Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion

It was at the checkout in Sainsbury’s when I said to my mother in my loud voice: ‘Do you want me to get a mop so you can mop my floors?’ that I realised some people might not get my mother’s relationship with cleaning things. The checkout girl looked at me incredulously, to judge the spoiled little brat that I surely was. But the thing is, Mum happens to thoroughly enjoy cleaning. It’s a trait I wish I had inherited, but instead I’m lumbered with my dad’s cleanliness blindness and penchant for leaving more clothes on the floor than in the wardrobe.

When I was little Mum used to come to tuck me in and things would be spilling out of all my drawers. ‘Hurty,’ she’d say as she folded it all away and closed the drawers and doors, trying to instil in me the idea that clothes had feelings and didn’t want to spend the night clinging on to their shelf for dear life. Sweet, isn’t it.

And when I was little, Dad tidied his room once. I thought we’d moved house, I so didn’t recognise the room when I walked in.

My elder sister got Mum’s genes, I got Dad’s. Which is a shame, as it means I live in a constant state of bedlam, while Tammi’s flat is really rather lovely.

While it’s a pity for Gareth that he doesn’t get to live with someone who enjoys cleaning, the lucky charm is that I don’t get to live with someone who enjoys cleaning either, and so we live in a mess together, happily begging Mum to come and stay in the hopes she might pick up a J cloth. She doesn’t disappoint. She’d been here eight seconds this weekend when she started cleaning, and within an hour the bathroom looked so sparkly we could have been in a showroom, and the kitchen drawers were so tidy Gareth thought we’d been robbed.

I could be accused of taking advantage of Mum’s kind nature - you’d think she doesn’t actually want to come here and Mr Sheen my home. But I have it on good authority that she’s entirely in her element when cleaning, and who am I to deny her one of life’s little pleasures? To stop Mum cleaning would be akin to taking sweets from a child.  

We had a party on Saturday night to celebrate my birth, and usually when we have parties, I crawl out of bed the next day to witness the carnage of the night before. Dirty plates queuing up for the dishwasher, a sticky floor and a mountain of glass for the recycling.

On Sunday morning I got out of bed to see Mum had already tidied the entire party remnants away. She’d even laid out the bottles that needed recycling in height order. It was something of a miracle to see my house looking so good when it really ought to have been suffering from a hangover with me.

As usual, Mum has left the house in a better state than she found it. And as usual, Gareth and I have made each other promise we’ll keep it this way. And as usual, we’ll slowly slip back into the pigsty with which we are familiar. But about that time, Mum will be due another visit, and everything will shine again. I’m sorry to my future children that I won’t be able to give them a mother as tidy as my mother, but at least I can give them a grandmother as tidy as my mother. And maybe she’ll rub off on them better than she has on me.

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Water good way to save our marriage.

Good news! I’ve just saved my marriage, before it’s even begun. Because they do say it’s the little things that end up destroying relationships. I don’t see either of us ever cheating or anything big like that, but my god, I can see Gareth’s inability to wash the leftover Muesli off his bowl before it sets and hardens as legitimate divorce fodder.

And so it was, that I just saved our marriage.

Because, you see, Gareth was doing something that really, really annoyed me. Let me set the scene. It’s very romantic, I know, that we do a heck of a lot together. We work together, eat together, sleep together, scamper together... you get the idea. We go to the gym together. So, we run together, side by side, when the treadmills are available. Me on my treadmill, in my gym kit, with my headphones and my bottle of water.

And Gareth... without his bottle of water. Because he NEVER takes one with him.

Now, that’s fine, if you don’t want to hydrate while running, that’s up to you. But the problem was, he did want to hydrate. He was just totally useless at remembering this at any point leading up to the need for hydration. Unlike me, who had filled up my water bottle at home before even setting foot in the gym.

So Gaz gets parched and then he signals to me in the mirror that we're both running towards, that he’s thirsty. Not one to want to watch my future husband keel over and die, I hand over my water, begrudgingly, as it has exactly the amount of water in it that the length of my run requires. Gareth takes a long, refreshing glug and then he commits the cardinal sin - and this happens every time we run together, not just once - of putting my water bottle into his water bottle holder, the OTHER SIDE of his machine - way out of my reach. He then continues running, happy as larry, no idea how infuriated I am by his actions.

I run the rest of my run hating my future husband a little bit, which I don’t think is a particularly healthy way of entering into the sanctity of marriage.

I know what you’re thinking - share and share alike. What’s mine is his, what’s his is mine. Ask for the water back and get over it. Don’t be absurd, my personality is way too flawed and irate for that.

