Disappointed Dad

In preparation for Dad coming to stay I wish I could say that I cleaned the house from top to bottom but of course I didn’t – I just paid a Polish person to do it for me.

Point being, Dad was coming to stay and in arriving to a clean house, I wanted him to come to the conclusion that this was how I lived my life – clean and tidy. Therefore he could only conclude that I’m a successful offspring and he can be proud.

But he hadn’t been with us a day when I realised that if I really wanted to give my father the impression my life was sorted and he need not worry about me, I shouldn’t have cleaned the flat, I should have double checked every tool he’d ever given me was lined up in alphabetical order in the toolbox he also gave me and that the toolbox he gave me was under no circumstances gathering dust at the back of a hard to reach cupboard.

By day two, Dad was standing in the sitting room trying to Fix Something – one of the many things Dad noticed was broken but I had not. ‘Where’s the spanner?’ he asked, rummaging the toolbox. ‘Where’s the multimeter?’ he asked, getting more frustrated.

‘Oh Kim’ he said wearily, in a tone of voice which screams disappointment in who I’ve turned out to be. ‘You knew I was coming. Why didn’t you make sure you had all your tools in order?’

Oh dear. I am a tool. I didn’t think! I didn’t think Dad would be testing me on the knowledge of the many tools he has insisted on buying me over the years. I tried to divert his attention, show him my tidy kitchen, but alas he was determined to install a new airing cupboard complete with dehumidifier and hanging rail and he would not rest until installation was complete.

The multimeter, of course, had been untouched since he gave it to me in about 1997. I was never quite sure what it was for but just knew I should keep it handy because he’d placed so much importance on my ownership of said device. Apparently it was an essential addition to my toolkit.

Multimeters test batteries and fuses for life, by the way. They look like this little fella.

As a girl currently captivated by the determination to master ‘Casualty – the theme tune’  on my shiny new piano, I don’t have time to check the life in my fuses. The time or the inclination, I might add.

But I knew Dad was coming to stay and I should have at least pretended I use all the tools he gave me and am constantly rewiring the house, just because I can. (I can’t.) At least then Dad would think I’m the wonderful daughter that I’m not and would bestow upon me the great praise in my abilities I’m always seeking and constantly being denied.

The multimeter was not in the toolbox. After much searching, it was found in Gareth’s man drawer. Dad was hugely disappointed to see that we had long since robbed the battery from the back of the battery tester and it was therefore redundant.

After a few trips to B and Q, my toolbox was up to scratch. Multimeter had battery. Dad was once again being led to believe I could tell my earth from my live wire.

The funny thing is that I’m so keen for him to think I have an engineer’s brain, like his – that I’m also a maths whizz and really keen on physics and how my house is put together. And yet that’s not me. My house works – bonus. If my house breaks, I’ll call someone out to fix it. Apparently letting dad know that I’m never going to take apart a toaster just to see what makes it toast would be like telling him that I’ve quit my job and am going on the game.

Actually, he probably wouldn’t mind that nearly as much. As long as I did my own accounts and didn’t expect a pimp to rewire my brothel.

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Time to be on time.

The thing about having a parent come to stay is that you realise just where all your tics and delightful mannerisms (eccentricities and annoying habits) come from.

I like to be on time. Left to my own devices, I will always be on time, if not early.

Now that I have Gareth dragging me down, I am often even as much as seven minutes late. And when I am, my friends, it’s not a pretty sight.

When, as a result of Gareth’s more relaxed attitude to punctuality, I can foresee that I will be late for something, an anxious cloud of fear starts swirling in my chest. I can actually feel it. My palms start sweating. I develop palpitations. I get grumpy. Monosyllabic.

Then, I go and wait at the bottom of the stairs for him. It’s the best place for me, I have decided. It shows I am ready, I am not the one holding us up, and hopefully encourages him to get a bloody move on.

But Gareth has taken to likening me to a dog that knows it’s about to get walked. You show it the lead and it bounds over to the front door, waiting dutifully for its master to let it out into the world.

