Treat day

I love department stores. I find them magical. I am, obvs, not talking about Debenhams, House of Fraser or your bog-standard chain department store... I am talking about the greats. Selfridges, Harvey Nicks, Printemps, Le Bon Marche... They hold this magical sense of possibility I never feel in any other shop. I suppose its the enormous range - from Topshop to Balmain to delicious Foie Gras in the food hall. I think they are wonderfully democratic. Where else can you freely browse Marc Jacobs and Vivienne Westwood without feeling like a total knob. I know, I know, I should never ever be intimidated by the thought of going into a horribly expensive shop, and no shop assistant ever has the right to make one feel small, and I totally agree, but but but I can't shake the feeing of being a complete and utter fraud if I ever step into a shop like Chanel, or Hermes, or Lanvin. Whereas in a department store, I feel free to wander, browsing everything from the stunning homewares to the Nicholas Kirkwood shoes to Marc Jacobs to Marc by Marc Jacobs to the lovely coffeetable books at my leisure. So inspiring and a real treat.

So this is why, tomorrow, on my second to last day alone in Paris, before darling H and her beau arrive on Thursday to ease the painful cross-channel transition, I am heading to Bon Marche determined to find that special Parisian purchase that has, as yet, evaded me. The plan is to buy one or two reasonably expensive, lasting, high-quality items that I completely adore and will always remind me of this city. I don't yet know whether they will take the form of trousers, or a dress, or a jumper, or a bag... Oh the possibilities! Of course, I may not find these elusive things, or, more likely, I shall find them and then find myself unable to imagine spending such a huge amount of money (we are talking roughly 300 pounds to give you a ball park), but I am thriled by the prospect of merrily wandering around the stunning art nouveau interiors and having a good old rifle. I'll let you know how I get on...

XxxX

ohh faaack

This is probably the ultimate in self-indulgence and an attempt to jerk myself into reality about the amount of stuff i ACTUALLY have. Here follows a list of everything I need to get home -

hot water bottle
cath kidston suitcase filled with hair ribbons, bangles etc
white mini trunk with camera leads, laptop chargers,adaptors
8 dvds
2 wallets
42 books
4 pairs of boots (4 have already gone home)
2 pairs of high heels
2 pairs of sandals
1 pair of slippers
1 pair of brogues
1 pair of trainers
1 pair of ballet pumps (I have thrown 5 out..)
2 rag rugs
2 Jo Malone candles
1 pair of trainers
1 laptop + charger
food scales
scales
hairdrier
over 50 toiletrie-related items
travel scrabble
3 towels
1 set bed linen
Feather pillow with a geese-print cushion cover
6 photo frames
6 bras
3 sweatshirt/hoody type things
1 pair pj bottoms
1 dressing gown
25 pairs of knickers
9 bras
2 pairs shorts
1 string bunting
approx 40 tops
15 dresses
10 skirts
2 pairs leggings
4 playsuits

...I cant bring myself to count cardigans, jumpers, silk scarves or scarves. I am exhausted and have retreated to the safety of my sofa, iplayer and the Junior Apprentice.

PANIC!

Xxxxx

On my own again..

ah me, my little apartment feels very empty after 5 days of fun with R and K and S, who sort of semi-moved in as well in a sort of fabulous foursomey way. We had lovely weather for the whole of her visit, which has now, appropriately for my mood, clouded over into humid mullish grey. I have a thousand things to do before I leave in 10 days, and H and her man are coming out for the last three of those, truncating my cherished 'alone-in-paris' time somewhat (in the best possible way, obvo..), but today I am far too exhausted (and sweaty) to do anything but tidy and contemplate the mammoth packing task which lies ahead. I think I am somewhere in the hinterland between acceptance and complete denial of how many things I actually have here, so expect an inventory-style post later, which is an attmept by me to impress a sense of urgency/seriousness about how much stuff I somehow have to actually manage to get home in the next 7 days. EEK.

