Invasion of The Skincare Samples

I am decluttering my skincare. I think of myself as someone who is pretty parlous on the skincare regime. I pass scarey women with faux alabaster skin in John Lewis who ask me if I use a primer and I genuinely pride myself on the knowledge that I have no knowledge. I have not a clue what they are talking about and I try very hard to make it my business not to know. Not because they are not talking sense - after all, look at their faux alabaster skin! I could have alabaster skin like theirs if only I used a primer, whatever that is, or BB cream, whatever the hell that is, instead of my ageing, increasingly knackered looking sunken under eye shadows. No, it isn't that I don't need the stuff. It is that I don't  NEED the stuff. I might need it on my face, but I don't need it on my shelves. Skincare has a creepy way of building up on you. One minute BB cream is this week's must have. The next, someone somewhere has stumbled on a product made of sheep's urine that can take years off your double chin and the next, all the Sunday supplements are screaming about it, and you rush out and buy it because you don't want to miss out, and it gets put next to the BB cream, and you use it slavishly for a week, and then you read an article about an amazing new thing made out of hairs from a bee's bottom, and, well, it's Groundhog Day. Well I won't go there. No siree. I am happy with my cleanser, my sometimes toner for when I use particularly manky mascara that won't come off in one swipe, and my moisturiser, and frankly I don't hear any complaints. Nobody leans over in the tube and says to me, lady, you REALLY need to go home and finish your skincare regime, you look like one of the Three Witches. Nobody flinches when they get on the train and catch my eye, do they? Or if they do, they have sufficient social grace to hide it. So when I go to do my semi annual clearout of my skincare shelves I tell myself with much self congratulation that this is going to be a quick and easy chore. But  as I clean surplus talc off the bathroom cupboard shelf and remove accumulated toothpaste and spittle gunge from the cup, something catches my eye. I bend down and find a cardboard box. It is full, literally brimming, with skincare samples. I realise that I never ever say no when offered a sample skincare sachet or bottle in a store. I bring them home, put them in the cardboard box, and do not look at them ever again. I decide to do an audit. After all, I travel a lot for work, and samples are perfect for one or two night stopovers. Let's see. I need mini cleanser, toner and moisturiser. Anything else is useless.  Except maybe if there's shampoo. Or deodorant. But there will be loads of those, right? After  2 hours or so, I have two piles. One is tiny. That is the pile of samples  I might have a use for. There are maybe three sachets and two bottles in this pile. The second resembles Ben Nevis. This is the pile of samples whose function I simply do not understand. It is not that I do not have a use for them. It is that I have not a clue what they do, or where they go, or why I would want to add precious time to my daily skincare regime applying them. I pick one up. Age defying eye serum. Age defying. That has kind of a Star Wars theme to it. I can imagine opening the tube, applying the cream to my crowsfeet, and as I do, the cream screams, I DEFY you, signs of ageing on my faux alabaster skin! I pick up another. Pomegranate pore scrub. Or there is rosepetal serum. Why is it called a serum, anyway? Aren't serums things they give you in action movies to make you bionic, or get you to tell the baddie things you don't want him to know? Another one: UV protection nasal enhancer. Is that just a posh term for brownnosing?  I contemplate the mountain of sachets. I suppose I could donate them to a really posh old peoples' home. All this anti-ageing stuff should go down well. I can't see Oxfam taking the pore scrubs. Is there a charity that distributes complex skincare for the underprivileged? I make a decision. I take the cardboard box full of alien freebies minus the small pile, I take it to my bin, and upend it. The cardboard box goes into the recycling. It is probably more valuable than all of its former contents. I return to the bathroom. I find a small cardboard box. I put the remaining three sachets and two bottles in it. There. Plenty of space for the next assault of twenty first century skincare that I don't understand and which will transform me into a Stepford Wife if only I would open them up and use the damn things.

