Merry Christmas!!

Lord only knows what I have been doing for the past 6 moths but clearly I haven't been blogging.

There's been lots going on in the FauxSurreyHousehold, the leaky utility is FINALLY fixed & we are now proud owners of a lovely log burner - so we only have the downstairs loo really to do now & I guess we could say we are finished ...!

My work has hotted up significantly and there just seem to be fewer hours in the day!

But - enough of that - Wishing all a very Merry Christmas and a very happy 2015 - may next year be the best year yet!

Tyger! Tyger!..

... Burning Bright ! I have a tale of a Tyger who burned VERY bright recently.

My little branch of Cats Protection (Epsom, Ewell & District thank you!) has recently opened a shop. We have tried many ways of fundraising in the past but setting up stalls in dodgy weather & hoping people will both find us & give their money to us, not the Children's Trust stall next door or standing outside Tesco holding buckets (not allowed to rattle tins anymore!)  has proven to be less & less lucrative. And as CP is a wholly donation funded & volunteer run charity we kinda need the dosh! And a shop gives us far more security.

So, working with head office we identified brilliant premises, (67 High Street, Banstead) managed to gather a huge amount of top quality donations, got the signage sorted & decided on an opening date. And the committee thought it would be nice to have a local celeb come along on the first Saturday and help us publicise our newest venture... the first idea was for James Bowen & Bob the Street Cat - yeah right, dream on!  So on discussion with the Media dept at NCC we identified 3 local possibles - but I was told I needed to give them way more than the 2 weeks notice I was able to give them!

However I am an optimist & have no shame & so I set about contacting these rather famous people! I emailed & made phone calls & 2 of the possibles declined but the 3rd - amazingly - said yes! Tyger Drew-Honey who played Jake in "Outnumbered" and now plays Dylan in "Cuckoo" is a huge animal lover and was going to be in the area that Saturday. It also helped that I somehow managed to get hold of his mums email address (Linzi Drew - a rather famous ex porn star no less!) and contacted her directly & she was AMAZING & helpful & basically set the whole thing up for me!

So I somehow managed to secure a genuine, on TV right now, real proper celeb to do a PA in our little shop! The big day arrived - and so did the hideous rain. It was hosing down & was freezing. Passing foot traffic was poor ... Then Linzi emailed me to say Tyger had missed his train from Swansea ... he was coming to Banstead from Swansea! - so he would be 30 mins late.. phew - late is better than cancelling!

Despite the weather, people started coming into the shop and there was an over representation of teenage girls (!) and we all started to get a bit excited. And suddenly there was a commotion outside the shop - Tyger had arrived and was already posing with our Big Cat (AKA Sacha!) and getting into the swing of things.

And I have to say Tyger Drew-Honey is one of the kindest, nicest, most generous people I have ever met, let alone famous person I have met. He was self effacing, gracious, funny, full of energy, up for anything - he even packed bags at the till for us for 15 minutes! - and he took selfies with the teenage girls and our volunteer staff.



Before he left he gave us an exclusive interview and posed outside the shop for us.



What a coup, what a guy - our takings were well over £600 that day which for a wet Saturday was incredible.


THANK YOU Tyger! And thank you Linzi for setting it all up for us

Paradise Lost

Ah the great trial that is the FauxSurrey Summer holiday. I really don't know why I bother. Yes I attempted once more - maybe flushed with success after last years' huge triumph - to book 2 weeks away from the joy & comfort of my lovely home (and from the KC). We went slightly off piste and booked one week in a spa hotel (I know - ooer!) and the 2nd week in a holiday let. I did all my due diligence and I called the hotel and requested their best room BUT critically with a firm / hard mattress - spinal surgery & all - and then repeated my request with the owner of the holiday let - which was called Paradise but let me assure you it certainly wasn't Paradise by any stretch of anyone's imagination.

  

But let me start with the Spa - Lake Vyrnwy.

The view from our room was spectacular (see right), the room was a decent size, the bed was properly hard - HOORAH! - so my back held up and the food was amazing - delicious, creative, inventive - truly amazing but  .... the décor in our room wasn't brilliant. They clearly handn't got 'round to refurbishing the room we were in yet. We had black mould in the shower cubicle and mismatched furniture ... Not in a funky boho chic way, but in a charity shop, 80's pine chest way. Seriously what do you have to do to get proper luxury in the UK?? Am back on my campaign for a legal definition of luxury!

 

So we went downstairs to discuss the mould issue. But we decided as we loved the view & the bed, we would complain nicely - I took photos of the mould with me so it wasn't a matter of opinion! And with a smile & hard evidence people can't be difficult. 

