Abolish the Polish?

Dahlings, something deeply traumatic happened to me recently, of which I hardly dare speak..

Oh ok, then...here goes..

I just couldn't get the interest up to paint my nails....(quivering voice, loud sobbing, hiccuppy noises, honking of nose etc.)

If this were a nail polish blog, I would caption this as: "OPI Flower to Flower from their 2009 Summer Collection, 2 coats, with topcoat",  but it's not a nail blog and I can't actually remember exactly, though it is OPI

It just seemed soooo unimportant, trivial, needlessly time consuming, pointless....

For a couple of days (WARNING: EXPLICIT DETAILS COMING UP) my nails were bare.  Unpolished.  Au naturel.

This is my lovely friend D totally rocking red nails in her elegant French way

Above Barry M (I know because it says so on the bottle) and below some OPI which I think is called Catch Me InYour Net or it could be Take Me To The Vet, you know how they love their weird names...

But then I realised something really cathartic.  And profound:
Painting your nails IS unimportant, trivial, needlessly time consuming and pointless.

Some Nails Inc bluey/purple which Lovely B gave me, and just look at how my paw is clamped onto the choccie box

And that is what makes it such an enjoyable, worthwhile and therapeutic activity.

Here I am showing how your polish can match random household objets ..or am I about to throw the vase at Mr B???

Also, I realised my OPI Conquistadorable Colour matched my new hot lips top....

Hot Lips top from H&M, not in any way suitable for a woman of my age which is of course why I had to buy it..

Mrs Blighty, philosopher extraordinaire.

Eat your heart out, Bernard-Henri Levy*.



* As I am sure you all know already BHL is a French philosopher, recently rumoured to have been dating Daphne Guinness; I just had a most interesting read of Wikipedia where I was most amused to see he had once used the works of one Botul to refute the arguments of Kant; it turns out Botul is a spoof, cooked up by some French wag; the giveway is that his philosophy is know as Botulism...

Shoptastic

Unlike Daphne, my hair is naturally this colour..
Wearing my new spotted silk scarf from Phase 8 and leopard print belt from Zara

Dahlings, I really feel I have been neglecting my role as deranged marsupial style icon to the masses.  One cannot just leave it to Daphne Guinness.  But recently I have been sooo occupied with riot control, kettling and star charts that I have scarcely had time for matters sartorial.  Do forgive me.

Things have not been going that well on the clothes front. Remember the terrible skirt I bought on-line (now safely returned to the Big Warehouse in the Sky)? Well I have experienced another Nasty On-line Buy - ("Nob") - yes, I have had to invent a whole new word to cover this recurring nightmare. I present my latest Nob.

Dress X- Small from Gap, shurely shome mistake, which explains why I am doing the Monty Python Mr Gumby stance.
Nobs - will the nightmare never end?

 Last week I went for a little light shopping with two Mummy friends. We hit up the local Happy Valley Shopping Centre.

Of course, union rules provide that no mother of male children can pursue retail activities without buying some sort of sporting equipment for said male child.   So we found ourselves in the Sports Shop discussing the merits of size 4 bats versus size 3, octopus grips, knocking in (isn't this what got us into the union in the first place?) and oiling your bat.

Look at these prices - but these are for adult cricketers who take it Very Seriously

  

I wondered whether I should get one of these hats - who knew Philip Treacy sold off the peg numbers like these? 

 

Things hotted up when we went into House of Fraser.  Look at these shoes!  When did shoes get so high? And so fetishistic?

These and the shoes below are Kurt Geiger

The leopard and red ones are very understated I feel, for Minnie Mouse

Look close - these are bugtastic

The result of a plot between orthopaedic surgeons, insurance companies and personal injury lawyers?

The girlfriends and I had a laugh trying on lots of clothes and coming out of the changing rooms in fits of giggles - it was like being a teenager again...  I did not buy anything except for the spotty silk scarf I am modelling in the first pic in this post.

But you can't keep a shoptart down - this week I popped up to London and had a toddle round Oxford Street, ending up in Selfridges.  I spotted this chap by the Creme de la Mer counter, probably about to spend the fee from his latest movie on a pot of skin serum.

Mr Clive Owen

He looked at me with ill-concealed lust  failed to register my existence and so I had a good peruse of the OPI stand and bought this orange polish from their Summer 2011 Texas range.

  

On the right is the OPI polish, on the left  a polish from Accessorize in Starlet, cheap as chips but my goodness, it stays on like a dream

When I had finished annoying the OPI ladies by putting the polishes back in the wrong place (nail polish, bringing people together) and walked back past the Creme de la Mer counter Mr O was still there - bless, either he was lurking, hoping to talk to me or there was some terrible shortage of premium unguents for Hollywood A listers.. He was very tall, tanned and striking, in a dark suit.  But I just know he wouldn't have Mr Blighty's drafting skills...