More interesting posts to come, I promise!!

XxX

What I think about when I think about leaving Paris.

I have literally drafted this blog post about two trillion times. I have 2 and a half weeks left in Paris. Merde. The sun is shining, R is arriving on an early eurostar tomorrow, life is wonderful. So far, my 'list' of things to do is being ticked off nice and neatly, some things being big disappointments, and some being as brilliant as I expected. Cafe Marly, I appreciate that due to your admittedly fabulous location underneath the arcades of the Louvre, you don't have to make an effort with food, service or coffee, but don't you think you should? I was shown to my table by the rudest waiter ever, and then perved on by another whilst I was trying to quietly read some Moliere. The whole thing was bizarre and very disappointing. Then again, my meal with K at Scoop, on Rue Marche St-Honore, was scrummy and a great slice of French-Americana. You win some, you lose some..

I think I am ready to leave. I cannot wait to get back to the girls, long mobile phone conversations, driving on the right side of the road, country air, the sunday papers, my mother's cooking, my bed, my house, a big bathroom.... But then I can't imagine my life without the best falafel in the world literally 50 metres from my door, being able to stroll over the river and up past the Pantheon to S's (my most favourite Parisian walk ever), and an astonishing diversity of culinary options for every night of the week. I am currently obsessing over what to do on my last two days - where to have my last Parisian meal, who to spend my last Parisian day... Unusually, I feel like planning it meticulously would be wrong. This is strange as I adore a plan and can't quite cope without having one. I am not spontaneous on any level at all, and like to get up in the monring knowing exactly what I am doing for the rest of the day. For instance, today, I have finished a translation, cleaned, and am about to go and find the Rose Bakery followed by drinks at a friends this evening. Yet when people press me with what I am going to do with 'my last week', I just say 'whatever I feel like doing' and genuinely have no idea. I don't really subscribe to the whole 'something really special to mark my amazing time here' school of thought, I suppose because I have done special things the whole time I've been here, and the whole thing has been just so special and unique. And that's a lovely thing to realise.

Acceptance

Weightwatchers is going OK. I am not still experiencing the heady rush of losing weight ever week, asI was to begin with, but its going ok. Its difficult, and yet more easy than I ever thought it would be. I never feel like giving up, simply because it works. It actually works. Even if the scales don't reflect it, I feel lighter and lighter and lighter, and some of my clothes are now very baggy, and others which were too tight are now finally fitting, after three years of being shoved to the back of my wardrobe. It has been really hard letting go of the scales and instead relying on how my clothes feel - something I always said I would do after losing a stone, but is, in fact, in reality a lot harder than one might think. Thank god for my supportive, amazing friends who happily listen to me witter on, agonised by the scales, and gently shove me into the right direction, listening and never ever saying the wrong thing. All the diet books I have ever read have cautioned against telling friends or family and instead advise you to do it alone, or with a buddy, but I knew, and have yet to be proven wrong, that none of my friends would be funny about it, because my friends love me, and in the words of H when I first, nervously told her about it, 'I don't think you need to, but if you think you need to, I will support you and help in any way I can'. Who could ask for any more. So firstly, I suppose, I really want to thank the girls. All of them. For everything. For understanding that I am not drinking, or always willing to eat a cupcake, but equally for understanding that that does not stop them doing so with me there, and that in fact it is important for them to do so with me there, so I can learn how to cope with not always eating a cupcake or getting pissed whenever I feel like it, because like it or not, my body hates alocohol more than most, and eating a cupcake a day may not make some of my friends put on weight, because they have quick metabolism and blah blah, but it will make me do so. And I, simply, have to accept that.