Rocky Road

I was in the middle of preparing a good old fashioned Jewish Friday night dinner - chicken soup with noodles, roast chicken, potato wedges -when I suddenly abandoned the lot and began making Rocky Road. I fished out a bag of mini marshmallows and chopped them up. I found small bags of almonds and macadamia nuts, roasted them and chopped them up. I melted dark and milk chocolate in separate bowls over gently simmering hot water. I stirred the marshmallow into the dark chocolate, and nuts into the milk. Spooned three lines of the milk chocolate mixture into a brownie tin. Filled the two lines in between with the dark. Swirled it a bit to create a marbled effect. Put in the fridge. And went back to my Friday night cooking. Not that the chicken was exactly functional cooking - husband away, one child on a sleepover, leaving just two of us in the house, the food was major overkill, but I baked for the textures and smells that are redolent of the weekend - but still, the compulsion to break off and create something as spurious as Rocky Road was a need to rebel, depart from the plan, do something mischievous. Rocky Road. It is pregnant with endless metaphor. It sums up perfectly what it is like to cycle in London. As a phrase it pretty much encapsulates my entire daily experience -navigating between commute, work, parent/teacher conferences, homework, domestic chores and family health issues, on good days with focus and well organised ease born of years of practice, on bad days a collision course of bumps and obstacles. Hm. Maybe not such a spurious choice after all. Baking that represents your daily experience. Makes perfect sense. To an obsessive foodie addicted to eclectic baking.

Queen of Puddings

Queen of Puddings. What an amazing, hyperbolically beautiful description for a bowl of custard, jam and meringue. Seriously, you could knock it up in 5 minutes with shop bought meringue shells, a jar of Tesco Value Raspberry jam and a can of Birds Eye custard powder and most people probably wouldn't know any differently. But if that were the right way to do it, it would have a different name, wouldn't it. It'd be called something like an Eton Mess, only it can't be called that because that name's already been taken for a similar melange involving strawberries, cream and meringue, although basically the same concept. No, the Queen of Puddings has to have its custard, jam and meringue homemade in three separate components entirely from scratch, because the Queen of Puddings is about beautifully showy, colourful layers, which are carefully ordered and which bake in a disciplined shape. The wonder is that it isn't called the Queen Elizabeth of Puddings. I plan to attempt this pudding this evening, and already the possible variations are doing my head in. White breadcrumbs. What middle class family has white breadcrumbs readily available? Wholemeal is the pain du jour in our family, and it's been several decades since anyone with half a brain kept their stale white bread to feed to the ducks, as we all now know it gives the poor things the runs. Being Jewish has a certain advantage, particularly being Jewish and baking this creation so soon after Jewish New Year, as we have a surfeit of half eaten challah - eggy, chewy white bread used every festival and Sabbath as part of the ritual of welcoming the festival, and possessing a joy of its own to plait and bake - so these, more usually used to make a snobby version of chocolate bread and butter pudding, can be temporarily redeployed. And the jam? Easily procured from your local corner shop, but Mary Berry is uncompromising in her view that you should make her own. I am one of the world's multitasking professionals, but even I would struggle to stir raspberries and sugar without letting it burn, while making dinner for four and checking homework with the other. But then of course baking is never about the food. It is about the slow, mesmerising alchemic process, the hypnotic stirring, folding, whisking and processing, it is about the unmatchable satisfaction of creating combinations that smell, feel, look irresistable...ok, homemade jam it is, and the kids will just have to have fishfingers. A fabulous pudding will more than atone for a main course procured from the depths of the family freezer.

Priority seats

I walked on to my local tube station platform this morning, went to sit down on a bench, and saw that the first of the four seats on the bench had been newly designated "priority seat". So I didn't sit on it. I sat on one of the other three. Nobody else was sitting down - a train was coming in and everyone except me wanted to get on it - and I could have sat on the priority seat with total impunity. But I am British and therefore have an inbuilt dread fear of being challenged for Doing The Wrong Thing. So I sit on a non priority seat where I can relax in the knowledge that if someone who is a priority person needs the seat it will be there waiting for them. Or if it isn't, it won't be because it's my backside parked on it.

