There are two accusations sometimes levelled against me, no matter how politely put or well-meaning, that trigger a toy-throwing episode. One is that I’m a hypocrite; the other is that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I do admit to lots of other character flaws, so please pick on one of those rather than those I don’t have simply because you haven’t fully understood my words / actions in various contexts. An obvious example of a flaw of mine, you might have guessed, is that I’m intolerant of criticism; more accurately, I’m intolerant of unfounded or unconstructive criticism, but I do tend to split hairs, which is another flaw.
As for hypocrisy, an example often cited is, Covid-excepting, I fly abroad on holiday despite spending the last 20 years campaigning against unsustainable aviation. The true story is that Hubby would have us hop on a plane three or four times a year (return journeys) for skiing, sunning, and weekend breaks, whereas I wouldn’t go near the darn things. As a compromise, some time back we agreed to fly once a year to Austria for skiing, and every alternate year for a summer break. However as it turned out, most of the summer destinations we fancied were easily accessible by rail, and we’d end up on a train (and once or twice a river boat) in consecutive years more often than not, and Hubby never demanded we play catch-up with the flight option.
Our last flight was January 2020, to Austria just before Covid hit the ski resorts, and my next flight will probably be to Iceland in June 2022. Hubby is desperate to fly to Spain this autumn for a Macho Mamil break, but he’s getting cold feet not knowing which variant will strike where or when.
Therefore two weeks ago, we took off to North Devon and then Somerset. The weather was kind, we were lucky with the traffic, the countryside and coasts were breathtaking, the hotels were fine and Hubby had found us lots of glorious eateries, from fresh local seafood from a van on the sea front, to a bog-standard-but-hit-the-spot neighbourhood Italian restaurant (where our waitress – who was very sweet – was Asian Indian and the head chef looked like Sadiq Kahn) and Portuguese skewers. Yes I blinked as well but honestly they were delish. Why go abroad when Britain is this beautiful and enticing and relaxing?
Even when I did have a panic attack, the fact that we were in Blighty meant the situation was very easily remedied. Are you ready for this? I’d done a big shop at Boots before hols but had forgotten to pack my eyebrow pencil. The first thing I do every morning (after my second strong coffee of course) is to make my eyebrows visible. Even if I do nothing else, the eyebrows go on. But the first morning in the hotel – no eyebrow pencil in the vanity case. I turned it upside down, even looked in strange places like my walking boots and jewellery case on the off-chance, but no eyebrow pencil. I had to sneak into breakfast with a touch of green eye-liner on my eyebrows that I judged to be the lesser of two evils. Of course being in Barnstaple, it was obvious that there would be a chemists nearby, and I could pop in and grab a new pencil, but it was Sunday and they were all closed. Surely I could put up with looking like a weird Star Trek character for 24-hours?
Except it got worse. Getting ready for dinner that evening, when lashes become just as important as brows, I realised I’d bought the wrong mascara. I’d got mid-brown instead of brown-black, and it only coloured (barely) the lashes instead of lengthening and thickening them. My usually voracious appetite evaporated on the spot, until I’d had my first glass of wine.
By the way, the point of this polemic is to illustrate another character flaw – I can be quite puerile.
Monday morning, pre-breakfast, I dashed through the town to Boots and grabbed a new eyebrow pencil and mascara. All was right with the world once again.
By the way again, I discovered later in the holiday that the useless mascara turned out to be for eyebrows, and it was the proper mascara that I’d forgotten to pack.
By the way number 3 – all this time my shoulder (suspected bursitis) was keeping me awake at night (which it has done for over six months) likely contributing to the above-recounted meltdown, exacerbated by the cause of the necessary Omeprazole-intake to counter the beginnings of a stomach ulcer thanks to too many anti-inflammatories trying to get my shoulder under control. I actually ran out of the big O later in the holiday but that didn’t cause as big a tantrum as the eyebrow pencil. Character flaw number three – or are we up to four now? – I get my priorities wrong; perhaps that’ a sub-set of puerility.
Make-up sorted, the rest of the holiday went swimmingly. I spent a whole day in the Taunton records office researching my family tree and found the exact almost to the inch location of great-great-grandfather Eli’s grave. I had assumed he’d been buried at the church in Cheddar. But he’d actually been buried at the nearby TB home, with many former patients, where he had worked as head gardener. The location of his final resting place was recorded when the home moved all the headstones to the perimeter of the graveyard for various reasons, and one of the conditions attached to the permission (from the Diocese I think) was that all the graves should be laid out on a plan. Then I poured over a 19th-century will and found confirmation that the chap I believe to be my fifth-great-grandfather from church records was indeed the father of my fourth-great-grandfather. And from 18th-century deeds, I pushed the same line back another generation to a ninth-great-grandfather, who died in the early 1700s. How cool is that! I was so excited I almost forgot about the trauma of the eyebrow pencil and the increasing pain in my shoulder having sat hunched under an over-zealous air-conditioning unit all day when it was 78degs outside.
Character flaw number oh Heavens I’ve lost count – I can be obsessive and succumb to addictions as evidenced by the amount of time I’ve spent on my family tree.
Anyway, when we got back to Bucks, relaxed and self-righteous in equal measure, I popped down to the Chiltern hospital to see a specialist about getting a steroid injection for my ruddy shoulder. Ironically it was behaving itself that day, until the quack had finished pulling and prodding and twisting it; then it hurt like billyo and I had trouble driving home – through Aylesbury in the rush hour to rub in the proverbial salt. (I initially wrote “to rub the proverbial salt in” but that would have been clumsy grammar and I’m obsessive (again) about grammar and punctuation.)
The quack (whom my neighbour has seen for her shoulder and describes him as gorgeous – nah doesn’t do it for me, especially after all the pulling and prodding) says it’s not bursitis but a wayward bone-growth plus arthritis plus a ‘dis-attached’ tendon that is probably badly torn or something like that and I should have had something done about it six months ago as it’s only got worse and I shouldn’t have placed any faith in my chiropractor. I’ve got to go back to the hospital today (in the rush hour again) for an ultrasound to confirm the extent of the tear and then I’ll need an operation. Guess who cancelled their health insurance policies when Hubby retired as we couldn’t see them being cost-effective …
Anyway, being philosophical and putting things in perspective (a character strength that partly counters the puerile strain), had I gone through the NHS six months ago I’d probably still be waiting for the initial X-rays or have caught Covid and be no further forward in the treatment stakes; and far too many people have had worse diagnoses and prognoses than my stupid shoulder.
At least I once again have the perfect eyebrow pencil and mascara for my fair colouring, so while receiving the diagnosis I could look suitably doe-eyed for the dishy quack. Is being flirtatious a character flaw? Depends if you enjoy being flirted at I suppose. And if I’m happy flirting but frown at those partaking in extra-marital affairs, does that make me a hypocrite?
And if I have to ask so many questions in one blog (seven including this one), does that mean I really don’t know what I’m talking about?
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