Thursday 11 March 2010

Accentuating the Positive

Oh dear, I really should have come back much sooner to knock the knicker-confessional post off its prominent position at the top of this respectable blog and hide it in the archives. Not sure why I've been absent for so long, apart from the fact that there's been a lot of boring head down over the keyboard stuff going on here (which doesn't make exciting reporting) and not too much hanging out on the red carpet or jetting off to the Caribbean (which almost certainly would).


However, by a huge stroke of good luck and kindness Sally Clements nominated me for a Happy Cupcake Award, and not only is this right up my street (cupcakes being a diet staple of mine, if 'diet' is the right word in this context) but it also saves me having to stretch my poor, tired brain to come up with something to blog about. Hurrah! So, here are ten things that make me happy...


1. Hot bath. Cold wine. Good book

2. The daughters. Even though they leave the lid off the butter dish, towels on the bathroom floor, mugs in unlikely places and apple cores decomposing in the back of the car. It's most illogical.

3. Going to bed in clean, line-dried sheets.

4. Watching the children of friends grow up. So cool to see the tiny tots who used to spread chocolatey fingerprints on your sofa shoot up and blossom into people who teach you how to windsurf and borrow your shoes when they come to stay.

5. The change of seasons.

6. Dancing. Of the late-night, hands-in-the-air, hazy and elated kind in nightclubs with the Mum Mafia, or the Friday evening, in-the-kitchen kind with the daughters and Van Morrison.

7. Gorgeous packaging: cellophane, ribbon and those shiny carrier bags with silken rope handles.

8. Champagne in the daytime. Happy, happy, happy.

9. Thursday nights on the sofa in front of Secret Diary of a Call Girl. (Last one tonight - what will I do without my weekly James D'Arcy fix?)

10. Stories in my head. (They're always really excellent in there. It's getting them onto the page that causes the anguish.)

Thanks Sally - that was excellent therapy. If there's anyone hasn't yet done it (I've been AWOL for so long I'm probably the last) I can thoroughly recommend it as an exercise in positive thinking. I reckon it means you deserve a cupcake too, but since baking isn't top of my list of priorities at the moment I'm going to have to substitute something else. Jaffa cake perhaps?

8 comments:

Rachel said...

Hurrah for positive thinking! And cake.

Great to see you back, India.

Lots of love,

Rach.
X

Kate Hewitt said...

Lovely choices, India, and I concur with all of them--especially the wine and a good book! How is your book going? I know this has been one to wrestle with! Hope you've subdued it into submission....

Donna Alward said...

Champagne in the daytime - definitely. Dancing in the kitchen - most assuredly. And Secret Diary of a Call Girl...well, let's just say I love my cable On Demand feature. Oh, Duncan...

Unknown said...

Thanks Rach - and what's making you happy today, missis? Share!

Kate, still wrestling!

Donna - I just watched the last one. Wahh! (And not so much 'Oh Duncan' as 'Oh. Duncan.' Bad, bad boy...)

Sally Clements said...

I was at a party a few years ago, and Van M was there too as a guest. After lots of drink, he seranaded the table with 'brown eyed girl'. Fantastic (sigh, misty eyed look into the middle distance...)
Great points, India!

Kaz19 said...

I must admit I haven't watched Secret Diary of A Call Girl, but I did watch the last episode last night, poor Belle, and that horrible dastardly Duncan! But she had her revenge in the end, didn't she?.
I have to confess India that I don't like James D'arcy in this, he seems a bit weak, and doing that to our poor girl, he really went down in my hot totty league. But I did adore him in Master & Commander, he was the perfect second in command.
xx Karen

Unknown said...

Sally, that is the coolest thing I've heard for a very long time (ever?!) You LUCKY girl!! 'Brown Eyed Girl' is my anthem for the daughters and surely one of the most fantastic feel-good songs ever, so to have a personal performance is definitely a moment to treasure, and tell your grandchildren about!

Ahh Karen, the odds were stacked against him a bit with this character. But (India assumes a noble, martyred expression) my love is strong enough to see through the surface to the (naked) man beneath...

xx

Anonymous said...

carolc said...

Great post India. Always good to focus on the things which bring a smile to our faces!

I saw VanM in concert in Cambridge at least a decade or more ago. Richard Gere came up on stage as a surprise guest guitarist which was pretty cool, especially when he winked at my starstruck friend after we'd hurdled ourselves up to the front row.

alas doesn't really compete with the brown eyed girl story though...