What's the worst picture anyone has ever taken of you ever?

Anyhow.  I took a look at Facebook yesterday and saw someone had posted a pic of a pal of mine.  ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘That’s a rotten picture. She never looks that mank.  Not in real life.’

And, within a pulse-beat, said friend posted. ‘REMOVE.’

And the poster did that really annoying thing of…’Oh, sorry. I would.  I will.  Oooh, I can’t work my phone…blether blether blether.’

Which actually was quite funny as it was a bit of a case of the biter bit…

‘REMOVE IT NOW.’

Ouch. I felt her pain.  I mean nobody likes having unflattering pictures plastered over the Internet, do they?  As I think I’ve said before, you kinda get used to it as a journalist cos picture editors delight in picking The Very Worst pic they can of the manky writers (why? Basically it’s an old war – picture eds never get taken out to lunch). 

But anyhow.  I figured, as it’s Christmas, I would give you a laugh by posting up the worst picture of me ever taken by anyone anywhere anyhow.  As far as I know.  

Actually I originally posted a Top Ten but then decided that, really, I didn't want to put your off your mince pies and, anyhow...less is more, right? 

So here you go.  The picture that makes me laugh like a drain every time I see it.  From my trip to Walt Disney World with Linda, Becky (yeah, that's the jammy bitch next to me looking cool as a cucumber and bloody gorgeous), Alice, Lulu, Erica, Laura and Mary Poppins.  And I have been promising them for the longest time that I'd post it - but I couldn't find it. Honestly!  But then I did.  

Now. Honestly.  Can you top that?  Cos frankly I doubt it.  But if you think you can, I double dare you to post on your blog and link back to me so I can have a snigger.  

It's a perfect (mouse-shaped) world - except for swine flu

‘Hey, shall we take the stairs? They’re just there, honey.’
‘I don’t think so. Let’s wait for the elevator.’
‘OK, honey.’
Now let’s get this straight. There are sixteen stairs and they go DOWN. And we wonder why Americans get fat? Not that I can talk but, hey you lot were right – I DO feel nearly svelte over here. Disney is apparently keen on ‘healthy choices’ but when one of the ‘must-tries’ is a bucket of ice cream, and when a strawberry daiquiri comes, not just with a strawberry on top but strawberry and CREAM, well – you get the picture.

I’m trying hard but it’s tough to resist fresh waffles and hot maple syrup, particularly when the waffles come in Mickey Mouse shapes with the obligatory ears. I know, I know – am I cracking? Am I turning into a Mouseperson? We were joined at breakfast by Goofy, Minnie and Donald (no, no, stop it Jane, I mean we were joined by people dressed up in big costumes) who posed for photographs and gave us their autographs.
Then we headed out to Typhoon Island, one of the two water parks on the complex. You have to hand it to Disney, it’s immaculate. They’ve thought of the lot. Children don’t ‘get lost’ (which could sound frightening) they’re told their silly parents are lost and get taken to a point where they can identify the errant idiots who lost their offspring. You forgot your towel? You can rent one. Want to keep your stuff safe? Rent a locker. Get thirsty? Buy a refillable mug for just over ten dollars.

I have this thing about the perfect beach day. In my head there is clean pure white sand, soft balmy water and we don’t have to trek for three miles to get from the car park to the beach. In my dreams, there are no sharp rocks, no jellyfish and no cod to nibble your toes as you swim (it happened to me once, I swear it did). OK, well this is it. This is beach perfect. A huge sweep of sand, warm blue water and hey, every 90 seconds a four foot high mega wave swoops out (but fades to ripples by the time it reaches the shallow water where the tinies play).
Early morning or late at night you can learn to surf here, without any of the vagaries of the real sea. You can even learn how to snorkel and scuba dive in a ten foot deep snorkelling tank, looking down at stingrays, leopard sharks and tropical fish.

It’s all so easy, it’s almost scary. The sun is shining and this is a perfect world. It’s safe and the only crimes committed are those against good taste. People swoosh slowly round in rubber rings down the Lazy River which takes them to the next attraction (saves walking). And if you’re feeling too lazy to walk up to the top of the water rollercoaster, hey, don’t worry about it, there’s an elevator to take you to the top. People shoot through tubes and are spat out at the bottom at something ridiculous like 30 mph. Only thing that worried me was if some of them might get stuck and stay jammed in the tube. Maybe they need a width restriction.

