True Romance

Because I want this to remain a mummy blog, and not morph into a beauty blog, I shall refrain from giving you the contact details of the salon I frequent for manicures. I will only reveal that it is run by the seven-year-old next door and she charges by the fingernail.

In a marriage, it’s the little things that keep the romance alive. Tiny, thoughtful gestures that show your beloved that they matter. Things like taking pride in your appearance. Not letting yourself go. Because it really isn’t that hard, even with the busy lives we all lead, with toddlers and babies and businesses and buying houses and selling flats, to put a bit of effort into making yourself presentable for your spouse. While obviously you can’t and needn’t go to the same effort every day of the week that you went to for your wedding day, you do want him to remember you’re still that lovely girl he married.

Missing, In Action

A few days ago May Blossom and I were listening to Buddy Holly (because the main perk of parenthood of toddlers and younger is controlling the music they can choose from). ‘Why is it raining in that man’s heart, Mummy?’ she asked me. ‘Why isn’t the sun there?’

‘It means he’s sad,’ I told her. ‘It’s a metaphor. Why do you think he’s sad?’

The Games We Play: Angry Men Edition

We just got back from a week-long trip to Perth, and one of the highlights – no offence to Perth with its natural beauty and charming people and delicious cakes and swans – was when a man on our flight from Sydney was so badly behaved that two policemen boarded the plane when we landed and led him away.

The Real Boss

In a fit of wild optimism a month or so ago, H and I drank more than one glass of wine and like the unbridled hedonists we aren’t we got a bit crazy with the laptop and the credit card and booked tickets to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. Going out to a concert! we thought. Like young people (well, young people in 1987)! So what if we will have a three-month-old baby at that point? It’ll be absolutely fine.

Make ‘Em Laugh

May Blossom at work in her office.

A month or so ago we let May Blossom watch Singin’ In the Rain. We were on the hunt for a movie that wouldn’t frighten her, and that seemed to fit the bill. What I didn’t know at the time was that I would then spend hours every day afterwards explaining the finer plot points to her: why Kathy hits Lena in the face with a cream pie. Why Don Lockwood is trying to escape from his marauding fans. What fans are. Why it’s funny that Lena has an ugly speaking voice. Why the policeman makes Don stop singing in the rain and go home. Why Kathy’s job is to jump out of a cake and dance. It’s endless. She particularly likes the big song and dance numbers, though she is pretty disapproving of much of what goes on in the tribute to slapstick, ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’. ‘That’s not very safe’, she says every time Cosmo dances on top of a piano or runs up a wall. That makes me laugh more than the slapstick itself, which is good because not much has been making me laugh lately.

There Will Be Blog

I’m back! Well I’m not really but I will be very soon because I now have a working computer again and no longer face the prospect of blogging with my phone, using my obviously-rather-thicker-than-Steve-Jobs’ fingers, which prefer to type two letters at once.

‘Les Misérables’, Or The Chairs That Ate Paris

Worth dying for?

WARNING: This post contains movies spoilers and is as long as the film.

Thanks, everyone, for the lovely feedback on my last post. You made me feel I’d done the right thing by telling you what was going on. But Life With Gusto needn’t be all doom and gloom and babies and spew, you know. Today I tell you about a movie I saw.

Last week when it was 45 degrees C in the shade, H and I went to see Les Misérables. The heat may have cooked my head a bit, but I feel like a slowly simmering brain was required to tolerate Russell Crowe as Javert, a role he played entirely without moving his arms. It was like he was doing it for a bet.

If you’re not familiar with the stage musical, Les Misérables is the tale of a man with three girl’s names – Jean Valjean – who was once in the slammer for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s son. While incarcerated, he drew the very persistent attentions of his gaoler, Javert. Once Jean is paroled, Javert devotes his life to bringing him down again. No second chances with this dude.