It took me a few months to come up with a solution. And on the way to coming up with a solution, there were plenty of plans that involved wee in my water. 

Here’s the solution, proudly modeled by Gareth, now the proud owner of his own water bottle. I bought it on Amazon for £4. Not bad, eh? £4 to save a marriage? That’s a lot cheaper than a divorce.

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Sight for sore eyes

Some of you may be wondering how my life has been panning out since I exchanged the TV for 20 scratch cards… on which I won nothing. It may seem like a strange exchange of goods, but really, it was apt. You don’t win anything when you watch TV either, except maybe a numb bottom and a glazed eye or two. At least scratch cards give you an element of hope. My eyes are never glazed when I’m scratching a scratch card. They are fervent, then wild, then disappointed.

I'm pleased to report I prefer life without a telly. It was the lazy addiction to reruns of Friends which pushed me over the edge. I really wasn't achieving anything other than learning a lot of quotes off by heart and developing a girl crush on Jennifer Aniston - a girl crush which has lasted a lot longer than my telly. I still watch all her rom-coms in the hope one will be any good. They’re not.

I resented my telly. It was sucking up all my time. I became acutely aware of how much life revolves around the telly. People talk about the shows they've seen. People angle their sofas in a way that provides best TV watching comfort. Magazines talk about actors as if they are soap operas - and they talk about soap operas as if they are real life. It's mildly disturbing, once you stop to think about it. Why are we following every move Cheryl Cole makes, as if her life is a soap opera? And why are we watching soap operas as if they are real lives? Before my head exploded at the conundrum, I sold the telly and rearranged the furniture.

I then bought a piano and a few books and got to work on being a smug and annoying person who has to interject when the topic of conversation turns to telly: 'Oh, god, sorry, this is awkward. I don't have one, no idea what you are talking about.'

Except, I never actually said that because I'd hate myself if I said that. No one likes the girl who reminds them of their short comings. 'Oh, I eat like a horse and never put any weight on,' is another sin bin line. Don't show off. Eat cake and complain about your muffin top, woman, for god’s sake.

Once I'd gambled away the telly, I was still more than capable of watching it - that's what iplayer is for, I discovered. I was just more picky about what I watched. I did not miss E4 and it's time zapping capabilities. Nor did I miss advertising. Advertising, the cruel interruption to your viewing pleasure which we all seem to accept without avoidance. One minute you’re watching Desperate Housewives, the next, you’re being gently encouraged to use Lenor to soften your clothes, advised that Jennifer Aniston has a new rom com out and shown that really fun girls eat Maltesers while laughing together about how fun life is. Imagine how great your life would be if you just ATE MALTESERS. I do not like being advertised to. I find it insulting. And, it bloody works on me too. I do eat Maltesers because they are the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, I do use Lenor because it makes flowers fly out of my duvet covers and... there isn’t a Jennifer Aniston rom com I haven’t sat through. 


My piano playing is coming along nicely now. My teacher tells me I'm ready for grade one. I don't tell her that I'm absolutely not. I'm terrified by the very thought - I know I'll be sitting in the waiting room feeling like I'm waiting to take my driving test - except my compatriots won't be 17, they'll be seven, and better than me. Like the kid on You Tube who can play all my Grade 1 pieces without looking. He's a little seven year old bastard.

I've read a few books. Some I've enjoyed so much that after a few drinks I've got carried away and recounted the entire (ok, not entire, more 'the bits I can remember drunk') thesis to my friends. I suppose that's a bit like saying 'Have you seen Don't Tell The Bride?' and then spending half an hour telling the recipient all about it. I haven't seen it, but I have heard a lot about it. It's usually the first thing people say when I tell them I'm engaged. As I am to conclude it's about grooms making a hash of the big day, I wonder if people are trying to tell me something.

My favourite thing about playing the piano is when we have guests. I usually forget to do a recital until I've had one or two gins, and by then, my hand-eye-brain co-ordination is limited, so although I can't show them just how proficient I am at Grade 1 piano pieces, I have a bloody good go trying. You can't say the same about having a telly. People don't come over and say 'Oh! You've got a telly! Show us what you can do then!' At which point everyone gathers around while you gladly show them what all the exciting buttons do. Actually, I bet that is exactly what people with a great big telly do. Oh my god, my piano is my telly substitute! I have never felt like more of a snob in all my life. Except for the times when I bemoan my future husband for calling it a ‘couch’ instead of a 'sofa'. When I sit at my piano telling him to call it a sofa while scolding the neighbours for playing their karaoke machine - now that's some first class snobbery.