Ha ha, Gareth. Ha ha.

He can mock me if he wants, but I get the last laugh because I arrive on time to stuff. I’m punctual. Punctuality is a good thing.

So we’ve had Dad to stay for a week.

And watching him go to wait at the bottom of the stairs as we prepare to leave the house, it suddenly hit me. A) it’s quite annoying and B) he is why I’m so terrified of tardiness.

Childhood memories came flooding back.

Dad would shout: ‘THREE MINUTES” at me three minutes before he wanted to leave anywhere, then go and sit in the car.

I learned not just to tell the time like most really clever five year olds, but one better. I learned military time. ‘We’ll be there at 1500 hours.’ Dad would say. And we always were. If not earlier.

It’s not all his fault. I also went to boarding school – an institution so strict that a deafening bell would chime every five minutes to remind you where you were supposed to be. If you weren’t in the right place, you were in trouble.

Now, my 7am alarm goes off. One second later I’m up and the 100M sprint that is my day begins. I have to be in the shower by 07.10 and at my desk by 07.30 or else the whole world will come to a devastating end. Presumably.

Gareth, on the other hand, gives the snooze button a jolly good seeing to before rising when he feels like it.

Those palpitations I mentioned earlier would sky rocket if I dared stay in bed a minute past 7am. I mean, can you imagine what would happen? Crikey, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Sometimes Gareth tries to pin me to the bed just to see what will happen. I sometimes wonder if I might spontaneously combust from the nervous energy that generates as the fear of lateness sets in.

So should I change, I ask myself? Of course it’s not very nice for Gareth when he’s trying to make himself look beautiful before we go out for an evening and I’m stomping around getting frustrated in prelude to being late.

Or maybe Gareth should change. Maybe when we’ve planned to leave the house at 7pm, he should get in the shower a little earlier than 6.55pm.

I suppose you’re thinking we should both compromise. You’re probably right. As long as the compromise we come to gets us there on time.

 

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Wedding Unfair

When I was a child, all I ever, really, really, really wanted to desperately be, was an adult. But then I got there and it didn't turn out to be quite as much fun. For starters I couldn't eat a bowl of mushed up sugar and butter without being sick.

Similarly, as a Miss, I’ve always thought I wanted to be a Mrs. All the more so since I got into a Serious Relationship and started fantasising about my wedding day.

A friend of mine recently got married, a small affair. Sprinkling of guests, no white dress, no cake. ‘It’s not the wedding day I want Kim, it’s the marriage,’ she said.

Well, she can stuff her smug marriage. I want the wedding day. I want the dress, all eyes on me, I want the bridesmaids and the speeches and all my loved ones under one roof.

Oh, and the husband. Would be nice if he’s there I suppose.

And so when Gareth decided to start photographing weddings (www.bloombrighter.co.uk - way better than any of the stuffy perverts you’d find in the yellow pages) I thought I could pretend I was a supportive girlfriend, by accompanying him to a wedding fair (so he could scope out the competition) while actually setting my own agenda: Operation Dream Wedding.

No sooner had we walked through the pearly gates of the Marriot Hotel, me hiding my non-existent diamond ring beneath a pair of gloves, I was asked to sign my name and our wedding date on the dotted line.

Oh – our wedding? Well, 7th June 2012, I gushed.* Might as well play the part, right Gareth? I gently placed my hand on his chest as us young loved up fiancés are taken to doing.

‘What?’ Gareth replied, already bored.

He was clearly not going to enter into my Jennifer Aniston rom com fantasy, but I didn’t need Gareth. I signed the form, got my free Mars bar and headed into the abyss.

It was a thoroughly depressing day. Vultures trying to cash in on what is supposed to be a simple declaration of love. Apparently you need petals strewn beneath your feet, a poker table, a chocolate fondue, a babysitter, a fitness coach, a fancy car. And if you don’t buy all this crap, you’re clearly not in love.