 

And what a response - the people at reception were frankly brilliant. The power of good service. The receptionist was absolutely lovely & went & got herself a master key & took me on a tour of the hotel and we tested 10 beds in a variety of lake view rooms & to be fair whilst our room was in no way (no way at all sadly) the nicest - decor & amenities wise - the hotel had delivered what I had insisted on when I booked i.e. the hardest mattress in the building! And that is the most important thing as you well know. Still she agreed the mould was unacceptable and that our room would benefit from a couple of armchairs - as it was bank holiday the maintenance people were not in but she got onto getting armchairs as quickly as possible so all good.

 

The manager then tried to move our mattress to another room but as the bed we had was a huge super king there was only one other room it would fit into and whilst it had the view it didn't have a balcony which we really wanted - so the next day when we were out with our complimentary champagne picnic a handyman stripped out the mastic & redid the whole shower, and when we checked out they took 10% off our bill for "inconvenience" - we did not expect that. 10/10  & a gold star award for Lake Vyrnwy.

 

However the 2nd week was not so good. How did I book such a turkey? I was seduced by other people’s reviews & great photography that's how. The photographer seriously is a genius & deserves a medal. And I would love to know how all the people who left the '5 stars' / 'this is amazing' reviews live normally ... I will leave my honest review on TripAdvisor trust me! We went to a place called Paradise, near the Welsh borders. Or Hell as it has been renamed by us. We arrived at the cottage and I was dumbstruck. It looked nothing like the photos. Hoping the outside was no reflection of the inside we entered - and I burst into tears. It was very small, pokey, dark, stank of damp, had ridiculously low ceilings, old squidgy sofas and ridiculously high risers on the wooden stairs - which I managed to fall down 2x (NB this cottage claims to be child friendly!) and a slightly grubby shower curtain that had seen significantly better days hanging over the bath.  Despite my due diligence & 20 minute chat re: spinal surgery / bad back the bed was not what I would call firm, it was bouncy; as bouncy can be. We didn't even risk one night in it - we broke out the emergency orthopaedic airbed immediately as we had to stay come what may - the reason for booking this place was it was convenient to take FauxSurreyStepDaughter to view her new welsh uni. 

 

Then, 2 days in, FauxSurreyHubby's asthma kicked off as alongside the all-pervading damp were reams & reams of dried hops adorning the walls & shoved artistically into fireplaces - a brilliant trap & release system for impossible dust which created a perfect storm. So coughing, spluttering and staggering in pain we packed up the 4x4 and headed for the comfort of home   mere 4 days after we arrived.

 

That said we managed to eat incredibly well in the 4 short painful days we were there as we left the damp house as soon as physically possible each morning, not returning until we absolutely had to.

 

We discovered an interesting tapas bar in Hay on Wye, had a fab Sunday lunch at the Castle House Hotel in Hereford, and had amazing dinners at The Angel & the Kings Head Hotels in Abergavenny, and a stunning lunch with a view at The Falcondale Hotel in Lampeter (left).

 

But the piece de la résistance, the truly unexpected delight was the amazing Bear pub in Crickhowell. I cannot recommend The Bear highly enough. FSHubby had faggots (ugh for me but he waxed lyrical about how divine they were) and I had squid ink spaghetti with oak roasted salmon in a dill cream. Sublime. I could live in Crickhowell .... Maybe we should just buy our own holiday cottage there & be done with it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Days!

Happy Days are here in the FauxSurreyHousehold. And a bit of over achieving thrown in for good measure!

FSHubby was promoted to a big job at his big company recently & is very happy indeed about it and an FSTeen has just aced her A Levels (she got an A star don't you know! That IS impressive!) meaning she is heading off to Uni as planned in September - will be hard to say goodbye I know & so odd not having her here but absolutely brilliant for her to go & get on with the next chapter in her life.

I vividly remember - 32 years ago (yikes) packing up my stuff & the mix of fear & excitement & wondering what life at uni would be like. To be fair I had older boyfriend chaperoning me so I wasn't really alone but it was still an adventure. And one I am so grateful & happy I had!


 
Back in the real world, FSHubby & I have 10 days till we go off on our annual jaunt - think I have sorted all necessities but this time we are starting out with a week in a spa hotel (hurrah) so I will no doubt feedback spa fiascos later in September!

Here comes the summer

Midsummers day has passed (as has the longest day) and the sun is shining on FauxSurreyLand. The KC is spending her days intermittently sunbathing, staring at birds & snoozing, the  FauxSurreyTeens exams have gone (hopefully with a bang not a whimper), and we have had the first pool party rip through the fabric of our FauxSurreySilence (although it is only one & this time last year were almost into double figures by end June and an apology for the din was offered up without any prompting so things could be looking up!). So as I settle down to a corker of a Wimbledon, watch the heat increase & the nights slowly darken (oooh I am already excited about autumn!) there is no doubt that after the soggy winter & iffy spring, summer is here.