I faced the ever hectic MAC counter at Selfridges and bought a lipstick called Vegas Vamp.

I hear that lipstick sales are up, an indicator of economic downturn; hear that Mr B? I am not spendthrift, I am an important economic indicator...

I like MAC - they don't take themselves too seriously.  I picked this lipgloss up a while ago - it's got a pic of Cruella de Ville on it, a true style icon indeed, though not dog friendly..

A few other things winked at me and asked me to take them home:

  

Orange belt from Zara

Dress from H&M - I took Piglet and his knitted vest from Winnie the Pooh as my style inspiration

  

Silk dress from Zara

 In fact it was only Mr Owen who did not to wink and beg to come home with me.

Just as well.

He would have hated my moisturiser.

Chaotic and random post

A revived Blighty, in H&M leopardskin scarf arrangement and "vintage" bling from Crooks and Nannies

Only week 2 of boy hols and already I feel out of control. Not helped by my recent malaise (posh way of saying feeling pukesville). But you can't keep a Blighty down! (Actually there is nothing more I would like than to lie languidly in crisp white sheets and recover my strength, but first, my sheets aren't up to it and secondly, I am a Woman, which we all know means getting on with it, Come What May. I am reminded of that Monty Python sketch where a stiff upper lip soldier is attacked in his tent overnight by a tiger. In the morning one of his legs is missing, eaten by the tiger. But he stoically insists it's just a mosquito bite or scratch. I feel women all over the world take the same line daily, I have heard of mothers going to school Nativity plays whilst suffering from pneumonia, for example).

The whole holiday thing seems to be turning into an exercise in Advanced Logistics. I feel I need a campaign room with green table, map and miniature figures as in old WW2 films:

0900 hours Boy 1 and friend to Sailing Course; Boy 2 to Legoland

1600 hours Boy 1 and friend to swimming pool, Boy 2 still in Legoland and refusing to leave

1800 hours Boy 1 and friend home for tea, Boy 2 still refusing to leave Legoland

1900 hours father of Boy 1 friend arrives to collect son

1900 hours +1, Boy 2 arrives home from Legoland

1900+2 Wardrobes R US executive arrives to measure up for wardrobes in boys' rooms; I insist on calling him Cliff though actually his name is Steve

2100 Exhausted Boy 2 gets in bed while Cliff/Steve still measuring up in his room

2100+30 Catch Boy 1 creeping into kitchen and shout him back to bed

2200 Cliff/Steve finally departs having told me his wife doesn't like camping (is this the outdoorsy version of "my wife doesn't understand me"?)

2200+1 I water garden and side gate slams locking me out

2200+ 2 I cunningly remove flipflop and use this to lever open latch

2200+15 Boy 1 tries out Sailing Pre Capsize Exercise Anxiety but is bustled back to bed, again

2200+ 30 Mr B arrives home from work, he looks wistfully towards fridge and I shout at him that the kitchen is now closed..

Gratuitous picture of rose and er, other thing, S, if you are reading this is the rose you and S gave me, it's lovely, thank you!

And all round me are signs that things are Out of Control.

The evil pile of mending, sneering at me

I pulled myself together and resolved to deal with things.

I decided a visit to the stationery shop to source files was needed, yes, my life will be filed, ordered, tidied, under control! I bought this very swish file.

And these files, for boys' holiday work (Ha! I have outlined an ambitious programme of maths exercises, the extent of my fantasy world is awe-inspiring).

But after the stationery shop those wretched aliens intervened once again ( the same ones that kidnap me and force me to go shopping when the Mountain of Ironing needs to be scaled).

I found myself in a little junk shop I know called Nooks and Crannies, which I have now renamed Crooks and Nannies (crooks, well we won't go there; nannies, as there was a really nice young American nanny/au pair in there doing a great job of keeping her charges under control and entertained whilst herself having a life saving break from park/finger painting/potty training etc).

Tray of brooches at Crooks and Nannies, delish!

Above, miniature tea set from Crooks and Nannies, used to keep Schmutter ClutterBelow, ginger jar from C and N, v FF me thinks!

When I got home the aliens brainwashed me and told me to ignore the washing, mending, underpants crisis, shirt button deficit, kitchen bin surplus, etc. No, I needed first to deal with a recent, serious problem I have run into.

I was going to call it Varnish Duplication but the acronym is rather unfortunate (always felt sorry at school for Victoria Dunlop who had no middle name). So I will call it the Compulsively Lavish Acquisition of Polish instead, much better.

Yes, doing swatches of nail colour! The checkout lady at the supermarket the other morning who was wearing some very nice OPI (she couldn't remember the name) (nail varnish, bringing people together!) told me she does this as she is big varnish fan and takes her chart with her when shopping to avoid duplication. Brilliant! An excellent housework avoidance strategy too!

Right, must go, 1100 hours, time for Mandarin for Beginners.