Ignoring the stale, depressing atmosphere that felt like it had been lured from 1987, we headed for a photographer stroke videographer for a chat. ''All your filmic needs in one! We’ll film your day and give you a terribly cheesy montage you’ll watch once, and we’ll give you stills too! Hurray!''

‘When is the big day?’ asked the geriatric as we arrived at his perch.

‘I’m not sure,’ Gareth replied. ‘I haven’t decided if she’s the One yet.’

Jennifer Aniston never had to put up with this. The poor man looked at me in complete dismay. Definitely the first time he’d heard that line.

‘Oh darling, will you stop,’ I said, tutting and shaking my head in a sort of ‘what will we do with him’ sort of way. I left Gareth to be talked into a videographer for our fake wedding and made my way over to the cake stand.

Well, they were giving away free samples.

So what did my day at the wedding fair teach me? Have I changed my philosophy? Will I now take marriage more seriously and make my Big Day medium?

Will I eck. I’m still going to swing from the chandeliers, I’m just not going to book them at a wedding fair.

* Date plucked from thin air. Just checked. It's a Thursday. Do people marry on a Thursday?

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Fun Bobby

  

No, it wasn’t my new year’s resolution to stop writing blogs. It’s just, with no booze running through my veins (that was a resolution and I’m sticking to it) my creative juices have dried up. I’m basically the Fun Bobby of blog writing. No booze = no stories.

I made seven resolutions on new year’s eve, despite new year’s resolutions being one of my pet hates. I don’t see why they are such a big thing every year – what happened to last year’s? Are we really so inept as a race that it only takes us 12 months to fail at every improvement we try to make and thus, an annual attempt to better ourselves is required?

I’m usually arrogantly at peace with myself come January 1st and refuse to try and further my development as a human being. But, as I said, this year seven resolutions made their way into my little life. Even infallible people like me have an off-year.

I even downloaded an app for monitoring my progress. My resolutions are mostly boring but the one I will share with you is to Learn A New Skill.

Seeing as a friend illegally downloaded the entire Rosetta Stone French syllabus about four years ago (RRP ten zillion pounds. Mon Dieu!) and it’s sat on my bedside table ever since, unloved, ignored, French wasn’t going to be my new skill.

Seeing as I went on a silver smiting workshop with my mum and sister recently and managed to snap the ring I spent all day moulding the moment it came out of the kiln, silver smithing wasn’t going to be my new skill. Gareth says I’ve got the dexterity of a baby giraffe. I’m all hoofs.

Instead, I only went and bought a bloody piano! That’s right. I might enter Britain’s Got Talent this year because pretty soon I’ll have mastered the art of, if not Beethoven then at least the theme tune to Casualty.

I dragged Gareth to Mickleburgh Piano Showroom in Bristol town on Saturday, the required £500 finally saved up. That was my budget, see, and I’d been on Gum Tree, I knew I could get a piano for free if I wanted one that came with baggage. So £500 was generous. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of baby grand piano would soon by nudging the table tennis table out of our flat.

‘I’m here to buy a piano,’ I  told the man assertively. Not a sentence one gets to say often in life. Me and my £500, talking the talk.

He led us upstairs to the huge piano showroom and I was in heaven. Until Gareth said: ‘Have you looked into this? I can’t see one here for less than £3000.’

To my dismay, nobody told me even second hand piano’s are rarely shy of £1500. Grand pianos are in another world. A world where rich people bath in champagne and have so much surplus income even their dog wears diamonds.

An inevitable temper tantrum ensued, with me taking it out on a few expensive pianos in the show room then dragging my feet while Gareth tried to show me how nice (and cheap) the keyboards were. ‘Maybe you should just get a triangle,’ he suggested. A suggestion met with a scowl.

I didn’t want a keyboard. I didn’t want a triangle. I’m not seven. So I carried on with my huff.

But then we came across a Casio digital PX-730BKC5.

Ok so it looks like this. But it has special buttons and was a fraction of the price of authentic pianos.