I made a promise to myself to get the garden sorted this year and I have been true to my promise. Work has thinned out slightly -  but will hopefully bulk up again in the not too distant future - so I have spent my "resting" days pruning & weeding & planting; and the garden is rewarding me beautifully. The front garden is a mess of white & pink roses & fragrant lavender all topped off with a ridiculously blousy & colourful hanging basket.


The land out back (AKA our lovely huge back garden) is playing host to a riot of colourful bedding plants  - bright red, white & pink geraniums, all colours of pansies, striped dianthus & lobelia are fighting for attention with a huge lavender - alongside magnificent rose bushes (orange & white) and very very happy chocolate vines, honeysuckle & an exquisitely fragranced jasmine.

You see whilst I was cursing as I slopped out the utility on Christmas eve, the rainwater was permeating the depths of our soil and giving clearly very thirsty plants a very long cool drink. Add to that a mild & gentle spring plus the last few weeks of lovely warm sunshine & a few bits of thunder to top up the wetness, and all the plants are all behaving as if they've taken multi-vitamins!

The only "no shows" this year have been my poppies (think a sleeping fox simply squished them by using them as his bed) and the (un)"Miracle Gro" 'flower magic' which promised a carpet of flowers in just 6 weeks. I have just checked the patch where it was sown - 5 weeks on & still bare soil (apart from weeds). Hey Ho.

Life in the Slow Lane ...

Goodness me it's been weeks since I last blogged. Maybe because I am now 50 I have run out of time / energy to share my random thoughts with all. Well that's just not good enough!

So have made some time. What have I been up to? Had an amazing 50th birthday dinner en famille at the lovely hotel FSHubby & I held our wedding reception at. We ordered the 7 course tasting menu for 10 and it was spectacular. Thanks to Stephen & the team at The Chalk Lane Hotel.

Then I hosted an "at home" day and a host of friends & family pitched up with fizz, food & fine gifts. A birthday cake was unveiled, candles blown out, the weather held and even the KC behaved herself!

I then got lost in a flurry of work - which was great - much needed and very welcome - and one project entailed driving to Birmingham, moderating groups for 2 nights & staying in cr*ppy hotels - ah just like the old days when I was a super keen junior exec!

Then FSHubby & I headed north - very north for a lovely week off. We rented a barn conversion very near the Northern Lakes town of Cockermouth - close enough to get to the shops, pubs & restaurants in 3 minutes but far away enough that our nearest neighbours were a herd of cows who came & chatted to us every evening. It was lovely. We ate in a nice but not brilliant (sadly) veggie restaurant, found a great local pub in the shadow of the lovely local church and drank local beer whilst listening to the pealing bells and had our first golf lesson - and we loved it! FSHubby was way better than me but I can see us doing it a lot more.

And the beds were good! amazing - no need for blow up mattress no need for emergency A&E visits.

So now we roll into summer. It has been mainly pouring with rain & very muggy so a classic British summer is on the cards methinks!

Le Grand Demi Siecle

Oh good lord. How did this happen? Tomorrow I will be half a century old ... half a century!! Yet I feel exactly the same (the odd ache & busted back aside naturellement) as when I was 18. How does that happen? The brain stays young & sharp whilst the body & bottom get squishy & saggy and the facial "laughter lines" 
are harder & harder to hide ... all this despite my penchance for spas & sweating & puffing on the trusty X-Trainer at least 3x a week ... hey ho.




And apologies the blog has been bare for a long time; after my complaining "no work, need a job" post I suddenly got inundated and have been pulling 18 hour days & working weekends just to keep my head above water - and to make sure I can go out for a lovely slap up 50th birthday meal - I have booked the tasting menu at The Chalk Lane Hotel for friends & family tomorrow night - the lovely place where we had our wedding reception. Then at the weekend I shall play queen bee & host a heap of my favourite people chez nous & really enjoy the fact I have made it this far in 1 piece!

Work Shy

Long time no blog. But no tangible reason ...

Yes have been busy battling the weather & the constant garden flooding (as has everyone else in this part of Surrey), have had a lovely weeks holiday en famille during the recent half term (FSTeens, Mother in law & sister in law all present & correct thank you), attempted a diet (did 5 days of meal replacement rubbish and gained- yes GAINED - 4lbs so have given up on that. Will follow the super successful highly scientific "eat less, move more" one now) and most recently we had an FSTeen's 18th birthday.

But that is it sadly, that is all I have been up to. Have done no work. Work has been missing. I have done nothing; nada, nowt commercial since November. It's a worry. I have not been sitting on my hands worrying however, oh no. I have been on a big new biz drive & have been calling, emailing, coffee-ing, lunching - you name it I'm doing it, but there seems to be nothing out there - well certainly nothing for me. I may soon have to take the Faux off my blog name...