I was seduced by Typhoon Island, much to the amusement of the other bloggers. ‘She’s cracking…’ ‘She’s smiling…’ And yes I was. If you want to veg out in the sun with your children right royally entertained by endless slides and waves and amusements, this is the place to come. Is it real? By heck no. It’s a bubble, protected from everything dangerous and nasty and dirty. Except of course, swine flu. Lying in bed this morning, watching the news I heard that several students in Carolina have flu-like symptoms having been to, yup, Walt Disney World in Florida. Just great. Not sure even Disney can find a way around this one. Hmm, masks with ears maybe.



Aaagh, picture won't load. Ah well, you can just imagine the picture of me being cuddled by Minnie Mouse. And laugh. A lot.

Desperate in the House of Mouse

The whole thing is surreal. I am so tired I can barely think straight and my body is complaining that it’s 4am so what the puck am I doing wandering around a lake mingling with people Having A Good Time? Why are all these children up and running around (OK, so it’s 10.30pm on Florida time but still……)? And, while I’m at it, this is term-time even here and these aren’t all toddlers so…. Oh stop being so darn judgemental, Jane. This is Walt Disney World. It’s Magical.

Trouble is it’s hard to feel magical when you’ve got a thudding headache and are still feeling slightly bilious after being force-fed food by Virgin Atlantic. An eight-hour flight and we never seemed to stop eating. Not that I’m complaining – it staves off the boredom. I watched Twilight, which was rather fabulous in a somewhat inane way (miles of footage of meaningful looks and yearning stares – but then, hey, it’s a teen movie). Then caught half of Vicky Cristina Barcelona which was perplexing until Laura told me it was Woody Allen at which point I stopped quite liking it and became irritated. Then endured Revolutionary Road which, while madly intelligent and subtle, was just vein-openingly grim.

At Orlando airport we were met by Sarah, the Disney PR (did I mention that this is a trip for UK ‘mummy’ bloggers – something that perplexed all my fellow bloggers as much as it did me) and sidekick Eddie (who has possibly the scariest smile I’ve ever encountered – flashed on and off like a light switch).
‘Anyone need help with their bags?’ asked Sarah.
‘Yes, please,’ I yelled with fervant gratitude, having stupidly brought the kit bag without the wheels which was digging a two inch trench into my shoulder.
I was expecting Eddie to dash forward but no – he hung back and clutched his folder. Sarah, bless her, offered but that hardly seemed fair. So I lugged it up stair and down escalator, huffing and puffing, with scary spooky Eddie blithely unaware of the concept of gentlemanly behaviour. Either that or he was thinking, evily, ‘ha ha, stupid fat English cow….let her carry her own bag. I shouldn’t be here…..I should be in LA being Discovered.’

As we drove to Disney, Sarah explained why Disney were funding this all-expenses paid trip. ‘While print media is great, a piece appears in a paper and is read once and that’s it. But a blog sends out ripples, it develops a life of its own and spreads through the web.’
Why mothers? ‘Women are the ones who usually pick out the family holiday.’ Fair point.
But aren’t they taking a bit of a chance? While journalists can and often do write glowing reports (on magazines, travel freebies are considered perks and so half the time you’re not getting the opinion of a travel journalist, but of the picture researcher, the sub-editor, the receptionist). Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but they’re so darn grateful to be away from the office that anything looks good. But bloggers are pretty anarchic. We can say what we want and the consensus amongst our group is that as a blogger you have a duty to your readers to cut the bullshit.

Anyhow, we drove through bland flat central Florida and gradually the signs started becoming dominated by Disney. The complex is huge – about the size of Manchester, according to Erica (littlemummy) and I started feeling a bit queasy. This is an entirely fake city – built for nothing but pleasure. As we drove through the famous gates I wasn’t sure if I was heading for paradise or voluntarily incarcerating myself in a cult complex, albeit ‘magical’.

Walking alongside the lake the feeling became compounded. People were smiley, happy, having fun, being magical. One couple wandered by in matching Mouse baseball caps with ears – his plain black; hers white with a diddy veil.

‘Ahhh, wedding mice.’