I suppose acceptance is what it all comes down to. Not acceptance of my body shape - I don't have a problem with my body shape. I love my body shape. Yay waist, yay boobs, yay hips. That is pretty unalterable. I can never ever wear peg-leg trousers, or smock tops, if I want to look the actual size I am rather than double it. I will never know the ease of not always having to wear an enormous bra. And that has never been a problem. I mean acceptance of what I need to do to feel happy within myself, and acceptance that it is worth doing, because I deserve to feel happy. I didn't like having flabby arms, or back fat, and now that I don't, I feel so much better. (Incidentally, where does it go?? I feel like that episode of Dr Who where the little fatty aliens come out of peopel's skin. Its the strangest feeling). This is unfair. Life is unfair.

Some people aren't good at music, or sport, and I am, or rather my body is, not good at eating things without putting on weight. That is life. It is pretty unalterable, there is never going to be a point where my body turns round and magically starts metabolising at double the rate it did previously, just like there is never a point where someone who is tone deaf is ever going to turn around and not be tone deaf. Or vice versa. But here's the thing - accepting this fact has been the most liberating thing i have ever done. It has totally changed the way I look at food. It has ceased to be a battle, and become a fact of life I live with. While I am eating a salad, others might be eating a steak. I'm not depriving my body, I am helping myself accept my body for what it is. I know there is alot of stuff about body acceptance around, but I don't think any of it quite focuses on this crux. In order to accept your body, you have to look at the bare facts. I am never going to be a hard-bodied size ten because I am not willing to starve myself and exercise myself into the floor to get there. I am perfectly happy where I am, or rather getting to where I will be, which is something I can maintain with ease and feel happy for life, and thats fine by me. I can admire Venus or Serena Williams, who are maginificently Amazonian, just as I can admire Gisele, who, for whatever reasons, be it genetic, or a marvellous plastic surgeon, or a serious exercise regime, is banging. Everyone is different, and that should be accepted and celebrated. I have never understood the female-on-female envy. Again, I am lucky in my friends - the scene in Mean Girls where they all cluster round the mirror, bemoaning their pores and hips, and Lindsay Lohan comes up with 'I have really bad breath in the morning', always makes me silently gives thanks that my friends, during my teenage years or at university, have never ever indulged in this. Everyone has just looked different and got on with it. Becasue everyone does look different. That's the joy of the human reproductive system. Diversity. The media has lost sight of this, in their ceaseless divison of 'plus-size' and 'skinny models' and 'normal people'. What really matters is how someone feels in their own body, because that shines through ever pore of their being. Look at America's Next Top Model - the girls who do best know how to use their body for their craft, not the ones with the killer killer bods. Look at athletes, who are hyper-aware of every muscle, fast-twitch, slow-twitch, and how they need to use them to win. Look at girls on the street. The ones who love their bodies, be they model-thin or something far from it, are for more attractive than others. Perhaps not immediately, but as soon as you strike up a conversation, it becomes clearer than clear.

Acceptance. Its pretty awesome. And thats quite enough two-bit philosophizing for one day..

Xxxxxx

Nothing to weaaaaaarrrrrr

What happens when we have 'nothing to wear'? Its clearly bollocks. Everyone know this. And yet it happens to everyone. You stand in front of your stuffed wardrobe, and nothing, nothing, nothing fits or works or makes you look the way you want to. It happened to me pretty much every day of last year in Oxford, when, for some reason, somewhere deep down in my psyche, a doubt had comfortably settled down to fester in an armchair, resulting in my feeling so insecure in my appearance that to step out of my house every morning involved a battle with my well-stocked wardrobe. Every single morning, and this is not a word of a lie, I would change my outfit at least three or four times. Every. single. morning. Which, considering that my days consisted of studying in the college library and tutorials, followed by perhaps a night out for which I would obviously change again, was completely and utterly ridiculous. This wasn't a battle between pyjamas and clothes, it was far more subtle - tea dress, or high waisted skirt? shorts and tights and ballet pumps, or shorts and tights and boots? which boots? R used to sit and stare at me, occasionally saying, in complete bemusement 'but you wore that last week so SURELY you LIKE IT, so WHY CAN'T YOU WEAR IT TODAY?' I never had an answer. I still don't - I have theories - serious underlying weight issues being the most obvious and plausible one, just pretending that it was an integral part of 'me' and that it was just totally what everyone, like, EXPECTED of 'me', the me that shopped at least twice a week to 'destress darling' and was always upbeat and ready to listen to anyone's problems other than my own, another. In Paris, I don't care as much. Actually, I do -if anything I care more - this is PARIS people, where, if you wear tracksuit bottoms to the supermarket on a saturday morning to get milk, 5 different french ladies aged from 30 to 70 will stop you and tell you off (TRUE STORY), but I don't find myself changing in front of the mirror 5 times every morning. It happens from time to time, and I still think about clothes far more than I should, but suddenly, I have found myself waking up and putting on something with relative ease, and none of this nailbiting obsessive self-criticism, which I didn't even realise was self-criticism. I don't know where it has gone, or whether it will return with a vengeance next year, but I know I'll be on the lookout for it, and I know I don't want to wasting half an hour EVERY morning getting dressed. For special occasions, bien sur. But not every morning. I have a degree to finish, after all...

