Owls of Fun

It is rather bloody exciting being engaged, I really must admit. For starters, I get to look at websites that sell trinkets and treasures, with a legitimate excuse. I can reward my very best friends for years of service, by requesting that they join me up the aisle and be my super beautiful bridesmaids. I can write a speech – hurrah! I love speech making. Us Willis’s were taught at an early age to embrace public speaking and as a result, Gareth says we’d all make speeches at the dawn of each new day if we could get away with it. (Or if anyone was listening.)

I get to look at wedding dresses. Not in a crazy, oh-my-god she’s looking at dresses, what a saddo, sort of way. Not a pining, then looking away quickly because I’m not getting married, sort of way. No, that’s all changed now. I have a ring on my finger, so chuck over some Vera Wang and a glass of champagne, pronto. My dad gingerly tried to suggest I choose the kind of dress I could wear again. Pa! Does he not know me at all? Unless the second occasion is another wedding, there will be no excuse to ever wear this little white number again.

I can fret about whether or not to change my name. Kim Jones Willis? Kim Willis Jones? Kim Jones? Who is she? Is she as super cool and fun as Kim Willis? Maybe she’s even better.

I can toy with the idea of a prenup. Oh Catherine Zeta Jones, you clever little minx! (Zeta-Jones is guaranteed $2.8 million for every year of marriage, plus a $5 million bonus if Douglas is caught cheating. To equate that to our lives, I reckon I could get £2.80 for every year of marriage, and a £5 bonus if Gareth shaves off his lovely beard. Although, I would be quite keen to protect my asset, Eddie the campervan. I reckon Gareth’s got his eye on it. I might make it a morganatic marriage just to protect Eddie. (*)

I get to look at honeymoon destinations, tossing up between a beach in Fiji and a hike round India is a full time job in itself.

I am Google’s number one searcher. I am searching for thing after thing, whiling away every evening with more fantastical ideas. Fireworks? String quartet? Releasing a white dove? (All a definite no. I’m cheesy but this isn’t a big fat gypsy wedding. Although Gareth does keep pushing for an owl to deliver the rings. He does love his owls.)




Facebook knows I’m engaged. My side bar is filled with wedding related advertising. A little bit creepy if you ask me. Stop reading my messages, Zuckerberg!

My future husband is slightly less interested in the wedding than I. Every time I start telling him my latest idea, he says something clever like: ‘Is that a new top?’ or ‘You look very pretty today,’ in the hope flattery will avert my attention and I’ll stop talking. (Unless we talk about owls. And then we’re not really talking about the wedding, we’re just talking about owls again.)

As I have the artistic eye of a blind lab rat, he ought to be careful. He’s letting me choose stuff. I am in charge, and he jokes the old adage that all he’s going to do is turn up. Well, I can’t say I didn’t warn him. There will be a monstrosity of a dress, there will be clashing colours, there will be too much money spent on things guests don’t even notice. Mwa ha ha. The dormant bride inside of me has been unleashed. Hello Etsy, I’m off to buy more tat.

*I am changing my name. Hell, I want to have the same name as my husband, even if it is Jones. I always thought I’d marry a Slazenger. Maybe a Van De Something. But you can’t choose the surname of the man you fall in love with, unfortunately. As for a prenup? Na. Gareth knows I’ll kick his ass if he ever tries to divorce me and steal my campervan.

Read More

I definitely do.

Gareth and I have been together for about four years now. For three years, 11 months, three weeks and a day, I've been dreaming about marrying him. The thing is, I knew from the start that he was marriage material. Because, you see, he is a bloody good chap.

And so it was with sheer delight and a definite yes that I accepted his marriage proposal on Sunday night.

Now, at last, I can start looking at wedding dresses and writing my speech without people thinking I'm a bunny boiler. Now I have a ring on my finger (a platinum one at that, apparently.) I have license to think about our wedding. And that's why Gareth's just made me the happiest woman on the Isle of Wight.

I'm also the most nervous person on the Isle of Wight. A platinum ring? Me? Seriously, the time I lost the only piece of jewellery I own that didn't come from Accessorise, I cried for a week. Then I found it in my camper van and pretty much wet myself with relief. I am not to be trusted with anything of any worth.

