Fluff balls

Hello darlings,

I know I promised you the full gen on my protracted holidays, but a certain amount of hissing and booing at the school gates has made me aware that people may not have total sympathy for the Barbados contingent of volcationers. I’ve also taken a lot longer than I thought to scale the mountain of holiday chores so I’ve decided, instead, to do some tidying. There are loads of bits and bobs that have been accumulating in the corners of this blog, like those intriguing balls of fluff the cat leaves under the sofa, so I am going to spring clean them all. They will be interspersed with lovely pics from the holiday so you will hardly notice all the cleansing going on.

bathsheba

1. Spammers – how can I put this politely? – just sod the effing hell off. I have come back to an inbox full of ridiculous fake comments like ‘I love baseball too! I’ll certainly bookmark your page,’ with taglines from a galaxy of rubbish companies that I would not mention on my blog in a million, bazillion years. Do you seriously think I am going to publish your comments and give you a free ad, for something that neither I nor  my readers are at all interested in? Just don’t even bother trying, it’s not worth your while. Plus it’s really upsetting, thinking I have lots of lovely comments from friends, which then turn out to be total garbage from shysters.

2. A big thank-you to Palmers – they sent me a batch of their lovely cocoa butter oils and potions just before I left, and they’ve been so useful coping with sunburn, peeling skin, post waxing dryness and a dozen other complaints that you really don’t even want to know about. Fantastic stuff! It all smells like chocolate, too – sometimes I love this and sometimes I find it a bit much. There is a body butter and lotion with olive oil and shea butter if you’re not keen to smell like a Twix.  As you know, I hope, I never mention stuff unless I really like it and would recommend it to a friend – you, my lovely reader.

3. If you’re looking for a fantastic holiday read, I thoroughly recommend Confessions of a Cake Addict by wicked pixie and fellow mummy blogger Emma Kaufmann. I’ve loved her blog, Mommy Has a Headache, for ages, and found her novel to be the perfect accompaniment to a beach towel, a swaying palm tree and a blue, blue ocean. It’s a rollicking tale of love, Bollywood, Austrian castles, high heels and cake, told as a series of letters between Londoner Kate Pickles and her sensible sister. Excellent!

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4. I’ve been lucky enough to have been awarded various tags by lovely friends – I wrote a list before I went away so I would be organised this time, and of course, I’ve lost it. So please don’t be offended if I don’t pass on/display/show the love the way I should.

5. Ages ago, I started reading Alexander McColl Smith’s second Corduroy Mansions book for an online bookclub. I’m not sure quite what happened but the installments dried up. I was supposed to be sent one a week and they just stopped coming, despite enquiries. Probably no one noticed this and I shouldn’t even draw your attention to it, but I found it quite annoying. I hate not finishing things. I did eventually get the final chapters but an earlier chunk was missing so I rather gave up on the whole thing. A shame, as it was a lovely idea. I’ve decided, instead, to just tell you what I am reading in my own Dulwich book group, which has about eight members. Most of us, inevitably, have children at the same school – but some don’t. We meet once every six weeks or so (this month’s meeting has been postponed due to ash) and we’ve read some great books. This time we are reading All Quiet on the Western Front. If you’ve read it, or feel inspired to, tell me what you think of it in the comments.

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I’m sure there are other bits of fluff lurking, but I just can’t think of them for the moment. Toodle pip!

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