But who is a priority person? I've qualified for this special category quite a few times in my life but with non visible issues. And non visible issues are a nightmare because they mean that you have to assert yourself by asking for the priority seat to be vacated, which means describing your non visible issues to a carriage full of complete strangers, most of whom are at best indifferent and at worst sullen and hostile. I defy any reasonable person to do this. My first non visible issue was the first four months of pregnancy. I may not have been carrying serious baby weight but boy I needed to pee. Constantly. Sitting down was a crucial self protection. But find me someone capable of saying, excuse me can I have your seat. I am four months pregnant and it's making me want to pee like Seabiscuit. Nope, I couldn't do it. So I stood, and contracted urinary infections instead. My second time was after my foot surgery. When I was on crutches, the crowds parted like the Red Sea. When I was in a surgical boot, people instantly gave way for me. Once I was back in a shoe but limping, nobody gave a damn any more. The cloak of invisibility had descended and if I wanted priority access I was going to have to beg for it. So I didn't, and the pins in my heel consequently got inflamed, blah blah blah...you get the picture. So it was only a month or two ago, when it occurred to me, that if I was too British to ask for a priority seat to be vacated by a non priority person, then the chances were that the non priority person occupying the priority seat would probably be too British to argue with me. What Brit would demand my orthopaedic surgeon's number so they could call and verify the state of my disability? Or ask me to strip off my sock and shoe so they could check the scars? So I gave it a go. Hop on the train. Identify non priority squatter of priority seat. Several deep breaths. Excuse me, I squeak. Occupier is deep in his IPhone and is wearing headphones. Oh Lord, this is going to be harder than I thought. I debate my options, and decide to prod him gently in the shoulder. He starts and looks up. Excuse me, I say. He still has his headphones on and cannot hear me. EXCUSE ME, I finally boom, throwing caution and dignity to the wind. He takes off his headphones and looks at me, expressionlessly, while other commuters, startled and indignant, lower their Metros and stare, wondering which category I fall into: a) harmless nutter, b) dangerous terrorist or c) unnecessarily assertive for a weekday early morning. Could I please sit down? I ask, maintaining eye contact and trying not to lurch forward over him as the train makes its bumpy way to the next station. I have a foot injury and I need to sit. Protest and conformity wage a brief war with his facial expressions. Conformity wins. Yes of course, he mutters, gathers his stuff and gets up. I sit. Arrange myself with a triumphant beam reminiscent of Mr Bean. Yes. It can be done.

Camping. Why?

I am making my epic daily march from Charing Cross to my place of work, with 20 minutes added to the on foot bit of the commute due to the ignoble closure of St James Park to the public for the duration of the Olympics. Well, the Paralympics finished yesterday - I know this because, despite missing the closing ceremony, today's papers are full of it, most of them bemoaning the surfeit of Coldplay - but St James Park remains obstinately closed. This, it transpires, is because of the parade, an event which because of the generally unremitting busyness of my daily life, has totally passed me by. But walking the route between Charing Cross and Victoria it is absolutely in my face. If you didn't know anything was going to happen then the miles and miles of steel barriers would be a small clue. But much more intriguing are the small clumps of people, sat on blankets on the ground with thermos flasks, sleeping bags, and back copies of OK! magazine. The parade begins at around 13:30 but these people arrived as early as 5pm yesterday evening and have been there ever since. And here's the thing. Although there are quite a few of them, they are not fighting for space. There is in fact, lots and lots of space available for spectators. In other words, there was no need to camp at all. They could have arrived with the jaded commuters like me and taken up their station having had a decent night's sleep in the comfort of their own beds. In fact they could probably have thrown in breakfast at home, half an hour of Good Morning Britain!, an indulgent muffin from Starbucks,  AND a leisurely walk up the Embankment and still got to Trafalgar Square before the crowds arrived. So what's the deal? Why are you camping, I ask two ladies who look as if they are in their sixties or thereabouts. They are sitting on portable directors' chairs, drinking cocoa. We didn't want to miss it, they say to me, slowly and with eyes widened. They obviously think I'm an idiot. What is it you would be missing at this time of the morning, hours before the parade starts, I ask. They point. All this, they say. I look. Hmm. I can see hoards of fed up commuters, workmen putting up steel barriers, a few cyclists, and...well, that's about it. Where are you from, I ask. Leicester, they reply. Aaah, I geddit. These daily views are my boring bread and butter experience but for those visiting the metropolis this represents the hub of people watching activity. I ask some more people a few feet up. They have just emerged from their portable tent. We're from Brentwood, the guy answers, with a strong Essex lilt. But you could have come in on the train, I say. Yeah, he says, scratching his bottom and stretching his back, which cracks in several places. But it wouldn't have been half as much fun. I am gobsmacked. Nope, I'm not getting this at all. Camping out on concrete streets by choice? I'm missing something here. But perhaps this is not surprising. I have always been neuralgic about camping. Only once was I persuaded to spend a night in a tent. It was in a game reserve in South Africa, and frankly the only thing not mod-connish about it was the tent itself. Otherwise there were beds, heaters, an en suite (roofless) bathroom complete with shower...the works. We settle in for the night. Round about 11pm lions walk into the camp. They stand just a few feet from my head. All that separates us is canvas. I quiver with fear. After a few hours of roaring and making that weird gulping noise that lions do when they are having a bit of a chat, they wander off and in the silence I hear scrabbling. The tent has been visited by rats. Several of them. Over the course of the next three hours they chew through everything, including our carefully wrapped food, our suncream, even the electrical cables, meaning no more light or heat in the tent. Because lions are still in the general area we can't leave. This is the most hellish night of my life, spent trying to bop rats on the head without waking up the kids. We fail on both counts. The next day I freak and pack my bags, the game park manager gets upset and offers us  the honeymoon suite in the lodges down the road which are real rooms, I relent and accept, and we have a fabulous second night which I spend generally reminding people that we now have hard evidence of the awfulness of camping. I think of these memories as I walk past the makeshift tents by the side of the park. I get it. Sleeping on the street is part of the whole experience, and if you wrap yourself in a Union Jack you might even be noticed by the media, be interviewed and get your 5 seconds of fame. Me, I think I will stick to my comfortable Alphabeds mattress and skinny latte. And will watch the parade, which will pass right by my office, on TV later tonight.

