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 October 2008 Himself banjaxed! Tadhg and Susie get married! Bath Butler! Buon giorno, caras! Much to relate from October. Starting with Himself's ongoing health debacle. Where did we leave things at the end of September? He'd had the MRI scan, wasn't it, and we were waiting for the results? Well while he was waiting, he was in absolute agony and my old friends Solpadol weren't even touching the sides of the pain so I flung myself on the mercy of the neck pain specialist (because it's always easier to do it for someone else, no?) and he gave Himself some (to quote the pharmacist) 'very potent painkillers' - MORE potent than Solpadol! - but even they didn't do the trick so it was late Friday afternoon and we were in Dundrum with Dylan, and Himself was grey and sweaty and glazed-eyed with the pain and I thought Cripes, we can't go into the weekend with him in this much agony so I rang the specialist again but couldn't get him so rang the local GP and they had to see the 'potent painkiller' prescription before they'd do anything and it was all very messy but at the 11th hour, just before the chemist shut, the scrip was faxed through and the lovely Joanne at Doctor Murphy scored a NEW scrip for (and once again I quote) 'opiate analogs', even stronger than the ones that were stronger than Solpadol and if they didn't work, the next step was to admit Himself into hospital and put him in traction and on a morphine drip. God, it was horrific, but I was convinced at this stage that Himself had slipped a disc, and that it would all be fixable but it turns out that no! No disc was slipped! The result of the scan shows he has some sort of degenerative condition where some bone in his neck is growing against 'a bundle of nerves' and that's what's causing all the pain. We looked it up in the net - it's called Cervical Spondy-something or other. I wish I could tell you more but every time I tried to read it, I thought I was going to faint and had to stop before I toppled over and crashed face-first into the keyboard. It's so horrible when someone you love is in pain. I wish I could take the pain from him and feel it myself. (Of course it's very easy for me to say that, as such a transaction is impossible and if it WAS possible, I'd probably waste no time trying to give the pain back fairly lively - 'take it, take it, for the love of Christ, take it!' - as regular readers will know I am a very bad patient.) So he had to take a variety of anti-arthritis pills and madzer painkillers and wait for 2 long horrible agony-riddled weeks for a series of steroid injections. I was convinced that the steroid injections would fix him entirely but no, when the day rolled around and it was steroid injections up the wazoo, the specialist said that physio was the next step and if there wasn't an improvement, Himself would have to go under the knife and have the offending bit of sticky-outy bone removed (ie sawed off.) Meanwhile TONS of stuff was happening. Including poor Himself's birthday. I got him some shaving gel. Yes, it sounds pitiful. But he'd requested it. It's Blade Runner by Origins - do you know it? Himself says it's brilliant, very 'slidey' apparently. I am a fan of Origins and especially their organic range - they do a certified organic deodorant, which has to be a good thing - so I was happy to indulge him in this one small request. I'm sure I must have got him something else, but it was all so long ago, at the start of Oct and so much has happened. Himself shares his birthday with his Dad and it was his Dad John's 80th birthday and we went to Saffron Walden for it, and I suppose between this far more dramatic celebration and Himself's agony, Himself's birthday was somewhat overshadowed. THEN no sooner were we back from England than we repaired to County Clare for Tadhg and Susie's wedding! In Gregan's hotel in the wilds of the Burren, do you know it? Lovely. It rained so much on the way down that the roads were impassible (honestly.) Father Ted was filmed in Clare and do you know the episode when a priest gets trapped in Craggy Island parochial house because the bad weather meant 'they've taken in the roads.' Well, it was a bit like that. Himself, maddened by the cocktail of drugs he's on took a notion to go some bizarre back route known only to him and his fevered imagination and because I forgot that he was out of his head and stone mad, I let him and by the time we'd been driving on a single track boreen for half an hour, getting precisely nowhere it was too late. Anyway, we eventually got to the hotel, and it was a beautiful wedding. The biblical-style rain ceased for the day of the actual wedding and it was blue and blustery and very very beautiful. (I LOVE County Clare.) Susan looked stunning and everyone was very happy and it was all great fun. Newly weds Caitriona and Sean were over from New York and Niall, Lilers, Ema and Luka were over from Prague and apart from the hand-to-hand combat that ensued as we all tried to get a go of Dylan, we had a great time. (Dylan is now nearly 5 months! And the sweetest-natured, smiliest more gorgeous creature you couldn't hope to meet.) THEN no sooner had the dust settled from that than we had to go back to UK for me to do Behind the Scenes at Strictly Come Dancing and this was particularly wonderful because Himself and myself got to go to the actual show for the first time. I will tell you something - EVERYONE on the show gets on so well. I was up close and personal and moving amongst them, filming stuff all day and really, it would be impossible to fake the level of good humour and camaraderie amongst the dancers and celebrities. I know some stinky papers try to make out that there's loads of rivalry and bad feeling, but I saw none of it - the total opposite, mes amies, the total opposite! The night I was there, Lilia left which was awful and now I'm backing Christine because not only is she Irish but she's delightful and a great dancer. Wait till I tell you though, I had the most terrible moment. After the day filming, I changed into a dress for the actual show. Now the dress is admittedly lowcut but I didn't think that was a problem