farm would provide a good grounding for this. I have absolutely no idea WHY I thought this, because there is nothing I would hate more than being a high-flying business woman, but I kept getting this metal image of myself, wearing a snappy little business suit and talking excitedly into a cellphone, while striding out of my office on the top floor of a New York skyscraper. I was an absolute idiot, I really was.
Anyway! I was young and I was stupid, and I was ALL ABOUT being a personal trainer, and upholding the laws of the Phone Farm. And then, one day, Terry arrived. “Of all the call centres, in all the world, you hadta walk into this one,” I said, with a drawl. (No, you’re right, I didn’t. I totally made that up. Sorry.) It would be great if I could say here that the moment our eyes met across a crowded call centre, I collapsed into a swoon and knew he was The One. But I didn’t. Actually? It was dislike at (almost) first sight. For both of us, I’m sure.
I still remember my first ever conversation with Terry. He called me over from my important job of pacing up and down in high heels and “supervising” the other new recruits, (The high heels weren’t a requirement of the job, by the way. That was just a requirement I placed upon myself.) and asked me if he could phone his friend, who worked in another department of the Phone Farm.
“WHAT?” I said, amazed at the sheer cheek of the man. “You’re not allowed PERSONAL CALLS! You don’t get to phone a friend! What do you think this is, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”
(OK, OK, I didn’t say that last bit either. I just thought of it later. Much later, that is: I mean, I don’t think WWTBAM was even ON back then. This would’ve been a much more interesting post if I HAD been quick with the smart comebacks, though.)
At that, Terry calmly picked up the phone and called his friend. And I marched over to my boss and told her I couldn’t possibly work with That Guy, because That Guy wouldn’t listen to a word I said, had totally failed to recognise my supreme authority as Personal-Trainer-Who-Would-One-Day-Have-a-Glass-Topped-Table-in-Her-New-York-Office, and OMG, wasn’t That Guy SO ANNOYING? And my boss laughed and said to give him a chance, maybe he wouldn’t turn out to be so bad. She’s like the old, wise woman in this tale, who’s constantly saying weirdly prophetic things, except she wasn’t actually old, and I think that was the only prophetic thing she ever said to me. Well, that and “Amber, I think you’re just about to spill that coffee down your…oh.”
So, after those Wise Words, you’re probably expecting me to say I came into work the next day, and Terry was bathed in a halo of golden light, and that was when I knew he was The One. Or even that we became good friends, and it was totally like When Harry Met Sally, but without the bit in the restaurant. But no. It took several more years for Terry and I to even be able to be in the same room as each other without bickering, and although we worked in the same department for some of those years, we didn’t really talk much. Or, you know, at all. Sometimes to this day I will look over at him and think, “Wow, I can’t believe I actually married That Guy! How trippy is that?”
In fact, Terry and I probably wouldn’t have gotten together at all if it hadn’t been for the Phone Farm’s policy of always seating people next to someone they hated. I’m not joking about this: they would change the seating plan every few weeks, to make sure you didn’t get too friendly with the person sitting next to you, because that would mean you might actually start ENJOYING work, and can you imagine the anarchy that would break out if people were having FUN? By this point, Terry and I were both “managers”. It was a small department, but we had still avoided ever becoming friends, so naturally the people in charge decided to make us sit next to each other. And THAT was their big mistake! Because Terry and I got together just to spite them, mwahaha!
Well, no, we didn’t. We did start to talk, though, and then we started to talk some more, and eventually we talked so much that we were all, “Hey, why don’t we swap email addresses? Just so we can make sure both of our email addresses are working properly?” Then we started emailing. Then we emailed some more. During the week, I was working in my first job as a journalist, and every morning I would come in to work and find a sweet little email from Terry waiting for me: often with funny illustrations, which he would draw in MS Paint. (Look, he was a student, he couldn’t afford Photoshop!) This is how he won me over: it was all because of the MS Paint.
The rest, as they say, is history. And it’s a chapter of history that involves a work night out, too many vodka shots, and Shania Twain singing You’re Still the One. I think that chapter is probably best left unwritten.
So, in common with pretty much everyone else on Twitter, I joined Formspring, which is a site where people ask each other questions and, er, answer them.
I was actually a bit wary about this. I tried something similar a while back, and a lot of the questions were a bit… well, it was like people thought I was standing trial or something, and they were the hard-bitten lawyers for the prosecution. So I dropped the whole question thing, and forgot all about it. But then everyone started joining Formspring, and if there’s a bandwagon in town, I like to be on it (albeit I’m usually the last aboard, and the bandwagon is pulling out of the station with me running after it like a lunatic), so I joined.
And then I sat and worried that this was going to turn out to be A Mistake, and that the anonymous nature of the thing would mean I’d just get the usual bunch of “Y r u so ugly?” and “How much r the combustion engines u r selling in ur shop?” and “Do u no u suck lol lol lol!” stuff masquerading as “questions”. But so far, so good, and because there are only so many posts I can write about the Mouse Man and how much the people at the gym annoy me (Seriously, people, PERSONAL SPACE. Get some.), I’m going to be using some of them as blog fodder over the next few… however long. So if there’s a burning question you’ve always wanted to ask me, now is the time to ask it, and there’s even a handy little box over in the sidebar for you to do it, although feel free to post your question in the comments box here if you prefer. It can be, like, Formspring Friday or something. OK, maybe not.