Middle Class cycling

I am a keen middle class cyclist. What this means is, that I paid not too much for my bike but it had to be new, not second hand; I don't know too much about how to look after it but I do know of a shop a few miles away that does a damn good annual service; I paid a lot of money for rubber tubes to be put in my tyres so I wouldn't have to worry about punctures; I only cycle when it is not raining, though I am not averse to the cold or the wind, indeed cycling in such conditions makes me feel smug, especially when I sail past traffic, unlike when it rains and I just feel very stupid and have to restrain myself from flinging my rubber-tubed bike over the nearest privet hedge and thumbing a lift. Being a middle class cyclist also means that I force my kids to cycle with me at weekends. And let's be clear about this, I am absolutely conforming to type by doing this. If I did not know this for sure, it only needs a test run along the Open Space path which runs through North London to confirm it. I park myself by a section of brook and while my kids make a swing out of abandoned rope and a hopefully solid looking tree, I people watch. It is a guarantee that if I see a kid cycle by, within seconds he will be followed first by his father. Then by a younger kid. Then by his Mother. If it is a girl, the bike and its accessories will all be pink. If it is a boy, he will be wearing a football shirt, whereas his father will be wearing lycra and his Mother will be dressed in a mix of White Stuff and Fat Face clothing. I abhor Fat Face. It screams middle class urban Mum Who Holidays In Seaton, in the same way, unfortunately,as boden clothes do. And in North London, cycling Mums wear this stuff to project the message that they are not serious cyclists, indeed they would far rather be playing tennis at the private club a few blocks away, but they believe in the importance of Quality Time, and since the little buggers won't be shifted from the Playstation by any other means, cycling it will have to be. Followed by a large gin and tonic. For myself, I enjoy cycling, partly out of fear - in the same way that I never really mastered the roundabout when learning to drive, I never actually took cycling lessons and therefore wobble at the first sign of uncertainty, usually triggered by the need to turn right into oncoming traffic, although I have no problem responding to anti-cyclist road rage even if it means taking both hands off the cycle bar, which I think is encouraging for my self confidence as a cyclist. I  enjoy cycling for the physiotherapy challenge - I am still working hard at physiotherapy, and am utterly lost in admiration watching the cycling in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. It is all I can do to cycle up one hill before having to stop, drink half my water and stretch my calves. Rehabilitation of any kind is a huge  challenge if you take it seriously so I can only begin to imagine what paralympic athletes have put themselves through. I consider myself determined - I put myself ona  bicycle a week after I came off crutches and proceeded to crash instantly and ingloriously to the ground, since my new foot had no idea of gravity, no strength, and was suffering a huge identity crisis after its surgery. Two days later I was back on it, again, again and again, until one day passed when I climbed on and managed to stay on for the length of a street. Oh what a brave person am I. But this is a shadow of the killing effort athletes have to rise to. But mostly I enjoy it for the way it makes me feel when NHS ads exhorting parents to tackle child obesity come on TV. Every cycle trip with my kids involves at least half an hour of shouting, cajoling and bargaining, even blackmailing - first to actually get on the bike, then to wear a helmet, then to cycle a bit further than just the end of our street - but bit by bit, we have built up our routine and now we get some miles under our belts. We come back, pig out on Magnum ice creams, and I feel like a Much Better Parent. It is a middle class win win.

