There's a difference in living and living well

For Christmas, I received India Knight’s book, In Your Prime. I suppose I was given it because ‘prime’ is a euphemism for ‘past your prime’. (Actually I was given it because I asked for a copy, but there’s no pathos in that version.) The book is targeted at women in their late forties and beyond, and focuses rather more on foot care than I was expecting. It’s less about prime in the Miss Jean Brodie sense of running away to fight in the Spanish civil war, and more about prime as an excuse to buy things to make life easier.

Now India Knight is a well-heeled woman who lives in a very smart part of London (I have in fact seen her house, but I am NOT a stalker, as I explained to the police), and so her list of essential items, in the chapter called ‘Living Well’, includes a bed which costs in the thousands, goose-down pillows, personal trainers, laser-surgery, Botox, a ‘good’ handbag (meaning Louis Vuitton rather than Debenhams) and so on.

This got me thinking about the things that help me live well. Few of them are the most expensive things I’ve ever bought. Some of them aren’t even actual purchases, sorry India, I know I’m letting the side down. Most of them, of course, are items of stationery. First amongst these, the King of Living Well, is envelopes. How often have I gone to get an envelope to send something important, like a complaint letter to the school, and only found one ratty square red envelope, its glue no longer tacky. Well, now I have a whole stack of envelopes, in C4, C5, C6 and the sad outsider DL. Get me knowing the official sizes. 

More must-haves: a proper sellotape dispenser so you don’t have to waste time finding the end; Pritt stick that hasn’t dried out (tricky, as Pritt dries out overnight, like a mayfly), non-perished rubber bands, pens that work; gloves paired up in a box near the front door; reading glasses in every room (not a massive expense, these things are cheaper than chips); zips that don’t stick. 

A brief survey revealed some other people’s essential ‘Living Well’ items to include swimming goggles for cutting onions (see photo, posed by model - by the way, I’m sparing you the lengthy debate that accompanied this suggestion, about how none of the other so-called tricks work); a penknife about one’s person, for all those cutting/mugging emergencies, and a homemade dispenser for a ball of string, or twine, as we call it in Lewes (the instructions for this involved a lemonade bottle and were rather complicated).

I’m going to write this up on a DL envelope as a proper list, and next time I’m passing India’s house - once the restraining order’s lifted - I’ll pop it through the letterbox. In my opinion she needs to focus less on Botox, and more on envelopes, if she’s really going to have a happy prime.

Beth Miller

Mary was that mother mild

“The English language is a flippin’ curious mistress,” was Sweary Mary’s opening gambit as she rustled, laden with shopping bags, into the Patisserie, and ordered a chocolate and almond croissant. I’m not being paid for this recommendation (though for future reference, I am open to bribery), but  the Patisserie’s c-and-a croissant is stunning, and only about 75 calories. Or 750. One or the other.

“Go on, then,” I said, not that Mary was ever not going to go on.

“I’ve been doing some Christmas shopping…”

“It’s TOO SOON.”

“There are only 28 blinking days to go. It’s futile to stick your head in the tinsel.”

“I don’t think that is an actual expression.”

She let rip a hearty rendition of the first few bars of the rude version of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman.’ I gave a subtle gesture of appreciation that anyone watching might have mistaken for the ‘wanker’ hand signal.

“So anyway,” Mary said, seguing seamlessly from ‘to save us all from Satan’s power,’ back to shopping, “while buying presents, I noticed the way stores use clever blimming language to entice us. The obvious one is that very Lewes thing of calling string ‘twine’. Twine sounds much nicer. You say, crikey, £6 for a ball of string? Are you ‘aving a larf?” (Mary gave it the full Dick van Dyke.) “But the shopkeeper says, why no madam, that’s finest quality twine.” She gave an awkward little cough. “And before you know it, you’ve damn well bought it, in three different colours.”

Poor Mary. I said, “I’m really looking forward to opening my twine on Christmas Day.” 

She smiled gratefully. “The lilac’s surprisingly nice.”