Even cheaper when you run out of the shop when no one is looking, go home and buy it on Amazon.

And so, I came in under budget and am now expecting the Amazon man to bring me my piano any day now. Hello Ivory, allow me to introduce you to my tinkle. This time next year my only resolution will be ‘carry on being majestic on your Casio.’

Sold. To the woman in a huff.

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Green Or Mean?

I’m very good at stern letters, me. I write them to big corporate companies all the time – Richard Branson probably has an auto ‘avoid this crazed woman’ command for when my emails come up, I’ve complained about his stinking Virginity so many times.

I like letters. We’ve got a friend who’s just gone to prison and I’m writing to him. Not in a fall-in-love-with-a-conman-and-marry-him-while-he’s-behind-bars sort of way, just in a ha ha, you knob! You’re in prison now, how’s that going? I want him to know we innocent souls on the outside, the ones who don’t ask undercover police officers if they want to party at festivals, are not going to forget about him.

Yes, I like letters. Stern ones are my favourite. When Wightlink messed up my Bestival festival tickets this summer, I wrote them ever such a stern letter. That the issue was probably my fault was neither here nor there – if I have to deal with these billion pound turnover companies, then they have to deal with me. Simple.

Thus, I wrote to South Gloucestershire county council, for they are my council and are supposed to be looking after me and my environment. And I said hey! Council! I want to put my food waste in a brown bin like what my friends in neighbouring council patch Bristol do! I want to separate my rubbish from my food stuffs, so you can feed some pigs somewhere. When will I be allowed this extra notch on my recycling bedpost?

Well, Kim Willis, they kindly replied, we think you’re right. How about we initiate the green waste collection scheme, as of December 2010?

Thank you and goodnight.

I could once again sleep at night. Another stern letter in the bag, another problem solved.

 Now, the brown bin has arrived and I’ve started chucking my tea bags, carrot peel and leftover dinner in there. Alright, less of the leftover dinner. That goes in my belly. But the carrot peel? My goodness gracious me, it takes two weeks for the bin men to collect our green waste, and in two weeks, putrid carrot peel smells begin to infest the entire flat, like a rat has died and maggots with backpacks full of rotten eggs are riding skateboards around our flat.

This is a stern, open letter. Am I missing something? Am I doing it wrong? Surely all the people I know who separate their food waste don’t just live with this smell. Perhaps I ought to invest in some kind of ghostbusters-esque suits and for the second week of the fortnight, we can just sit about in those, breathing through gas masks. Like when they thought ET was a bit of an alien and everyone got all dressed up. It is seriously that bad.

Or, dare I say it, I think the green team might be down a player. I’m not sure I’m cut from strong enough cloth to keep rotting food in my house for a fortnight. I’ll just have to fly a bit less far on my next holiday to make up for it.

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Sexorcism

There’s nothing quite like a holiday to make you want to be a better person back home. Whenever I go away, I use the time away from my computer, my routine, my obsessive compulsion with punctuality and etiquette, to take a deep breath and say, now Kim, how can we improve on this near-perfect personality you’re lugging around?

Having just returned from two weeks in the sun, I’ve got plans. Buy less clothes, save for a house. Spend less time at the computer, go on more walks. I can’t very well get a dog one day if I can’t be bothered to walk when it’s raining.

But most importantly, I decided I want to be a better girlfriend. Gareth doesn’t get his own way much. I come from a long line of bossy people and Gareth has allowed this personality trait room to breathe and, disastrously, grow. I control the kitchen. He may pay for half the food but hell hath no fury like a woman who finds out he helped himself to some cheese I was saving for dinner.

I control the bathroom. I have even taken to using my label maker (yes, I have one) to write ‘Step away from my posh shampoo. It’s Asda own brand for you’ on my shampoo. Poor kid. Either he doesn’t care, or when I’m not looking he gives me my comeuppance by squirting my £20 shampoo on his genitals.

Time away has given me time to think. After three years together, we’ve picked up some bad habits.

