From pedicures and picking shades of nail polish to trying to plan a flight-free holiday, it’s been a busy week for our columnist
I WAS attacked by someone armed with a blade this week and do you know what ... I not only asked for it, I actually encouraged it. It was all part of my annual pilgrimage (I say pilgrimage as there’s a bit of suffering and atonement involved) to have my feet ‘done’ last week.
Some might call it a pedicure – without making myself sound unnecessarily gross, there is probably a bit more elbow work involved in my case and I did feel quite a bit of sympathy for the therapist who was dealing with me that morning.
She gave my finger nails the once over first and to be fair she did a pretty good job at keeping her reaction to the state of my cuticles in check. She did emphasise the need for hand cream and cuticle oil though – more than once.
My feet were a different story, and while to my right and left in the salon there were ladies having their heels gently buffed, I was told in no uncertain terms that a blade was needed for my ... hooves. In my defence I walk around a lot in my bare
feet!
Anyway, the end result was fabulous – even if the therapist was most likely reconsidering her career choice after my visit. I was definitely the topic of conversation over her morning break.
I think I also nearly broke her heart trying to decide on a nail colour. It can’t just be me surely who gets totally flummoxed when they hand you the big ring of colours to select your nail varnish? Whatever about 50 shades of grey, there are millions of barely discernible shades of reds, pinks, purples,
nudes etc.
After much deliberating I chose a middle-of the-road pink which I immediately regretted but just hadn’t the heart to say anything. I felt we had both suffered enough at that stage.
Anyway all done now until next year again!
Right, so I’m probably among the very few at this point who doesn’t have any summer holidays planned. To some people having nothing booked is almost as bad, if not worse, as admitting to having no pension but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’m one of those nut jobs who gets a bit strung out at the thought of ‘the summer holiday.’ I know that makes me sound very parochial but I prefer short mini-breaks (three days max), where you can still get the ‘hit’ of seeing a new place and trying new activities, just without having to commit to 10 days, or God forbid, a full fortnight. The thing is that I like my day-to-day life (most of the time anyway), I love my bed, love where I live, love my coffee machine, love Billy (the puppy) etc. I’m also not really in any rat race so don’t feel any massive need to de-stress (although my husband might think differently mind you). And there’s also the fact that I suffer from the sort of pre-holiday anxiety that propels me to manic cleaning/organising/sorting etc, in a bid to have everything squared away before we depart. It can be a bit exhausting.
Then there’s the fact that I hate airports. There I said it. They bring out the worst in people (myself included). Everyone always seems so stressed and tetchy (even though the fact that it’s acceptable there to have a little drink at 11am does help when the flight will be inevitably delayed). Once you get to your destination, there’s the heat. I spent all of my 20s and 30s sun worshipping (I was a competitive tanner and the only excursion I’d even contemplate on a holiday was a boat trip as it allowed more ... tanning).
I have spent most of my 40s trying to repair all that damage to my skin so these days I run a mile from the sun. There’s also the risk of heat rash (which myself and my daughter suffer from – surely nothing more evil in this world), getting bitten by bugs (I’m always an easy target), and the constant fear of getting burned (which means I turn into a mad person constantly lathering the family in Factor 50 while they try to run away from me... laughing).
So all these reasons combined had me just about settled on us taking a boat on the Shannon for a week as our holiday until I told my mother about our plans and she reminded me of when we did the same trip as a family around 30 odd years ago.
Now my memory of the holiday was that it was fabulous, bar a glitch here or there, but she told a very different story.
Whatever about 50 shades of grey, there are millions of barely discernible shades of reds, pinks, purples and nudes to chose from when it comes to nail polish!
We were a family of six and made a rookie error of taking a six-berth boat. Bad move – you couldn’t swing a cat and my parents literally slept on the kitchen table. I’m serious. At one point we ran aground on a sand bank where we stayed stuck, waiting to be rescued for an entire afternoon. My father was a bit of an adventurer and figured it’d be grand to veer a bit outside the markers we were told to stay inside.
Turns out it wasn’t. My mother said they thought people on passing boats (mainly Germans) were just being very friendly and waving enthusiastically to us (guten tag to you too!), when in fact they were trying to warn us of our impending doom.
There was a bit of radio silence between my parents after that (sleeping on the kitchen table probably didn’t help). We also had a very rough crossing of a very large lake which was pretty scary, given our complete lack of boating experience. I do have a memory of the waves alright and my mother putting us all in life jackets and reciting Hail Marys.
Oh and on top of all of that, my sister got badly burned on her legs by a pot of boiling water.
‘For the sake of your marriage, don’t do it,’ advised my mother. I was prepared to risk the marriage to be honest, until she added: ‘If not for the marriage, then don’t go for the sake of the children.’
When she put it like that, I suggested we’d go camping instead. Sure we enjoyed fabulous holidays under canvas as kids. They’re some of my most treasured memories, I enthused to mum.
‘Do you not remember what happened on the trip to Donegal?’ she said. ‘Or when we went wild camping in Barleycove?’ I actually didn’t, but she did and I’ll spare you the details.
Let’s just say I’m currently looking into a week on Costa-del-wherever – and researching the best bug repellents.