So. The 'I have nothing to wear syndrome'. Where does it come from? Canny marketing ensuring every time something significant happens in our lives, we immeidately 'need' a new outfit to make us feel good, when, actually, most of the time, you'll just need up wearing your most favourite old trusted garment rather than the really expensive one that you panic-bought? This weird festering self-doubt? Or is it just a self-perpetuating fact of life? Every girl, even K, who happily wanders around in jeans and primark body warmers most of the time (and looks GREAT WHILE SHE DOES IT, even if she doesn't think she 'has any style at all'), has doubts and funny moments. We can all understand it, because clothes do speak volumes, no matter what anybody says. Anything you wear makes a statement and allows anyone who meets you or passes you on the street to make a judgement. No one goes to an interview for their perfect job without thinking about what they are wearing first. No one wants to run into the current theoretical love of their life in tracksuit bottoms and a toothpaste stained hoodie. And no one, I believe, no matter what they say, doesn't in some way connect how they feel to what they wear. If you go and see a posh show, or go out for a nice meal to celebrate something, chances are you will not be doing so in tracksuit bottoms. So clothes clearly matter, but there is a very very fine line between clothes mattering, taking a bit of time to groom and look presentable, and an obessive self-destructive wasteful endless cycle of trying stuff on, taking it off, trying it on again and beating yourself up about the fact that you have all these clothes but you don't even like any of them, and that you will never look exactly how you want to look. Next time you find yourself in front of your wardrobe, tearing your hair out, with a frustrated girlfriend sitting on your bed (here I feel it is appropriate to acknowledge my deep gratitude to all my girls who have had to put up with this for as long as they have known me, MILLE MERCIS, your tolerance as ever astounds me), tak a step back. Acknowledge that something else is probably going on, and put on one of your tried and trusted outfits, no matter how dull and boring it might make you feel at that moment, and leave the house IMMEDIATELY, stifling your inner squeals of 'BUT IT JUST ISNT WHAT I WANTED TO BE WEARING I NEVER EVER LOOK RIGHT'... Trust me, it will feel good to have broken the cycle a bit, and you might even realise that actually, what you are wearing is 'you' and you are pretty great. (criiinge? sure. but its true.)

Xxx

Photo from Laura Bailey's Vogue Blog - I love the way she dresses.

My problem,in a nutshell

I dream of dressing like this girl -



But in reality, the following things are undeniably true.

1. My face does not and never could support a gamine crop. My current ear-skimming choppy bob-y thing is as short as I can ever ever ever go.
2. Anything high-necked and sleeveless makes my generous boobs look....horrific.
3. I am lucky enough to have a natural waist. Which is not something I am complaining about, but it does mean that anything paperbag/which doesnt end EXACTLY at the point of my waist makes me look four times as wide as I actually am. I never ever need to 'create curves' through dressing. And anything which might 'create curves' when worn by me, a curvy person, just renders said curves utterly farcical.

