Admin Alice Castle

Lipstick is power

A text bleeps its way to me in the night. It is my dear friend L, with sad tidings. On our last shopping trip together, I cunningly identified the perfect lipstick for her in lovely Space Nk Apothecary in Richmond. Would she buy it? No, the sun was in the wrong part of the heavens, …

Lipstick is power Read More »

Infestation

I have unwelcome visitors! This is serious. In fact, it’s rather biblical. My kitchen cupboards have become home to a seemingly endless tribe of moths. Not those rather pretty, silvery-goldy things which flutter about sweetly and then munch all your cashmere jumpers on the sly. These are mysterious, pale brown creatures, with the odd fleck …

Infestation Read More »

Oh my dog!

I have been thinking, in these last few days, of getting a dog. Not a real dog with muddy paws and a bone habit, you understand, but a fantasy one. This would be useful in the park in the mornings when I’m getting puffed during the walk. I could pause and pretend my dog was …

Oh my dog! Read More »

I have a dream

The other night, I had a strange dream. It reminded me a bit of Amy Tan’s book, Saving Fish from Drowning, which we ‘did’ in my book club Abroad. It was a huge great tome and pretty much as pointless as the title, but was chosen by a lovely person so we all held back …

I have a dream Read More »

Growing Up

When I picked up Child One the other day, she had unusually pink cheeks. A bit of physical exercise? I doubted it, as she has inherited the full might of my sloth gene. No, it turned out they had been doing a new topic called Growing Up in science. ‘We had to label Private Parts, …

Growing Up Read More »

Foreign Ways

I am becoming rather intrigued by the stunna momma from school. Particularly since I saw her running in the park the other morning. She ran totally like a girl, you know, elbows out, feet splayed, a bit like a duck under pressure. But it wasn’t that which caught my interest. It was the fact that …

Foreign Ways Read More »

Time waits for no woman

There is something wonderfully comforting about time. People have been telling me it’s a great healer for months, if not years, and of course I’ve been completely ignoring them. But something I saw in the playground yesterday did drop that penny definitively. It was one of the more glamorous Mummies (there are plenty of stunnas, …

Time waits for no woman Read More »

Illicit Bang

I have found a new love. Well, of course I have True Love, or the odd sighting of him, but now, thank God, I have a bit on the side as well. It happened quite by chance, as I was doing my Sainsbury’s trawl, forgetting all the stuff I needed like kitchen paper and getting …

Illicit Bang Read More »

To Boden or not to Boden

ONE of the chief benefits of my life Abroad, apart from the Philipino cleaner, free house, car and school, was that no-one else got the Boden catalogue. That meant that not only did my children and I get credited with a certain effortless English elan, but also that we didn’t have toe-curling encounters with the …

To Boden or not to Boden Read More »