What?? Oh God, people actually come here to get MARRIED. And, even worse, are happy to advertise the fact by wearing his n’ hers mouse hats. I don’t get it, I really don’t.

My room is fabulous. The food was gorgeous (and I’d forgotten how gargantuan American portions are). The people seem great. But, but, but…..can I enjoy this unreal world? Ah well, time to find out.

All out of sorts

Oh dear. All out of sorts today. Sobbed over the breakfast bagel. Grizzled into my coffee (not the usual decaf so this blog may speed up over the next few minutes and become unintelligible). Crying and low because I’m off on an all-expenses paid trip to Florida? Eh? Well, no. Crying and low because as I waved my boy off to school I could see him grapple with his emotions and bite back his own tears. He couldn’t wave because his arm was in a sling.
Why is it that something always happens just when you’re set to go away somewhere?
Yesterday I should have been packing but it was the last rugby match of the season and a tournament to boot. James loves rugby and is a hugely physical player. He tackles tough and hard and so often ends up at the bottom of a pile of boys. Boys who are getting bigger and heavier with bigger and heavier feet.

As a brief aside I’m getting really concerned about boys’ feet. A classmate of James’ has size 8s (he’s only nine years old). Having a chance conversation with the man in Clarks the other day he said that a sixteen year old came in with size sixteen feet. It’s getting a bit scary really.

But anyhow…..back to the rugby. Third game. Tough match. James took the legs of some massive child and thudded to the ground. Barrel of boys jumped on top. Eventually clambered out and came off limping with a line of stud marks across his thigh. But it was his hand that really hurt. St John’s Ambulance said take him to casualty so we shot off down the motorway and played tag with the various A&E departments. Went to Tiverton (‘it’s further but will be less crowded than Taunton’). Waited ages. Needed X-ray but not open after 4pm on Sundays. They put him in plaster and dispatched us to Taunton. Back up the motorway. Waited ages. They took off the plaster. Examined him again. He needed an X-ray (really?). X-ray inconclusive. Plastered him again and told us we needed to see the fracture specialist. In Tiverton.

Poor lad is distraught. While he had been quite sanguine about my going away when feeling well and with several cricket matches to look forward to, the prospect of my leaving when he was bandaged up and in pain was quite different. He sobbed. Came into bed with me and I sat and stroked his forehead. And felt like a heel. As I’ve said before, I never consider myself the archetypal maternal type but I love my boy to bits. So fiercely that it hurts and never more than when he hurts. It’s a cliché but I really would take on his pain and, while pretty cowardly in the main, would give up my life in a second if it meant he survived.
‘Get a grip,’ said Adrian, ever the pragmatist. ‘He’s hurt his thumb. You’re acting like he’d been given a week to live. At least he wasn’t stretchered off like that other boy, with his neck in a cast.’ True. More to the point, he wasn’t taken off with blood pouring from his mouth and a wobbling front tooth, like his team mate. Ever since I knocked out a tooth at a nightclub (don’t ask), I go cold at the thought of teeth flying. (I know, I know, this sounds like Hermione in Harry Potter - 'we could die or, even worse, be expelled' bit.)

But I live to worry and, having been ridiculed out of concern about his (possibly fractured) thumb, my ever-inventive mind turned elsewhere.
‘Mexican swine fever,’ I said, forlornly. ‘I’m flying to the US.’
‘Florida,’ said Adrian. ‘Not Mexico.’
‘Gulf of Mexico. Close enough. I could catch it and bring it back and infect the whole of Exmoor.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Go and pack.’
Half an hour later I came down wailing again.
‘For God’s sake. What now?’
‘Nothing fits. Nothing goes with anything else. It’s a disaster.’
He bit his lip and I could see him mentally counting to ten.
‘I don’t think I should go.’
‘What? Because the boy has hurt his thumb; because of swine fever or because you feel fat in what passes for your summer wardrobe? Honestly?’
Honestly? I’m tempted to be flippant for the sake of a cheap laugh but truthfully I will miss my little boy. I had been feeling like a fraud about this trip as I don’t think of myself as a ‘mummy blogger’ but hey, maybe I am after all.

PS – will miss Adrian as well, of course….(hi darling! Know he reads this from time to time). Pic is of my two boys whittling (how right and proper is that?)

Er, Disney....