So I have taken an unprecedented step. I have signed up with head-hunters. I am toying with the idea of a real job. a full time, get on the train 5 days a week proper job. But the more I think of it the more I shudder. 12 years of doing it for myself very happily; am I ready to turn my back on it? To join the great hoards of commuters? To deal daily with people? And what would the KC do all day without me to meow her demands at? No scrap that - what would I do all day without the KC?

O Tell me the Truth about Love

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.




Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.



I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed


Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.


When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

WH Auden



HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL!!!

A dry new year?

Kung Hei Fat Choy for the year of the yang wood horse! Here's wishing all peace, love, health, wealth & happiness

And in many ways I am looking forward to a dry new year. Firstly I am hoping for a stretch of dry weather to allow the water levels in the bog we call a garden to drop so I can get out there and tidy, prune, organise & plant. To be able to walk up the garden without needing wellingtons will be a joy & the KC would like to put her water wings & fishing gear away too!

But the oddest thing is that after a month on the cancer research self imposed no booze "dryathalon",  FSHubby and I appear to have lost our taste for alcohol. We have tried to get it back but to no avail. I am beginning to think that all that drinking we used to do, it was the idea more than the reality we liked!

There we were on Saturday 1st February all excited about the notion of a lovely relaxing glass of wine after 31 alcohol free days. We eyed the wine rack - we pondered - I even popped some fizz in the fridge just in case - then we settled on a much loved (when we were drinking) Barossa Valley Turkey Flat Marsanne, Viognier, Roussanne blend and popped that in the fridge. The sun was setting, the FSTeens were nowhere to be seen (it was Saturday night to be fair!) and I started cooking, with Loose Ends on R4 keeping me company in the kitchen.

As darkness fell, I stood at the kitchen window & watched the solar fairy lights that wrap around the garden trellis twinkle on & I thought - 'ooh here we are this is a glass of wine moment!' FSHubby bounded into the kitchen, we chose smallish glasses, popped the cork (oh OK unscrewed the cap but that doesn't sound as lovely!) poured fairly restrained amounts, clinked a "cheers" and sipped.

And then we looked at each other. And sipped again. Hmm. OK but nothing special. In fact it was a bit ... weird. Maybe we needed to get used to it again.... so we agreed to carry on with our activities & have a few more sips. After dinner & after about one and a half hours when in the old drinking days I would be considering opening the second bottle, I was feeling a bit woozy & barely ready for my second glass! The wine sat there unloved & undrunk. So I got myself a large glass of water which I drank with gusto!

I am guessing that we do need to re-educate our palates as alcohol (wine especially) has a distinctive and definite taste. But given that we saved (allegedly) 44,000 calories between us & likely £400 in 1 month, I am asking myself - do I really want to?!

A farewell to Hedonism

I read today that The Sanctuary Spa in Covent Garden is to close after 37 years and felt a tinge of sadness. The Sanctuary was my introduction to the wonderful, relaxing, self indulgent & completely hedonistic world of the spa.

I cannot remember specifically the reason for the first visit but I do remember turning up very nervous as I was conscious that The Sanctuary was the place where the infamous orgy scene in The Stud (with our very own Joan Collins) was filmed ... and it took a while for me to be able to relax enough to get on the (also infamous) swing & enjoy the experience (despite the fact in the real world it was women only). And I made at least 5 more visits, including one for a hen do & one as  I desperately needed to escape particularly noisy neighbours I had at the time & enjoy proper peace & quiet. It was stonkingly good value too - if I remember rightly it was about £35 for the day with treatments on top obviously, but that entry fee included all the wet areas (pool with swing, lap pool, sauna, steam etc.) and lounging about in a fluffy dressing gown reading magazines!

I have since been to 100's of amazing spas across the world - and even persuaded FSHubby to join me on one occasion! - and have had both great & dreadful experiences. I have been wrapped in seaweed & played whale song whilst someone gently mopped my brow in Florida; I have lain giggling with a friend in Thailand whilst our faces were carefully plied with vanilla & coffee unctions which when removed resulted in us both looking at least 10 years younger; I have had cooling herbal potions applied to (silly) sunburn in Sydney; I had the BEST pedicure EVER in a hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg and I have had massages so soporific I have had to be woken from them!

And by contrast I have been unceremoniously scrubbed with sea salt & literally hosed down as I lay naked & shivering on a marble slab & had to stop someone virtually ripping the skin off my legs as they got over enthusiastic with a very abrasive scrub.

Ah the spa - this FauxSurreyHousewife would not be the same without them - fond memories of The Sanctuary - where will stressed Lady Londoners go now?