Is there anything more frightening than make up counters?

As someone who is very-nearly-but-not-quite-thank-you-very-much 40, it strikes me that it's strange how there are still some things that can instill an irrational amount of fear into me. I'm not necessarily talking about those weird phobias that we all have, but more the kind of things that you would think become easier with practice. Silly things like tipping, public speaking and eating spaghetti in public without getting it all down your front.

One thing, however, that still brings me out in a cold sweat is the department store make-up counter. There's just something incredibly intimidating about those immaculate assistants smiling at you from behind a shiny glass stand with their perfect teeth. A smile that's supposed to signal encouragement but more often than not reeks of pity as you hover nervously wanting simultaneously for them to ignore you and take you in hand and sort you out. My experiences over the years have not been mixed, it has to be said. My first ever purchase was a blusher from a Clinique counter that prompted my then-housemate to declare that the makeover was "quite nice apart from the blusher". Plus, each one of them seems to have been obsessed with putting put me in the brightest Barbie pink lipstick they can find.

I've noticed over the last year or two that I've definitely hit a tipping point when it comes to make-up. Once, I used to wear make-up to look older. Going out without it meant I'd get asked for ID ("I'm 35!" I once squealed at the elderly dear in M&S, secretly wondering if they did it on purpose so that people like me would have a story to boast about), answering the door without it meant the double-glazing salesmen would ask if my parents were in (this happened to me at 31. Have I given you enough clues about how wonderfully youthful I once looked?)

Anyway, these days I'm now at the stage where I wear make-up to look younger. I no longer get asked for ID when I venture out without it. Instead, people act concerned and say things like "you look tired, are you ok?"

Then there are the studies and womens' magazines that tell us things like "36 is the optimum face age" or "women at best at 30, start to age at 41". Plus stuff about how wearing the same "look" you've been wearing since you were 20 isn't flattering once you get past 35. Much as you tell yourself you are above that stuff, eventually the insidious messages get to you. So you finally pluck up the courage to approach the women nearly half your age on a random make-up counter.

"Can I 'elp you?" she says. (Winning smile. French accent)
"mumble...mumble..update look...mumble...mumble..." (pick up random highlighter pen hoping it will leap onto my face and instantly cover up my blushes).

Thankfully she takes charge straight away, and sets to work with a random selection of products, all the time oohing and aaahing over my bone structure and my skin colour, and I'm finally starting to relax. We even converse in my rusty French, and I teach her the word "oomph" for "'ow you say in Eenglish, ze peps?"

It's all going swimmingly. Until, that is, she delivers that killer line: "Ah, I zink we 'ave similar skin. I 'ope mine is as good when I get to your age".

I'm sticking to Boots in future.

via Beauty Blitz

In the words of UB40.

It's funny how there are some songs that you don't think of for -quite literally - years, and then something happens that means you CAN'T GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD.



Our kitchen is a fairly standard Victorian single-storey affair stuck on the back of our house, with only a tiny loft space above it. When we moved in, we had the roof re-felted, and the roofers told me at the time that they had found traces of what they thought were rat droppings in the roof space. Anyway, they blocked up the obvious holes, put new felt down and re-laid the tiles.

I hadn't really thought about it too much until I started hearing the scratching. Definite scrabbling. There was no way I could dismiss it as being a bird on the roof, or noises from our next-door neighbours. It was definitely coming from above my head, and the whole "rat thing" came back to me in a flash. So off I went to our friend Google and looked for local pest control phone numbers.

The chap I rang sounded gleeful when I told him my address. "Oh yes, we like it there, come up there a lot"

Great.

He and his colleague turned up within the hour and cheerfully poked about in my drains before poking their heads into the tiny loft hatch.

"No smell of death here, John"

That sounded promising.

"But looks like it's mice"

My heart sank.

"Yeah, looks like a family of field mice have moved in for the winter. My advice - don't do anything, and they'll move back out to the fields in the spring. You may or may not get another family moving in, depends".