“What else did you fall for, I mean, what other language tricks did you notice?”

“Local. Bung local in front of something and it’s instantly more worthy. It’s not till you’re half-way through the first glass that you think, son of a gun, maybe local wine isn’t ever going to be as fablis as Chablis.” She warmed to her theme. “Actually, all adjectives should be banned. ‘Elegant.’ ‘Finest.’ ‘Cosy.’ ‘Stylish.’ ‘Innovative.’ ‘Stunning.’”

“But you love a good adjective, Mary.”

“Only the sweary sort, darn it. Not the ones that are just there to shake me down.”

“Then there’s all the Christmas words,” I said. “Like festive. That’s used on everything. Festive carrots, for serving alongside the other delicious trimmings as you and your happy loved ones sit down to a groaning table, and save one for the snowman’s nose that you and your happy loved ones will make together later with lots of laughter and no arguments about whether the stones you’ve used for the eyes are two different sizes.”

“Cripes, are you all right?” Mary asked.

“Yes thanks,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I’m feeling stunningly festive, seasonal, magical, lavish and wintry.” 

Then I put the rest of my croissant in my mouth to form a kind of plug.

Beth Miller

The shit I see, it don't cease to amaze me

“Ooh I just had a bit of a turn,” Country Mouse said, with an accompanying damp crackle of disintegrating paper bags, as she joined Hoxton Mum and me in the Patisserie. Mouse likes to shop while she’s in Lewes, as the only chance to buy anything in her hamlet is when the chip van visits on Wednesdays. But she agrees with me that when it rains, as it was now, one thinks fondly of the days before we realised that plastic carriers were an evil scourge. I carry a couple of emergency placcy bags in my coat pocket, and I passed them discreetly under the table now. Mouse began decanting her purchases into them. 

“Yes,” she continued chattily, “I was looking in the shop windows at those cute photo boxes of ye olden days, when I passed the funeral parlour and saw a painting of a chap I know. Good gracious, I thought, has that poor bugger popped his clogs? Only saw him last week, Time’s Winged Chariot, etc. Texted his wife to say how awful, and she had no idea what I was on about.”

“Ah, the good old-fashioned sympathy text,” I said.

“It was just an exhibition, wasn’t it,” said Hoxton Mum. She was clearly not in the mood for Country Mouse’s wide-eyed astonishment at our Big City ways.

“Heavens to Betsy,” Mouse said, removing a blade of wheat from her hair. “I find that a baffling choice of venue, don’t you? There are plenty of nicer places to display pictures. Your café, for instance, Hoxie.”

A frisson of cold air shimmied round the table, and Hoxton Mum put down her pastry with a surprising clatter. “Um, Mouse,” I said, “the reason we’re force-feeding Hoxie French fruit tarts is that she has just been fired from the café/art gallery/twine shop at which she has slogged for the last three years.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Country Mouse, “you lived, ate and breathed twine, Hoxie.”

“ I did,” Hoxie said, returning to her pastry. “I gave it my all, frankly.”

“The new owner,” I confided to Mouse, “has brought in his mother to replace Hoxie.”

“And she knows nothing about twine,” cried Hoxie, spraying us with confectioner’s custard. “Rien! Zip! Diddly-squat!”

“Lewes is such a strange place,” Country Mouse sighed. “Alive people in funeral parlours, workhorses replaced by people’s relatives, and also why are there two identical shops next to each other up at the Nevill? I’d give my eye-teeth for just half a shop in my godforsaken parish.”

“So true,” Hoxton Mum said, feeling warmer towards Mouse now that the correct amount of compassion had been expressed. “And another thing….” she was interrupted by a loud boom of fireworks, which made her spill her flat white. “Setting off fireworks in the daylight! What’s the point of that?”

“Ah well,” Country Mouse and I said in unison, “Bonfire surpasses all understanding.”

“That’s all you’ve got?” said Hoxton Mum.

“Yep,” we said, using scraps of paper bags to mop the coffee.

Beth Miller