Ah, me. Life is hard. Sure, she could never make the most of a vivienne westwood dress, or do justice to a pencil skirt, but she can look easily, breezily cool. I can't. Ever. And that's fine, and I only mind a little bit...

Xxx

All by myself..

Yesterday, I got a message from a girl in the year below me asking me for advice about finding a flat in Paris. It was mostly just the standard 'how expensive is it/how can you find apartments/where's best to live' kind of questions, but one really struck me - 'how have you coped with living alone? Isn't it a bit horrid?' Its not the first time someone has asked me that, and I am sure it won't be the last. In the words of Ms Bradshaw 'later that day, I go to thinking...'

I live alone here for one main, and very simple reason. I didn't know anyone else who was coming here who I liked enough to live with. Of course, a week after moving in I rekindled a wonderful friendship with the marvellous S, who I was at 6th form college with, and had I known that she was going to become my constant companion and that we would get on so well that we rarely do things without each other, we would, in all likelihood, have lived ensemble and happily ever after. As it was, I didn't know this, so thought I'd do Paris like a Parisian, and live alone in a cute, neat studio, with all my shoes and books for company. Its had it's ups, and its had it's downs, but overall I think I can safely say that I have adored it. I have always loved my own company, but of course living alone in a foreign city is never as simple as that.

Last year, living in a house with 4 other girls, I used to love closing my door, switching off my phone, and zoning out with one of L's SATC DVDs or a trashy novel. But that was always an active choice - I didn't have to be alone at that moment in time, I just wanted to be. Here, it is sort of the opposite. I am definitely alone more than I am in company. At first, I had one friend. Now I have... three. Its not that I haven't met people here, its just I haven't really liked any of them, and the idea of spending my precious free time and hard-won money in the company of people I fundamentally disliked seemed far worse than spending time in my own, exclusive company. But that's not meant to imply that I have a wonderfully assured self-confidence or am arrogant enough to enjoy my own company above anybody else's. Far from it in fact. I think this is probably the crux of the 'down' parts of living alone. You can't run away from yourself, or merrily bury yourself in a girlfriend's boy drama, because the only person there is you. And therefore, you start to face up to you - who you are, what it actually means to be you, what annoys you most about yourself..... before this descends into psychobabble, I suppose what I am trying to say is that living alone is, for me anyway, the most effective and lasting way of realising who you are as a person. Not just the best bits that your friends always compliment you on, and not just the worst bits that you know deep down inside are stopping you from getting on with that long-cherished dream, but the whole of you. The little things, like how if I don't clean or do the washing up, it will just sit there. Forever. Until I actually do it. With no one to make excuses to. The fact that if I am in a bad mood, rather than shaking it off, I will wallow for hours, combing facebook for pictures of all the fun other people are having while I am cooped up alone, with no invitations to anything. I can do this for whole days at a time if the mean reds are particularly bad. The fact that sometimes, nothing, not a Nancy Mitford or a Jilly Cooper or an episode of SATC or Women's Hour can cheer me up like a brisk walk down the Seine can.


If I had the chance to do this all again, I'd still live alone - though admittedly having two friends living two minutes away down a parallel street means that I am never far from company should I desperately crave it. Now I am a lady of leisure, with no job, no commitments, and alot of time to do exactly what i want, living alone has really come into its own. This morning, I got up, danced around to glee for half an hour, ate standing up staring at my wardrobe, talked to myself loudly whilst doing so, and now I am happily sitting browsing blogs in a pair of rattu old leggings and a tank top. Some people say, when I mention that I live here alone, that they could 'NEVER' live alone. I think they are cowards. It is brilliant. Seriously scarily grown-uppily brilliant. In a foreign city, I can highly recommend it. Just remember the following things - skype is a life-saver, bunting and photos can make anywhere feel like a home, and buying flowers for oneself has the most unbelievably cheering effect.

All from we heart it