Helpful. You see, if there's one thing that freaks me out, it's rodents. Mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils - my dislike even goes as far as guinea pigs. Can't stand them. Except now I appear to be sharing my house with a family of the toothy little critters.

To top it off, the wall of my study (where I spend most of my day) joins onto the kitchen loft space, causing massive paranoia about what might happen should they somehow venture up through my floorboards. I find myself making as much noise as possible - having music on, rolling around on my office chair, typing and talking as loudly as I can.

I'm a nervous wreck.

However, thankfully the lads of UB40 have also helped me come up with a cure:




That's better.

Scaredy Cat, Scaredy Cat, part 2

*

(This is the post I had originally intended to write when I completely digressed and turned the post into one about my own fears and the tales of Gainsborough Old Hall. (Oops, it turned into a post about me, me, me again, didn't it?!))

DD1 (soon to be 6) is scared of the dark. This is immensely ironic as she was one of those babies that could not sleep unless the room was so pitch black that it was impossible to tell which part of the room you were standing in. 

Not only is she afraid of the dark, but this fear appears to be getting worse - it is also starting to apply to a slightly dim light, and it is also starting to manifest itself in the house when the lights are on. No longer is she happy to go to the toilet on her own past a certain time of the day. I practically have to hold her hand at all times. Bedtimes only work as she shares a room with her sister, and with the landing light on and the door "wide open - as wide as it will go". 

I understand more than anyone this irrational fear - I struggled with it for long enough myself as a child. However, I can pinpoint the start of my fears to a specific time and a specific event. DD1's fear seems to have crept up on us with no discernible trigger. 

Am I destined to accompany her everywhere once the lights go out? Will I be spending a fortune on nightlights for every room?

___

*Must buy DD1 this book, such a lovely story!

Scaredy Cat, Scaredy Cat - part 1

I was a bit of a scaredy cat as a child. Frightened of all sorts of things that now seem completely irrational. My biggest fear for a long time, however, was a general fear of the dark, and ghosts and ghouls (I still can't watch horror films to this day!).

I can distinctly remember what first caused it in me; some friends of my parents lived (and still live) in Lincolnshire. The lady of the house (J) was a blue badge tourist guide for the county, and visiting them was always a fascinating insider's guide to the county's landmarks. One day, we went to visit Gainsborough Old Hall, a medieval English Heritage property with an imposing tower.

On the trip there, J recounted the story of the ghost of Gainsborough Old Hall - the Grey Lady. She was, apparently, the daughter of a local nobleman who had fallen in love with a farm worker and was subsequently locked up in the Hall by her father, where she was apparently driven to suicide. Since then, her ghost has been seen wandering the corridors, and doing that clever ghosty trick of walking through walls. There are also tales of another young lady that has been seen there, and a quick google search reveals an article in the local paper from 2008 that shows the appearance of a mysterious orb .

Suffice to say, being young and easily frightened, by the time we reached the property, I had a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. This was not helped by a sign in the "haunted" corridor recounting the story again in some detail, with a helpful sketch of what the Grey Lady might look like were to encounter her. (Perhaps unsurprisingly; grey and ghost like).

For years afterwards - well into my teens - the story of the Grey Lady stayed with me. More than anything, it was the one thing that convinced me at the time that ghosts were real. More than anything it was the one thing that made me sick with fright if I had to go to the toilet at night.

These days of course, I am way too old and cynical to believe in any of that nonsense. Every now and then, however, I still hesitate in a dimly-lit corridor...

Defence Mechanism

Recently I've been feeling off-balance, unsure, permanently on the back foot.

This feeling seems to have crept up on me slowly. The thing is, I know exactly what is causing it. I know exactly what I "should" be doing to tackle it head-on. Instead, I bury my head in the sand. I ignore it and hope it goes away. I have never been good at confrontations. I hate conflict. I procrastinate and let myself get distracted. The more I do this, the worse it gets. The problem grows and takes on a more sinister nature until it seems almost insurmountable. I freeze completely. I turn in on myself.

Attack is the best form of defence.

I just need to find a weapon.

Source: Sea Defences by ny156uk on Flickr