Dear Gareth, I wrote, from the bubble above a beach on which I floated, shall we try harder to be better people when I get home?

Gareth was all for it.

‘Let’s stop swearing at each other,’ I said. We had, of late, taken to swearing at each other for no particular reason. I say ‘we’. I say ‘we’ just to make myself feel like I’m not the only one in this relationship who has forgotten how to be polite.

‘That’s not how you cook pasta, you dick!’

‘We’re going to be late, penis head.’

My little potty mouth, churning out blue murder at a rate of one swear word per sentence formed. Not good. Which perhaps explains Gareth’s Big Idea:

‘How about we have a swear box? Every time we swear at each other, £1 in the box.’

I agreed it was a fabulous idea. But wait, there was more.

Gareth also wanted us to reduce our sexorcism.

What is sexorcism, I hear you ask? Well, it’s humping. It’s thrusting your groin enthusiastically, fully clothed, whenever something marginally exciting happens, and not necessarily nor regularly related to sex.

Gareth’s been complaining for a while that watching me thrust my hips back and forth with a Rik Mayall circa-the-Young-Ones expression on my face is not exactly the aphrodisiac he was hoping for when he signed up. So, we added No Sexorcism to the list.

I got home from Malaysia raring to be a better person.

Day one, and I’m already down £6 in a mixture of blue words and pelvic thrusts. It’s tough, changing your personality.

Plus, it’s raining. So I think I might just stay indoors, not walk my imaginary practice dog and sit at my computer. Punctually. While swearing at Gareth.

God, that feels so good I think I feel a mild thrust coming on.

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Wrinkly Bottom

On the last day of the holiday, Tammi and I practiced our regime for when we are 70 because, yes, we do have it all planned out.

Long will our husbands have left this world for the next, and Tammi and I, childless and rich, will live together, in an eccentric, dilapidated mansion. We will divide our time between alcohol, the kind of drugs we would have taken in our youth if only they’d been invented, watching films and eating the kind of food we’d have been eating in our youth if only we weren’t obsessed with just about squeezing into that size 10 dress.

It’s going to be fantastic. We’ll be urban legends – adults won’t believe the yoofs round our way when they tell them those mad old women who smell of gin are on first name terms with the most dangerous dealer in town. We'll have watched 24, the Wire and Breaking Bad 14,753 times by then. We'll know how to score.

With Dad departing Malaysia a day earlier than us, we were left to run amok for a full 24 hours before our own flight home.

It was a good trial run. Some people are afraid of getting old. Not us. When you’ve got a plan like ours, old age doesn’t seem quite so daunting.

As a dress rehearsal for the last chapter of our lives, we spent the day sunbathing naked. As the sun went down, we gave each other the courtesy of a few items of clothing, then played scrabble while guzzling gin and tonics.

We then headed out for an exquisite dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Lang Kawi (think of the 10th fanciest restaurant you know in England and you’re about there) We didn’t hold back on starters, cocktails or puddings. You don’t have to watch your weight when you are 70. Or on the last day of your holiday.

Gareth always teases me for my ability to remember events by what I had to eat. ‘Remember when we went to Cornwall, and I had the prawns and you had a burger?’ I’ll say. He doesn’t. I do. A lovely marie rose sauce. August 2005. Followed by ice cream.

And so my night with Tammi, practicing our eccentricities for old age, will forever be remembered by the seafood antipasto starter, the barbecued chicken with mango and cashew nut salad. More importantly, the steamed apple, macadamia and butterscotch pudding, and the duo of gingerbread ice cream sandwiches, with chocolate brownie and caramel bananas. And, because Tammi’s memory bank also revolves around food, I know I’m not alone.


If only we could have got hold of some hallucinogenic, possibly anti-arthritic, drugs and scared a few kids, it might as well have been 2050. Only, with slightly less wrinkles.


Close your eyes now if you don't want to see what I project we'll look like in 2050. Gin and Tonic just out of shot...

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