(Just nothing creepily personal, or rude, please. And no maths questions. And remember: I! AM! NOT! A! SHOP!)
Oh, here are the first set of questions and answers:
I know the image above is actually pretty hilarious given that I recently went out in public wearing two different boots, but allow me to bask for a moment in the reflected glory of The Fashion Police, which has just been named the winner of the fashion category in The Appletiser Blog Awards! Let’s just hope they never read Forever Amber, eh?
This is the second award the site has won, and both were the result of a public vote, which is particularly flattering, so if you were one of the people who voted for it, thank you: you helped make my day, week and month!
Hey, remember that time the low battery warning on our carbon monoxide detector started frantically PEEPING in the middle of the night, and we couldn’t work out whether it was the friendly “Hey-diddly-ho, neighbour, my batteries are staring to run low, might want to think about replacing them soon!” warning, or the more ominous “OMFG, you are all going to die!” warning, so Terry just removed the batteries altogether and went back to sleep, while I lay awake all night waiting for death to come and claim me? And then I started writing really long, run-on sentences about carbon monoxide detectors all the time, and life was never the same again?
Well, it happened again.
At 3am.
* heavy sigh *
Once again we awoke to the frantic PEEP! of the alarm. Once again we went through the whole “Are we going to die? Is that the low battery warning? Where are the spare batteries? Did you use up all the spare batteries in your camera again, and forget to recharge them? Should we open a window? Hey, what time is it, anyway? Are we DEAD? Have you seen my sunglasses?” thing.
At 3am.
And once again, having tried every single battery in the house and been unable to stop the ear-splitting “PEEP! PEEP!” of the carbon monoxide detector, Terry simply removed the batteries altogether, and went back to sleep.
And I lay awake all night wondering if we were going to die.
You know what annoys me most about all of this, though? Other than the fear of certain death, obviously? Well, we’ve had that carbon monoxide detector for as long as we’ve had this house now. We’ve had this house for… longer than I want to think about, actually. And in all that time, the carbon monoxide detector has NEVER run out of batteries during the day-time, when we’d be in our right minds (Well, Terry would be in his right mind, anyway. I haven’t been in my right mind since… I haven’t ever been in my right mind.) and able to deal with it in a calm and measured fashion. NEVER. Not once. It has always, ALWAYS happened in the middle of the freaking night, and I swear I’m not exaggerating. This time.
Also, in all that time, we have NEVER learned to distinguish between the low-battery warning and the “DEATH! DEATH! INCOMING! DEATH!” warning. Never. (By “we”, I obviously mean “I” here, just before Terry gets all over my comments section protesting his innocence.) And that is because those two warnings? Are ONE AND THE SAME. I am sure of it. I HATE that freaking carbon monoxide detector. It’s obvious to me that the thing is just being an ass now. There are some inanimate objects that I love, and will carry in my heart forever. And there are some that are clearly EVIL, and are out to get me, and are probably possessed with the spirit of some old medieval witch, upon whose grave our house now stands, or something like that. Yes, carbon monoxide detector, I AM looking at you. (Radiator in the living room, I’m looking at you too.)
Can you tell I didn’t get much sleep last night? Can you?
A comment I received on Saturday morning from a reader known as “Dillon”:
“I personally hate gingers. the red hair is not pretty, dye your hair please! i live with a ginger and she is the worst person ive ever met. she is mean about everything and never stops complaining. not to mention she smells like tuna. don’t even get me started on the freckle situation. all im saying is that gingers really have no souls, they are heartless little gingers.”
Thanks for stopping by, Dillon! I, too, hate people who are mean! Please don’t ever breed!
I am amazed! And happy! Something I lost… has been found! And so has my faith in humanity, because I seriously thought that if someone found them, they would either keep them or stick them on eBay. But no: some lovely, kind person has found them, and has handed them in, my special, bought-on-honeymoon sunglasses, which I will never, ever let out of my sight again once I get them back tomorrow!
I have to thank Terry for this development. Having called the mall and established that they hadn’t been handed in to the lost and found there, Terry felt it would perhaps be worth calling each of the stores I’d visited last weekend to ask if, by any chance they’d been handed in directly to them. My mum also suggested this, and even volunteered to do the calling-around herself.
“Nah,” said I, slipping effortlessly into the character of a sullen teenager who feels the world is OUT TO GET HER. “There’s no point. They are GONE. I will never see those sunglasses again! NEVER! Remember the green dress? And the top? THEY NEVER CAME BACK. Also: I went into exactly one thousand and eighty-two stores, so I’d need to spend the rest of my life calling them all, only to have my hopes dashed over and over and over again, JUST LIKE ALWAYS. Woe! Woe! And again: WOE!”
And then I put on one of my Smiths CDs and sulked in my bedroom for eight hours.
Luckily for me, though, Terry is an actual grown-up, and still HAS his faith in humanity. So this afternoon he started calling round all the stores, and… well, you know the rest.
Thank you Terry. Thank you, kind stranger who handed in my prechus. Thank you, universe. I promise I will try to be more careful in future.
(I will also try and buy that handbag I spotted this afternoon that would be less likely to allow things to fall out of it. Well, it’ll be cheaper than buying replacement sunglasses.)
At least SOMEONE in the house still has his favourite pair of sunglasses. And oh, hey! If you look really closely, you’ll see that I’m actually wearing mine in this photo, too. Gah.
Nope, still haven’t found them, still not over it. Happy Friday, everyone!