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I've Gok One.

A stereotypical ten year old girl has lots of pretty dresses and dives into her mum’s make up bag to start experimenting with different shades of lipstick, or something cliched like that, right? Not me. I was dragging my blind sister up trees, pretending my bike was a horse while jumping over broom handles, and having absolutely no clue whatsoever about clothes.

I did have a yearning to be girly - it just wasn’t satisfied by my father, who was in charge of bringing me up. Once, a friend at primary school gave me some little heels she’d grown out of. I was pleased as punch, tottered around in those bad boys until my toes bled. And my sister handed me down her bridesmaid dress, circa 1987, much to my utter delight. I wore it until I burst out of it a few years later, like The Hulk in a floral dress. So I did want to be a princess, I just wasn’t one.

Dad ran a school, and as a result, there was a lot of lost property. That’s where most of my wardrobe came from. When I went to see Mum at weekends, she’d take pity on me, dressed like a ragamuffin, bedraggled and wearing clothes that belonged to other children. So she’d buy me a lovely new dress. The next time she saw me, I’d still be wearing the lovely new dress, only now I’d have it on back to front, possibly inside out, and with an ill-fitting T-shirt on underneath.

 
Suffice to say when I grew up, my knowledge of what went with what did not flourish. I stuck to black corduroy flares, baggy T-shirts, trainers. I never really embraced being a woman. As you can see from Exhibit A. Before: baggy t-shirt OVER a hoodie. After: Oo, hello sailor!

 So when I met Gareth, I was a bit of a mess, sartorially. Gareth's a photographer and has a great eye for fashion and what looks good. He slowly started morphing my wardrobe into one that looked pretty bloody fantastic, if I may say so myself. I soon had heels, dresses, a blazer (staple wardrobe essential, I totes now know) skinny jeans, and all in other colours than black.

The only problem was, his advice was so gratefully received, I began to depend on it. I found myself sending him picture texts from shop changing rooms, then hanging around car parks waiting for his response. A yes, and I’d rush back in and purchase. A no and I’d thank my lucky credit card that I’d been saved from the fashion doldrums.

Gok, or Gareth, whatever you care to call him, is my super style saviour. But it’s a curse, being my super style saviour. My ASOS addiction is his flooded inbox. Dozens of emails full of links to potential dresses. Let’s not forget the poor guy is just a bloke. He doesn’t actually care about these things. The novelty wore off for Gok about the same time I started asking his advice on every little purchase, and by every little purchase, I mean tablecloths. What man has an opinion of tablecloths? Not this one. Not even the real Gok, I’ll bet.

We did need a tablecloth though, to hide the permanent dirt on our grubby kitchen table. I found Zara Home had rather a splendid selection. But which to get? I didn’t want to get the wrong one -  the decisions I make without Gareth are disastrous. Case in point - our sofa broke. Gareth turned down the surely irresistible opportunity to follow the little arrows around the maze that is Ikea. So I picked a sofa. It looked alright. But it isn’t. It has no arm rests. Incredibly vital for comfort, it turns out. Every time Gareth sits down, he laments my choice, wiggling his bottom around trying to find comfort on what is, we’ve dubbed, our ‘shit sofa.’ Well, I remind him - this is what happens when I make decisions alone.

So I did the usual - picked my fave tablecloths and emailed the links over.

‘Kimbo, I think this is a decision you can make yourself,’ he said, a little bit weary. ‘You’re taking my advice too far.’

He created this beast. This indecisive, but fashion forward and fabulous, beast. Now he must forever more dress her, buy the furniture and choose the tablecloths. I’ll just sit back and look good, by default.

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This. Means. War.

Not many people know this about me, it’s not like I harp on about it all the time but I was, literally, born to have a good tan. Mongolian Blue Spot, they call it, and it’s a real thing, you can google it. It appears like a birthmark upon arrival into this world, and is mostly seen on the bums of Native Americans, Polynesians and Asians. But the really exciting anomaly is when it appears on white folk, like me. Legend has it that if a Caucasian baby is born with a ‘blue butt’ as the Japanese call it, then it is nature harking back to some ‘dubious’ ancestry, as my family like to jest... Or that one of my great great great great great great grandparents just so happened to be Dutch Polynesian, according to my mother's scrupulous family tree climbing.

I am very grateful for my lineage. It means that I tan extremely easily, and I don’t mind trying. I’m browner of skin than my sibling, because they weren’t touched by the blue spot. It takes about four minutes for tan lines to appear. It’s a skill I’m very proud of, and as such, I’m very accustomed to worshipping the sun, as seen here, on a boat in Antigua, thank you very much.

