English things - faff, spiders and paving stones

I've been noticing a few things about living in England recently that I just wouldn't have known about until I moved here. As a public service I'm warning you about them...

This came up by searching 'faff'?!?

Faff
In case you're not sure, to faff basically means 'fuss, flap, bother,' etc. It can be a verb or a noun i.e. "We can't faff around forever" or "There was the usual faff of getting through airport security". You can also be faffing about.

Let me warn you - there is a reason that this is a particularly English word. The flip-side of the beautifully polite and orderly queueing is a notable inefficiency. For example, even large chain cafes tend to have all their staff doing everything at once i.e. making coffee, taking orders, clearing tables (or not clearing them as the case may be). This is vastly slower than the practise in New Zealand of having a dedicated barista and someone else operating the till. I think the general tolerance of crowds and queues leads to less pressure to keep things moving. 

Autumn Spiders
I'm not going to give you a picture of this one! I'm fairly arachnophobic and I've been horrified to discover that it's an actual thing where every autumn large spiders suddenly start coming inside looking for a mate! This never happened in New Zealand (or least spiders came in every so often, but not en masse in one season). So far I've had two in bed at different times, including one crawling through my hair. NOT ON!

Trick paving stones
Here's another good autumn/winter tip - beware of the trick paving stones! English footpaths are covered in all sorts of things from old cobblestones to stone blocks, pavers, concrete or asphalt. If you've got paving underfoot and it's been raining recently, do step carefully. What can happen (and it's happened to me) is that a loose paver gathers a little reservoir of muddy water. When the time is right (i.e. when you step on it), the paver gushes filthy water over your shoes, up your legs and possibly even manages to splash your coat. This will comprehensively ruin your day.

So, just a few handy tips if you're thinking of emigrating or visiting. Are you going to adopt the word 'faff' now? (Try it, it's fun!).

Secret smugness

Confession time - I like myself pretty well. However, a less savoury side of my character is that I have a few traits that I'm a bit smug about even though they're totally unearned.

I know, being smug is infuriating and usually I keep it to myself, but I thought I'd share in the hope that I'm not the only one being being unreasonably proud of things I did nothing to deserve.

Secret smugness no. 1 - Good eyesight
Even though I'm basically monocular, using both eyes together I can read small text from across the room and see animals in the distance as well as being able to do close up things like thread a needle. My party trick is closing my good eye and showing what a huge difference there is in what I can see (my right eye is extremely short sighted).

I haven't had an eye test in donkey's years and I'm thinking I probably should as I may be starting to struggle more with glare while driving at night. So maybe my source of smugness is on the decline?

Secret smugness no. 2 - Not being clumsy
It seems like everyone bemoans their clumsiness and complains about tripping over or dropping things all the time. Not me! It's not like I glide about with the grace of a swan, but I'm more likely to move a vase into a safe place than knock it over or step over a loose cobblestone instead of twisting my ankle. Don't ask me why I've got this tendency, but it's a handy one to have. 

Secret smugness no. 3 - Colour sense
Again, it seems like quite a few people struggle with colours, whether it's choosing colours that suit their skin tone, working out which colours go together or remembering colours to match with new stuff when shopping.  Somehow I seem to have a little switch in my head that clicks over to 'yes' when a colour suits me and flashes red for 'no' when it doesn't. I'm also pretty good at remembering colours to be able to match new clothes, accessories and home wares. And I'm quite confident mixing and matching colours in outfits or home decorating. This isn't something that I've earned in any way, it just is... but again, it's handy.

So, do you hate my smug self now? Do you have your own secret smugnesses? (Please tell me you do and make me feel better about mine!)

Christmas is coming!

Blah, blah, it happens earlier every year... personally it doesn't bug me that Christmas decorations and food start appearing in the shops in September, but I did take pictures of some particularly cute decorations and also some particularly odd ones. On the cute side, Butlers had various woodland creatures made of glass to hang from your tree...

Then there were the ones that headed a bit further out into the wilds of Strangeland... I can see some kids loving the dinosaur one (though it wouldn't show up well in a green tree), but I think the gerkins are a bit pointless. The hamburger one would just make me want a Big Mac!

Then finally, there are the 'you have way too much money and should really give it to charity instead of buying this shit' products. I'm pretty sure I remember this deer being nearly 100 pounds and the large figure with the head of a Scotty dog was around 70 pounds. They were both about four feet high so you'd need a decent sized room to put them in but I guess with that much cash to splash around, that wouldn't be a problem!

So, are you making a list and checking it twice yet? Do you buy extra decorations each year or stick to the same old traditional ones? Fancy any of the above for your tree?

Things they don't tell you about getting older

(This post was written as a guest post for CherrySue Doin’ the Do – you can see it here. )

So, the ‘this is puberty’ books give you the basics but don’t cover all the issues. There are some important facets of the maturing process that the books don’t cover so I feel I need to expose to these secrets to the

world. For example:

Hair

I knew that people grew hair in bits that didn’t have hair before but somehow I thought that was a one-time thing that happened between (say) the ages of 13 and 15. But oh no, I was mistaken! What I didn’t realise (and I’d like to share with any who haven’t entered this reality yet) is that YOU KEEP GETTING HAIRIER! 

Slightly horrifying, but true. My lovely husband, for example, had a few hairs wafting about the nip-ular area in his teens. Those hairs have spread across his chest and down to his tummy to make quite a pelt. He’s now mid 30s-ish. What’s he going to be like at 60? Will I be able to find my husband under the ball of fluff that he walks about in?

Nips

Sorry to get a bit rude, but talking about the nip-ular area, I didn’t realise that all women didn’t naturally grown thumb sized, sticky-out nipples like my mum’s. (How did I come to see my mum’s nipples? She was pretty casual about the clothing issue.). Actually those sticky-out nips are my fault (and my brother’s fault too, let’s share the blame fairly) as we got our early sustenance.  Fair enough.

Spots

Now here’s a really depressing one. Like hair growth, I assumed spots were a teenage phase that we all grew out of. Not so! It’s quite possible to have wrinkles, grey hair and spots. A fact I prove reasonably regularly. The only good thing is that with age comes a bit more skill in washing, anointing and covering up said spots so they’re less obvious (we fondly hope). 

Knees

I recently attempted day one of the ‘Couch to 5K’ app. I alternately ran and walked for half an hour. After about three days my muscles stopped aching then my left knee started protesting. Talking to other folks in their 30s and early 40s, it seems many of them just can’t run because their knees complain too much. Oh well, I didn’t really like running anyway...

So, what about you – are you enjoying these delightful signs of aging or have you been lucky? Anything else you didn’t realise about aging when you were an impressionable teen?