Last week Blackden, next week Walt Disney World. The contrast couldn’t be greater really. I’ve been invited (along with a band of other bloggers) as a member of Think Parents Network. I always do a double-take on being described as a parent as it’s not a label I think of applying to myself (likewise ‘mother’). I’ve never been archetypal parent material and never really ever imagined I’d become a mother. My mind and body went into severe shock when I was pregnant and neither has ever really recovered. I have blundered through parenthood by applying my standard response to any new challenge – a crash course of reading the textbooks then bluff like fury. It’s always worked in journalism. I don’t think I’m a bad parent (I don’t write books shaming my son – at least, not yet) but I hardly think I’m representative.
Also, and here’s the irony – I don’t really like theme parks. Part of being an odd parent is that we have never really done the parks – have never made the pilgrimage to Paris, have never faced up to Alton Towers. My odd excursions (to Legoland and Chessington) have been to accompany friends and their children. I get vertigo and motion sickness and have a very low fear threshold. Consequently I screamed all the way round the baby roller coaster at Legoland and got off (shaking) to a barrage of abuse from parents who had been patiently queuing for an hour only to find that now their children were all sobbing and refusing to do the ride. ‘That mummy was scared – me not doing it’ was the bottom line. Wise me.
I succeeded in getting round Chessington without setting foot on a single ride.

Given this antipathy, I’ve been reluctant to tell people about my forthcoming trip. But the response has been extraordinary. Seems the most unlikely people go gooey-eyed over Disney.
‘Oh, it’s fabulous, absolutely fabulous. You’ll love it!’ gushed one of the mothers from school, who I’d always had down as the ‘trekking across Patagonia by llama type’.
‘Don’t be such a snob,’ said a friend at the pub, rolling her eyes. ‘Suspend your critical faculties and you’ll have a ball. Ah, you’re soooo lucky.’ She went dreamy-eyed and floated off into fond memories of Mickey and the Magic Kingdom.

Even my mother-in-law went into full-on gush mode. Turns out she’s been to Disneyland, Disneyworld, Florida, Paris and Outer Mongolia with her friends (not a child in sight) and LOVED it every time. Now there’s the weird thing. Like MIL and crew, we bloggers (mothers all) are going without a child between us which, to my mind, rather defeats the object. But no. It seems that people (lots of people, adult people) go to the ‘worlds’ sans children. Strange but true.
‘We went without children,’ said another friend on the phone last night.
‘We did?’
‘Yup. Don’t you remember? We were in Florida and felt we ought to have a look. It was full of children screaming, ‘I wanna burger, I wanna nicecream, I wanna ka-ka.’
Silence. Did we really? Ah yes, it’s coming slowly back. I was twenty-something and lean as a reed, wearing cut-offs, a t-shirt and a baseball cap over cropped peroxide blonde hair. We walked down the beach and I noticed that three months of working out had paid off – my leg muscles were actually rippling. Full-on panic mode set in. Can I lose three stone in a week? Florida = sun + coast = swimming = costume = ritual humiliation. Having spent last week writing about the latest Hollywood beauty trends I am suddenly painfully conscious of my:
a) rippling flab
b) eerie gleaming white skin, pockmarked with cellulite
c) two inch grey roots
d) sprouting hair (sorry Milla)
e) grubby finger and toenails.

‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous,’ said my pal at the pub. ‘This is Florida, not LA. You’ll be the skinniest there by a mile.’ Flicking through my photo album, refreshing my memory, I take comfort in the pics I took of the largest bodies in the world, standing like megaliths, fat-swathed ankle-deep in water, gazing out to sea. Let’s just pray that Florida hasn’t gone on a health kick in the last thirty years.


PS – have to say, full brownie points to Disney for taking along a self-confessed sceptic. ‘Can I write what I like?’ I asked. ‘Yes, providing it’s not libellous,’ came the reply. So that’s OK then. Of course, when someone is paying for everything it takes a hard nut to be totally and utterly rude but I will try my hardest to be honest and objective. Yup, even if hanging upside down vomiting. Whether that would be on Thunder Mountain or at the sight of a giant Mickey Mouse cosying up to small truculent children is yet to be decided.

PPS - image shows me and my fellow bloggers - see, I'm getting into the mood already....(he he)