Honey Cake

See, Rosh Hashanah was made for someone like me. I am at one of those perfect junctions where baking and stress meet squarely in the middle. Some people eat chocolate when they are stressed, some people drink alcohol, some people work out, others go for long walks or just retire to bed. Me, I bake. And these days the stress is so intense that I have puddings and cakes coming out of my ears. Blackberry rice pudding, made from late blackberries gleaned from the bushes round the corner from my house. White cake, a Magnolia Bakery cookery book favourite, made only because it takes hours and hours of whisking to make perfect and requires such concentration that there is no space whatsoever for any thoughts, especially not negative ones. And now honey cake. Rosh Hashanah is a time not just for eating honey cake. If you are me, then Rosh Hashanah is a time for experimenting with different takes on the honey cake.  OK, so. yesterday it was the classic honey cake.  Today, chocolate and honey cake. Tomorrow, the spiced honey loaf. See, this is the great thing about being Jewish. And the Lord said, make honey cake so you can have a sweet New Year. And the Jews answered, yes but what kind? There are so many varieties. And the Lord said, stop doing my head in with these details, I have more important business over on the other side of the Sinai. This one you are just going to sort out amongst yourselves. And lo, yet another of a billion debates about the Torah is launched. Communities everywhere argue about the perfect recipe, the one that makes a honey cake damp enough, sweet but not too sweet, perfect with tea.  This year I have offered, rashly, to contribute honey cake with others from the community, to be eaten and enjoyed by everyone after the Rosh Hashanah service. Oh yes, eaten. Enjoyed. And compared. Try this one, it's much damper than the one over there and the texture is to die for...it will be a Honey Cake Miss World. Well bring it on. Nigella's honey cake, does not use honey, which is odd and must be a candidate for misuse of language under the Trades Description Act. The Jewish cookery books recommend all kinds of bizarre additions including orange peel, lemon rind, bits of biscuits...some of them sound as if you make them using the leftovers from your vegetable peel recycling bin. The chocolate honey cake was my own innovation and I have to say it has not gone down universally well. Purists would hate it, kids love it on the grounds that anything slathered with chocolate is a Good Thing.  One day, someone somewhere will launch the Crufts Dog Show equivalent for Honey Cake. Until they do, I will continue to have fun and exorcise my stress experimenting. Pass last week's leftover orange rind, would you?

Pest of the Week

I have been commuting up and down the North Circular Road, Eastbound, to visit my sister who is seriously unwell, most days for the last three months. But even before my sister's illness the North Circular Road has been a major feature of my life, since all of my family lives North East of London and I live in North London. On occasion I have varied it with the M25, or hazarded a route through Holloway (here's a tip from me to any of you considering trying this route: don't.) But the North Circular, "when it works" (you have to say this with an accompanying weary shake of the head to achieve maximum effect) is the fastest direct way to get back to my roots and I have driven it literally hundreds of times. So I was pretty surprised to have a landmark pointed out to me by one of my family, that I have passed every single time and never once noticed. Surprising because it is uniquely bizarre. I was going to use the word quirky but quirky does not even begin to cover it. The landmark is on the Palmers Green stretch, on a street corner, and it is a Pest Control shop. Outside their shop they have a large board that says Pest Of The Week. Underneath there is a removable sign, the kind that you slide in and out, and this one says, The Brown Rat. Last week it said, the German  Cockroach, says my niece helpfully. Underneath the sign it says, to find out more how to rid yourself of this pest, call us on xxxx. I love this sign. It's like an anti-landmark isn't it. Most people look out for ice cream vans, bridges or town halls. In North London, it is Pest of the Week. I draw several metaphors from this. Their Pest may be the Brown Rat. Mine is the arsehole in the burnt orange Maserati who speeds past me on the outside lane, having forgotten how to use his indicators, so preoccupied is he with the demonstration of his sexual prowess via his, um, gearstick. Mine is the juggernaut of a Land Rover with one of those utterly pointless "Baby on Board" signs dangling from its back window (ie, because I have a baby in my car this gives me the right to drive a car that obscures everyone else's line of sight and makes for dangerous driving for everyone on the road except for me. Or, I have a baby in my car so you must not crash into me. Obviously, on the days when there is no baby in my car, crashing into me is encouraged). Mine is the Man in a White Van who talks unapologetically into his mobile phone with one hand and swigs beer with the other, pausing only to stick his head out of the window to stare at your boobs, or those of your passenger. Mine is the leather clad motorcyclist who has only just passed his driving test and is desperate to demonstrate his Hell's Angels credentials before he is out of his motorbiking nappies, so to speak. The list is endless (and overwhelmingly male. I know of course that your pest list could look radically different and feature a heavily female majority, including me quite probably, but that is a matter for you and your blog).  Hmm, the next time I pass the Pest of the Week landmark I am sorely tempted to stop the car, jump out, and daub over the Brown Rat in white paint the words YOU IN THE MASERATI WITH THE HUGE EGO AND THE TINY -----. It would do wonders for their business, and send the happiness quotient of North Circular Road commuters through the roof.