But now, all hell has broken loose. Gareth and I, in our little chapel flat, don’t have a garden.  But we do have a little flat roof outside the sitting room windows, and on the rare occasion that I was at home on a sunny Saturday, I was partial to a bit of a lay down.

This morning, my landlord emailed me to let me know that the landlord of the flat below had spotted me sunbathing and demanded to know what on earth I thought I was doing putting all nine of my stones on his precious little roof. There was photographic evidence attached to the email. That’s right, he’d taken my photo.

Aside from feeling rather violated at having been watched in this voyeuristic manner, I’m absolutely devastated. I sunbathe, therefore I am. I can not not sunbathe. What will become of me? I’ll shrivel up and turn white, or worse, a kind of off-yellow colour a bit like jaundice, like I do in the winter.

I have two options and I’ve already advanced one of them, probably the wrong one but I was angry. I should have just started looking for other places to live. A bit of a bind, but sunshine is imperative.

Instead, I launched a counter attack on the other landlord.

‘He doesn’t want me to sunbathe? Oh yeah?’ I wrote, although slightly less childishly. I insinuate toughness now for comic effect. (I don't need to tell you that Gareth went over my email and 'calmed it down,' as he put it.)

‘Well, how about he gets his tenants in the flat below ours to shut the hell up once in a while? When they play Boyz 2 Men at 2am so loudly that the bass reverberates our floors, I’m pretty sure the entire chapel shakes. Oh, and while I’m at it, they’re using the car park for some wheelin and dealin’, there is litter everywhere and they probably smell. So there!’

I totally won.

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The KKK... (aka Kim's Krush On Kate)

Hi Kate,

You may remember me, I wrote to you when you got mazzered last April - thanks for the extra day off by the way.


I thought it high time I write in again. Check up on you. Are you well? Are you eating? You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who eats. I have a funny feeling there is a media embargo on publications discussing your weight, as although there’s a new picture of you in a beautiful dress every day, no one seems to write about the elephant in the room - your tiny frame. I am under no such embargo.


I don’t really have concern for your health so much as just really want to know how you do it. I would love to be a size nothing like you, but I keep accidentally splitting a bottle of wine with a friend and declaring pudding is definitely a must. I doubt you reach over when William's not looking and pinch the chorizo from his plate. I do that.


But anyway, weight issues aside, I really just wanted to say, god damn you get to wear some pretty dresses.

This one gave me a big dollop of green eyed monster. I’m getting married myself in a few months and when I saw this dress, I sent a link to one of my bridesmaids wailing at the knowledge that you had out-dressed me. I’ve got serious dress rage. This dress makes my dress look like I got it in F&F at Tesco. Which I bloody didn’t, as my poor mother knows, it was mega expensive. And now you’ve gone and made me want a different dress.

 I also loved this one. Again, you look damn fine in it. I can’t say I’m not jealous of your job, which appears to be two fold: Have great hair. Wear Dresses. I have hair that forgets to grow and no amount of Moroccan Oil will give it the kind of lustrous carefree flicks I pine for. And as for wearing dresses, never do I have the occasion. I did once dine with a king and I wore a dress then, but that was 12 years ago and I can’t really milk that forever. I really need some new banquets and black tie engagements to attend. Don’t suppose you want to throw some my way? I’m awfully good in social situations. I only once called a fat girl fat in a speech and I only once got so drunk I threw up in a plant pot. Ok, maybe twice.

Every morning, I make myself some breakfast then sit at my desk and use the cereal as justification to stop what I'm doing and check the Daily Mail. It’s a website I simultaneously hate and love. I hate it because the Mail hates women. She’s fat, she’s skinny, she’s confident, what a bitch. She’s lost her job, she’s lost her man, she’s lost her shoes, how embarrassing. Oh, and we’ve all got cancer.


It’s not a great start to my day. But I love it because the side panel of celebrity goss feeds my hunger for pictures of famous people with pretty dresses and great hair. Then I hate myself for loving it and love myself for hating it. Most mornings, you’re on there, because you’ve been to another Gala or red carpet event. You’re on there, looking thin and gorgeous with your bouncy hair and your frocks. And I think to myself, hmmm. That’s a nice dress. Nicer than my wedding dress. And I get a bit jealous. I turn to Gareth, future husband, also checking the Daily Mail, but probably not because he’s stalking you, and I show him your latest dress. And he says: ‘yeah great’ without looking over. I’m sorry Kate, I don’t know why he doesn’t show more interest, it’s terribly rude. I mean, does he not realise how well you work a Jenny Packham?