I assure you that now I am engaged, I am not going to bang on about it in every blog. I'll still be funny, I promise. But I thought I'd do a blog about the proposal, because it was, after all, rather amusing. And I like a bit of amusement.

Gareth's vision for the Big Question was to get down on bended knee while the sun set on our favourite beach, on the Isle of Wight. Knowing I'd rather look nice for the moment, he knew he had to find a way to get me into a pretty dress. And so he appealed to my sense of vanity and asked me to model for him.

'I want to take a picture of you in a floaty dress beside the ocean.'

Well, he didn't have to ask this professional limelight lover twice.

Unbeknown to me, Gareth had enlisted my sister and mum's help in organising the 'moment'. While he was pottering about preparing his camera, I was sitting in my pretty dress playing Sudoku and they were down on the beach erecting a gazebo and laying out dinner for two.

Gareth and I then took the long walk down to the beach. During which, Gareth wanted to talk about how happy we were, how loved up and lucky a pair we were.

Not likely. Every time he tried to talk about love, I'd talk about some banal thing that had happened to me earlier. 'Yes, Gareth, we're in love, bla bla bla, do you think I got a tan today?'

We got to the end of the path and as luck would have it, there was a red rose in the way. Always an opportunist, I scooped it up and stole it. I'm sure no one would have missed it and it would be perfect for our photoshoot.

Turning the corner onto the beach, we saw the gazebo. Candles, champagne… my first thought was that whoever had set this up was probably the same person who'd left the rose in the path. And the poor boy was probably hoping his girlfriend would find the rose.

'Where are you going?' Gareth asked as I turned on my heel.

'I'm going to put the rose back!' I screamed, wishing I wasn't such a thief.

Gareth had to pin me back and assure me the rose, and this whole hullabaloo, was for us.

At the back of the gazebo was a hob, and on the hob was a saucepan, and in the saucepan was Thai Green Curry.

That's what did it for me really. How can I refuse to marry a man who gives me Thai Green Curry for my engagement meal? Forget 'he had me at hello'. He had me at the subtle yet spicy combination of lime and coconut milk.

There were tears, there were diamonds, there was a yes, my family joined us on the beach to share the celebratory whooping…

Then we walked back to the caravan, where my darling sister Pipsy was waiting. She has a way with words, and as I sat down beside her and told her that Gareth and I had got engaged and were going to get married she announced: 'That sounds a bit silly. I'm not coming to your wedding.'

And with that, I was brought back to reality.

Pip might take some convincing, but I am definitely going to be there, all guns blazing. Possibly with stolen roses in my bouquet.

Read More

Riot Wombles

To add to the melee of unnecessary drivel being written about the riots, here I am.

The Daily Mail are spitting bricks, Twitter and Facebook status updates appear to be variations of the same ‘Looter Scum, whatever next,’ hype machine that we can come to expect from ‘these days’.

Here’s an idea. These riots are bringing out the very best in some people. Comradeship, united fronts, new-found respect for a police force which, only a few weeks ago, were being ridiculed for their handling of the hacking scandal. Now, the Met Police are literally being applauded as they march London's streets.

The reaction to the riots makes me proud to be British. Yes, we have feral teenagers with nothing better to do than jump on a bandwagon, smash a window and run off with a packet of sweets, but we also have the Riot Wombles.

The Riot Wombles – an army of civilians wielding brooms, here to tidy up streets, boroughs, and cities. To tidy up a broken, shattered, burnt out Britain. With all it’s sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful Britain.






Sometimes, if I am going to be British I might as well feel proud. The Riot Wombles make me proud. So does the fact that there will be no Glastonbury festival next year because there will be the Olympics and we don’t have enough portaloos to cover both events. Isn’t that beautiful? A nation of 70 million people and we don’t have enough portaloos to cover two events at once. Who needs a well behaved society when you have a portaloo crisis to fall in love with instead.

Read More

Brillo.

I find if I’m trying really hard not to do something, I’m all the more likely to do it. It’s like my brain likes to toy with me. My thoughts are saying ‘Don’t say she looks like Dawn French, don’t say she looks like Dawn French,’ and then my mouth says: ‘You look just like Dawn French!’

Ah, damage done. Well done brain, one to you.