because I'm not well endowed in the knocker area, but I had never before worn this dress SITTING DOWN. For some reason I'd always been standing up and walking and that. But as I took my seat 30 seconds before the live show started, something to do with sitting down meant that the dress no longer hung on my shoulders but began sliding down my arms and I was within a fraction of having my nipples make an appearance. On live television! In front of 10 million people! It was way too late to change into something else and I was IN THE FRONT ROW practically ON the dance floor and sitting beside Mark Ramprakash, which made everything seem a lot more mortifying and mes amies, the HORROR. Time slowed down as I wondered how my nipples would be described in the media storm which would surely follow. Where they normal nipples? I thought they were but once you bring the magnifying glass of analysis to anything, surely you can find things to criticise? The only way for my shoulders and knockers to hold onto the dress was - bizarrely - if I clapped. So I clapped. A lot. Not just at moments when applause was appropriate but - and I never thought I would see the day - I clapped along to the music. And so, to provide moral support did poor Himself. Like a pair of anxious gobshites, we clapped and clapped and clapped. Then to add authenticity, in order for it to seem like we were the types who ordinarily clapped along to music, Himself began to tap his foot with gusto and - it took me only a moment to catch on - so did I. Then Himself tried out an experimental whoop and looked at me for confirmation - would we whoop? - but I decided no, no point drawing extra attention to us, so we didn't pursue the whooping. I'm telling you we were fecking EXHAUSTED at the end, mes amies, absolutely shattered, between the clapping and the foot-tapping and the small quantity of whooping, but I think we got away with it. Changing the subject completely - black lipstick? Autumn/Winter 2008's big look? Well, they can feck off! Just how big an eejit do they think I am? No, I'm doing Bobbi Brown. Bobbi Brown would NEVER try to fob me off with black lipstick. Bobbi Brown is friend to women everywhere. Bobbi Brown (for she is a real person) was once quoted as saying that if it took a woman more than 5 minutes to put on her face in the morning, then something was not right. Last year myself and Suzanne found ourselves being lured to 'take the stool' at the Bobbi Brown counter in Fenwicks in London - not the sort of thing we'd normally do - but it was a riotous success, mes amies! Both of us got made-over and we each bought a few select products which we're both still using to this day and that was over a year ago. I bought a trio of green eyeshadows and it takes me 13 seconds to apply them and do the shading and all that and they guarantee instant glam eyes. This year there's a delightful quartet of highly wearable browns, with a good quality double-ended brush and if I wasn't still so utterly delighted with the trio of greens, I would definitely purchase. Also I have a Bobbi Brown lipstain in a sort of dark red which I got YEARS ago and which I still wheel out when I want a touch of moody glamour around the mouth. Does she do foundations, does anyone know? I must find out. So listen, I'm sorry we've had to suspend replies from the website at the moment. I know that the message says that 'someone from Marian's team will get back to you' and I'm sorry to have misled you but my team consists only of Himself and poor Himself is still in awful pain and using the mouse only makes it worse. He's continuing with the physio and he's got to go back to your man the specialist in 10 days and we'll know then if he has to have surgery. But in the meantime, we won't be able to reply to all your lovely messages. In fairness, I suppose I could do it myself, but I have to write my new book and as always am grateful for any excuse not to sit down and face it. But I HAVE to do it. I haven't written anything since August because of all the weddings and the attendant chaos and I've got to the stage where I'm awaking in the middle of the night and sitting bolt upright, appalled at how behind I've got. Now something nice to end on. I know the world economy has gone into meltdown but we still have to wash ourselves, no? (Mind you, I - like a lot of people prone to depression - welcome any excuse not to get wet. But ANYWAY, never mind me and my revoltingly unhygienic tendencies and can I just add, before some horrible journalist seizes on this fact and wrings a half-page article out of it, headlined with 'KEYES IS SKANKY HO' or similar, that I DO actually wash myself, it's just that I never want to - unlike other people I know like Suzanne, who LOVES wallowing in the bath or Caitriona who is very New York in her approach and is always ducking in to the shower for a quick power hose, the way other people eat Wispas.) Anyway, there's a lovely company called Bath Butler, it's run by a very nice-sounding Scottish girl and she makes delightful bath products and in you are keen on being washed and fragrant, the address is bathbutler.co.uk. There's one called 40 Winks, which is good for before you go to bed, it's got Chamomile and Lavender and other calming, sleep-inducing ingredients. So there were are, October. As I write (Mon Nov 3) it's the eve of the US presidential election and I'm praying that Obama wins. Wouldn't it be utterly thrilling? Wouldn't it be so uplifting and hopeful? I'm just after reading a wonderful book called The Help by a US author called Kathryn Stockett (I might have that wrong) and it's set in 1963, in Mississipi, at the start of the civil rights movement and it detailed the virtual apartheid that existed at the time and it made me sick with rage and sadness, but Himself said, 'But look, it's not that many years later and it's actually possible that a black man might become president of the US!" Here's to Obama! I hope you're all well. Thank you for all your various kindnesses and I'll write again at the end of November. Lots of love Marian xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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Photo © Neil Cooper