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Brussels Vs Brussels

I did not realise when I decided to go to Brussels to visit some friends, that Brussels would be competing against Brussels, as I had quite blocked out that I had been there once before. It was only as we stepped out of the Eurostar, or ‘Le Eurostar’ as I like to call it, that I was hit with a sudden feeling of familiarity. And not of the good kind. Because last time I was in Brussels, I was in a bad place. Thus, it was very important to me that this trip was better than the last. And luckily, it just about scraped by with a few more points, so that’s good.

Brussels trip number one was six years ago. That was when I thought I was being really rock and roll and decided to go out with a complete and utter dickhead, who happened to sing songs and thought himself a rock star. I also thought this of him, hence my letting him treat me like crap.

Nic Dawson Kelly, or, as my friends and I soon started calling him, Dic Foreskin Crappy, (Ha! We won! My friends sure know how to nurse my broken heart) was, he told me, on the verge of stardom. I’d met him at a gig and gone a bit weak at the knees as he swooned about on the stage, looking like a cross between Bob Dylan and someone with special needs. When he started talking to me at the bar afterwards, I thought I’d hit the jack pot. Me! Out of all the women in the bar that night, he picked me! Gush.

So then me and Dic Foreskin Crappy (we actually C-bombed his last name but there’s no need to be profane here) started seeing each other. The sex was awful, he chain smoked Marlboro's in my flat even though I told him not to and he never asked me a single thing about myself. I was constantly on edge because I was so very aware that this guy was on the brink of stardom. Fern Cotton had mentioned him on Radio 1 and he was mates with Jamie T. Apparently Jamie T was a big deal. I didn’t even like Fern Cotton, but still, it filled me with nerves.

I could also see he was a tortured soul, and I really wanted to save him. The classic move - meet a dickhead, try to save them. So I stuck it out.

One week in, he suggested we go to Brussels, just for fun. Even though I didn’t want to because I didn’t really like him and being with him just made me feel shit about myself, I said yes. It could be a chance for him to see me be brilliant, I’d drink fruity beer and we’d have loads of fun in a new city. Then maybe he’d be nice to me.

So we boarded the train and he starts ignoring me slightly more than usual. We get to Brussels and he continues being the moody prick I should have politely declined on night one, only now we’re in a foreign country, and he doesn’t want to walk about and look at buildings or drink beer, or try some chocolate, or speak French, or anything fun at all. He just wants to be a jerk. I’d left my phone at home so couldn’t even send heartbroken messages back to Cesca in return for some comforting love and reminders that somewhere, back in the UK, someone thinks I’m brilliant.

The trip was a disaster. No wonder I forgot it. Blocked it out. At one point I asked him what was wrong and he poetically explained his dilemma. ‘I’m an artist,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

No, I didn’t understand what it’s like to be an artist, on the brink of stardom. Shortly after this, we parted ways. It wasn’t pleasant. He refused to give me back £100 he’d borrowed, so I got my big brother to open a can of whoop ass on him. (It’s terribly convenient having a big brother when men are mean to you. Jae has been protecting me since James Perry bullied me when I was nine. He doesn’t even punch them, he just gets all big brotherly on them and they run away screaming like girls. Dic repaid the £100 he owed me precisely 11 seconds after I got my big brother involved.)

As le Eurostar arrived in Brussels this time, I was accompanied by one of my best mates, Olly, and my future husband, Gareth. Well, what a difference six years makes! I’m now about to marry a man on the brink of stardom. He’s an artist, of sorts, but not a jerk. He hates Fern Cotton and had to remind me who Jamie T was for the purpose of this story. He gets me and I get him, and together, we had a great time in Brussels, with our amazing friends, drinking fruity beer, trying local chocolate, speaking French un petit peu and looking at buildings avec our eyes.

The friends we stayed with, Will and Laura, were exceptionally lovely hosts. Here's a picture of me and Laura being happy in the famous square. I can't share any pictures of Dic and I in Brussels because he was too busy being a tortured artist to smile for the camera.

 We drank Will and Laura out of house and home but they still hugged us when we left. We played Boules, we talked about atheism, families, politics, lobbying, photography, journalism and festivals. And we had a lot of fun doing it. Brussels won, while Brussels lost.

I saw the weekend as a marker of how far I have come since last time. I’d even wager I’m the more famous one out of brink of stardom Dic, and lowly fan Kim. After all, I’ve been on telly and I once spoke to Lizzy Cundy on the phone.

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