And so it was when Nicola, my partner in crime and business, started abbreviating words. I didn’t like it. I’m a big fan of the English language. Text talk drives me crazy. The youth of today, they are pissing all over our beautiful words with their luv and their lol. Nic started with the occasional ‘obvs’ where she meant obviously, obviously. ‘Don’t join in, Kim, don’t join in.’ I bit my lip. I remembered what peace there may be in silence. I made a point of saying all my words right to the last syllable.

Then Nic started saying other words in the same way.

Lunch time arrived. ‘I’m hung,’ she’d say.

Fed and satisfied, she’d declare, ‘That was amaze.’

And then, as if from nowhere, I was joining in. I couldn’t help it. She had infiltrated my mind and, seeing as she was the only person I saw all day every day (we are a powerhouse of two) it wasn’t hard for her to wear me down.

‘Cup of coff?’ I asked, boiling the ket.

Yes, I sort of did hate myself. But it was also a lot of fun. Nic and I developed our own language. We out did each other with shorter and shorter abbreviations. Of course, it was funny for us, but it wasn’t something I was able to switch off at night, or at weekends, when talking to other human beings. They’d look at me strangely as I started off by abbreviating in the style Nic and I had become accustomed to, then, after a short pause mid-word in which I realised not all the world finds it as funny as we do, I’d finish my word. As if I got mid-word amnesia.

‘Glass of wine, Kim?’ weekend friends would ask.

“Yes please. Have you got any Sauv….(embarrassing pause…) ignon blanc?’

Mega embarro.

But, I soon let go of my embarrassment. Shortening words was funny and I realised other people were doing it, not just me and Nic. In fact just yesterday, my friend Hannah emailed me thus:

‘’I'm wearing sequined shorts this weekend whatever the weather. Whatevs the weaths.’’

And she works in London, where all the cool kids hang out.

Redeemed, I started shortening words willy nilly – will nill, dare I say.

But then came a really embarro situ, which caused me to think maybe it was time to reign in the old ‘cool speak’ and start talking like a normal person again.

Gareth and I had gone camping in Wales with friends. Beach bound, we’d arrived at a little shop, at which we were hiring body-boards and wetsuits. So already we weren’t as cool as the surfers.

‘Do you sell suncream?’ I asked the shopkeeper, in my usual too loud, too shrill, too posh voice.

‘Yes.’ He said.

‘Brillo!’ I replied. I hadn’t realised how loudly I had said it until I realised an entire shop’s worth of cool surfer types were all staring at me, and Gareth was backing away with a mortified look on his face, wondering how he could get out of this situation and relationship in tact. My middle class accented word wafting through the silence, ringing in my ears as only an embarrassing final sentence can. (If you can call ‘Brillo’ a sentence. I call it a death sentence.)

The shop keeper looked at me. Hannah in London may be shortening her words, but I’m not sure the trend has reached Pembrokeshire.

‘It’s, er, over there,’ he said, pointing at the suncream and hoping that I’d go back to Bristol and take my dismal excuse for conversation with me.

The girl in the queue behind me was the sort of person I’d like to punch in the face for being prettier, skinnier and now, better at English than me. She looked me up and down. I did not feel very brillo at all.

‘I’m really good at English!’ I wanted to shout. ‘I can spell definitely and necessary without spellchecker and I know the difference between their, they’re and there, god dammit.’ But of course, I just shuffled out of the shop with my tail between my legs instead.

‘You’re a dick,’ Gareth said as we walked to the beach.

I know, I know. You’d think I’d have learned a valuable lesson in letting other people do their funky thing with words while I stick to my resolute opinion that the English language is adequate, nay, beautiful, as it is and should not be tampered with.

Maybe skinny surf girl and stuffy shop keep man are the losers here. I should have turned the situation around on them.

‘Er, Wales, hello! I find it advantageous for sensible cerebrum space management to occasionally knock the last syllable of a word off, sometimes replacing it with an ‘O’, which you, surf girl, wannabe Auzzie, should appreciate, thus affording me commodious room in an otherwise overloaded brain, for thought and speculation about what’s really important in life – don’t for one minute presume that I did not get an A in English language, have not made a living out of words, or that I am of the generation scholars worry about for their inability to articulate their feelings or write proper sentences. Because I did, I do and I’m not.

Obvs.

Read More

Girl Guide

I'm sorry. I dropped my pen. Where was I?

Gareth usually reels off a long list of reasons why he doesn’t want children. But after going to see Senna, the documentary about Formula One world champ Ayrton Senna, Gareth came home and declared that maybe we could have just one child, so that we could call him Ayrton.

It wasn’t enough to convince me that we’d suddenly become responsible and adequate parents, just because he had a cool name, so we instead lowered our expectations and raised the bar by deciding that perhaps Ayrton could be what we called the dog.

Which got me thinking. Maybe it was time we got a puppy. Puppies are so cute! Look, here is an example puppy, he's having a little sleep because he's tired from all the cuteness. Woof.

My friends Cesca and Mike have recently been looking after a guide dog in training. A very worthy cause. Basically the dog goes off to blind school every day and learns stuff, and you look after him at night until he’s graduated, at which point he leaves and goes to his new blind master. The Guide Dog people pay for all food and vet bills. So, you get the joy of having a dog, (a really intelligent, disciplined one) and you’re doing your bit for the blind.

I was very impressed with their venture. And as I like guide dogs and blind people, I decided to go one better than Cesca and Mike, whose dog was already in training when they got her, and get a puppy.

The Guide Dogs Association call it ‘puppy walking’ and what you do is you get a dog at eight weeks old (EIGHT WEEKS OLD!) and you look after it until it is old enough (a year) to go to school. Then you hand it over to some mugs like Mike and Cesca.

Well, that just sounds like the best idea in the world! A guide dog puppy, all cute and fluffy, who I can train to become really obedient and well behaved so that when he gets to school, he’s the best in the class.

I applied and seemed to tick most of the boxes. Work from home, tick. Willing to help the dog adjust to travelling in a car, on a bus, on a train, sure, no problem. I’d take Ayrton everywhere with me, he’d be my little shadow. Endless love, tick. Can’t remember what else was on the list. Oh, a garden. Minor problem. He can poo in the loo.

So the next step was to ask our landlady if we could get a puppy. Now, I’m quite good with words. I know she’ll say no if I just ask for a regular puppy. So I need to lay on the guilt.

'Please can I get a guide dog puppy?' I asked. (Who could say no… only a cold-hearted wench) 'I’d like to look after him for a year until he’s old enough to go to guide dog school, (noble) where he'll learn to look after a blind person (sympathy) who'd be lost without him.' (violins)

'No,' came the reply.

No?

How could you? Have you not met Ayrton? He probably looks a little bit like this. Wearing his little blind dog vest.

And you’re telling me I’m not allowed to help a blind lady cross the street?









She leaves me no choice but to instead get this dog. Goliath. Seen here on a walk with Gareth, myself and our pet horse.

Oh, I’m sorry Miss Landlady, did you say don’t get a dog? I thought you said do get a dog. Get the biggest dog you can find. And a horse.


N.B In the real life version of the events described above, my landlady was really nice about it and did give me permission to get a goldfish. But it just doesn't make for a good read.


The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
www.guidedogs.org.uk

Read More

Princess Kim

Dear Kate,

I’ve never met you but I’ve often thought that if things were different I’d have your life and maybe you’d have one that more closely resembles mine. You see, Prince William and I were born in the same month of the same year and so I naturally presumed we’d end up together. If only I’d gone to bloody St Andrews and not the crappy art college down south where I mostly blew my student loan on marijuana.

Ignoring the fact I thought a game of polo involved mints, not horses, and my parents are not millionaires, self made or otherwise, I did used to presume that I was just one chance meeting away from being the Chosen One.

However, I now realise that it’s a godsend that I am not you. I would not have your restraint when it came to becoming famous. I’d have given ten interviews to Grazia by now and probably would have accidentally slept with Harry. When the Daily Mail started looking into my past they would see that my dad owns a caravan and my brother was expelled from school for having someone else’s urine strapped to the inside of his leg, in a vain attempt to pass the piss test. Then they’d find photographs on Facebook of me snogging my female best friend and before you know it, I’d have given the Queen a heart attack.

I am happy to allow you the mantle of the new People’s Princess, which I know is very gracious of me. Besides, I’ve got my own prince and he can tuck his belly into his jeans and then make it pop out in a swift jolting movement that makes us both giggle.

I had a great time on your wedding day. My prince and I were up with the early birds queuing to get into your prince’s great great great great-grandmother’s holiday home, Osbourne House, on the Isle Of Wight. Osbourne House, which is huge and extraordinary, is not far from my dad’s caravan, which is small and full of spiders, so if you are ever on the island, do pop by for some lashings of ginger beer.

By the time Gareth (that’s my prince, by the way. Not exactly a good name for a future king, I know, but luckily he’s only prince of Warmley and I don’t think he’s going to get promoted) and I got to the big screen in the grounds of Osbourne House, the crowd had splayed out all over the lawn, the Pimms was on ice and the cupcakes had little flags in them.

Prince Gareth and I had not come so prepared. We had a 9% ABV bottle of cider each and a camping chair. I was quickly pissed as a newt and busy joining in conversations with strangers about how pretty your dress was and didn’t you look skinny.

Then the cider wore off and I needed cake. Whilst wondering how on earth you maintain such a skinny physique, I had cider for breakfast and cake for lunch. 

I suppose another reason I’m glad you ended up where you are and I ended up where I am is that I really couldn’t bear to call him Wills. It’s an awful abbreviation of a name. Don’t you hate it? Wills. If people called me Kims, I’d feel like I belonged to myself or that the next word was missing. Kims what? Resisting the urge to add an apostrophe to a posh toff's name would probably have resulted in divorce. 

I will let you have Prince William. I no longer harbour a longing to be his bride. It looks like far too much pressure never to drink cider for breakfast. I’ll stick with Gareth, who, as it turns out, is really quite lovely and far better suited to my pop-your-belly-out-and-make-me-laugh needs.

PS Just in case William ever wonders what could have been, I have superimposed my face onto yours and attach it to this letter. I look pretty happy but Wills looks like he's realised he's made a mistake marrying someone so pedantic about punctuation.

Read More

Spidey Sense

Last night I got home from a night out with friends, looking forward to resting my head on my pillow in my bed as one does when it is night time and one wants to fall asleep.

But it was not to be. Gareth and I met up in the bathroom for a spot of teeth cleaning. Here, he told me the news that was to devastate my evening.

‘Oh,’ he says, with meaning. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

Thoughts flashed through my mind – what have I done wrong? Am I getting sued? Did the police call? Is someone I love ill? Have I been recorded slagging someone off? The usual.

‘I was in the bedroom earlier,’ he continues. ‘I knelt down to pick something up off the floor (a rarity, Gareth.) and there, under the bed, was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life.’

It’s okay, I think to myself. This story is going to finish with Gareth finding a pint glass and a bit of card and setting the spider free outside. (not that I care for the spider’s welfare, I just don’t want him in my bed.)

‘We stared each other out for a bit,’ Gareth carried on. Oh god. This story isn’t going to end well is it?

‘I couldn’t go and get anything to put him in, because he’d have run away. He knew I knew that. I knew he knew I knew that. So we carried on staring at each other for a while.’

Then what, man, then what? I can feel him on me!

‘Then I grabbed my shoe and I was going to whack him with it, but I realised he’d have just clung on. He was that big. I’m talking tarantula size. My shoe would have just stubbed his toe.’

Oh god. He’s still there, isn’t he Gareth? We have a tarantula in our bed.

‘So I ran to get the hoover. He was still there when I got back, but as I poked the nozzle at him, he just walked off.’

A tarantula, so strong he didn’t get sucked up the vacuum nozzle, is under our bed.

‘What are we going to do?’ Gareth asked. ‘Shall we call pest control? Or the Natural History Museum?’

Well, first things first. We’re not sleeping in there.

That’s right people. A spider is under our bed, so we slept in the sitting room. I don’t know about Gareth, but I dreamed about that little bastard arachnid all night. Wandering out of the bedroom, down the hall, up the stairs and on to my face.

I’m not sure when we’ll start sleeping in the bedroom again. I don’t know how long he can live under our bed for. Surely there’s not much to eat there?

In the meantime, Gareth’s parents are coming to stay this weekend and we’re going to courageously and selflessly let them have our bedroom. I know, I know, we’re far too kind to them – we’ll take the sofas. It’s fine, really.

So then Gareth finished his little bedtime story, just in case I was going to have any trouble sleeping in my bed ever again.

‘He had such a big belly. Maybe it was actually a female.’ And then, plonking his toothbrush down on the sink and wandering out of the bathroom without considering that the consequences of his next sentence would be that we'd have to move house: ‘I reckon she was pregnant.’

Read More