My 'rules'

Image source - Creative Commons

As an opening caveat to this post I have to say I HATE RULES! Impose a rule on me, and while I might be meekly nodding my head and smiling at you, inside I'm saying WHATEVER and waiting for you to leave the room before I do just the opposite ;-) I am, sometimes to my own detriment, fiercely stubborn and won't be told what to do. I do however, have a few self-imposed rules...which is what this post is about.

A few months back, I mentioned that inspired by the blog 1001 rules for my unborn son, I would draw up a few rules for my unborn daughter. In fact I wrote this post ages ago but what with one thing and another I never got round to posting it. Of course I haven’t called the post ‘1001 rules for my unborn daughter’ firstly because I don’t have the time or inclination to write 1001 rules about anything; secondly because I am single and having a daughter feels like a very, very long way off; and thirdly, I’m sure any future daughter really does not need the pressure of following a whole load of rules before she even exists - plus I secretly hope she's as rebellious as I have always been! I apologise in advance if some of these sound a bit preachy or banal, but really these are a just few little pointers I try to (and sometimes fail to) apply, that provide me with a bit of compass help in the crazy map of life. I would never judge anyone else for not having the same ‘rules’....hmm, or would I? ;-) In any case, I’d have to admit that despite rule 7 below, my house doesn’t always smell of roses, in fact it never does. Ok, now I’ve absolved myself of breaking rule number 14 , here goes, 25 (22 really) rules for girls...

Style

1. Always, always wear a scarf in winter. It should be really soft and never scratch your skin.

2. A good base, blush, mascara and lip balm will make you look fresh as a daisy.

3. Buy seamless knickers to avoid VPL. Flesh coloured underwear is a necessary evil under certain garments.

4. People do judge you on the watch you wear, if you don't care about this they can get lost, if you do, don't wear a watch.

5. Don’t save your best clothes and perfumes for special occasions which may or may not come. Celebrate now.

6. Carry tissues and something to freshen your breath in your hand-bag.

At home

7. A home should smell nice. Use lightly scented candles, wood polish, good quality Japanese incense (which isn't smoky like the Indian variety) or even bake a cake (yeah, right). Open the windows.

8. Do not collect things. In this modern, mobile life they will drag you down. Use the one-in-one-out rule when considering what new things to bring into your home. In the words of William Morris, surround yourself only with things that are beautiful to look at or completely useful.

9. Even if you’re not into cooking, have one starter, two main courses, one salad and one dessert that you can prepare well.

10. Have nice, comfy ‘at home’ outfits and sleepwear, you will feel so much less skanky when DHL drop off that parcel or someone pops by unexpectedly. Spain is a really good place to buy an 'oh, I was just lounging around in this ever-so-sexy leisure suit' outfit. For super cheap and fashionable but will fall apart in months try Oysho, or for expensive and fashionable and will fall apart in months, Women's Secret.

Boys

11. If he likes you, he will call you back, fast. If you have an inkling that your not that into him or that he’s not that into you, unless you are paranoid, trust those instincts - something is probably wrong.

12. Love, for me, is a verb (ok, if there are any English teachers out there let’s not get into a debate about stative verbs!). Which means you don’t just love someone by passively being in madly in love and having delicious fantasies about the object of your affection, but by doing, by actively loving, and yes that includes taking out the rubbish.

13. I had what I thought to be quite a cool relationship rule here, but have since had to delete it as it blatantly doesn’t work :-(

Life

14. Listen to yourself before you criticize others and ask ‘Am I really one to talk?’ Otherwise we fall too easily into hypocrisy and petty judgementalism.

15. The little things count; a kind word, a pretty flower, a kiss or a squeeze of the hand, remembering a birthday. Most of us have such sporadic control over the big things that in a way I think what sums us up just as importantly at the end of our lives are the small gestures we make and moments we share. Cheesy but true.

16. I'm guilty of this on occasion, but eating in public (e.g. walking down the street or on public transport) does not make for pleasant watching. I only noticed this recently on visits back to the UK, where the constant street-munching is so not pretty. When you have to do so make it as discreet and odour-free as possible.

17. Brash, aggressive, mouthy behaviour is as unattractive in women as it is in men. In public at least, be a lady... (after a couple of drinks I am anything but a lady...lol).

18. Know how to genuinely be and say sorry when you make a mistake.

19. Do people favours and don’t be afraid to ask for them from time to time. No woman is an island. The whole asking favours thing is something I struggle with, but I'm getting better.

Travel

20. No matter where you’re going you never need to pack more than 3 pairs of shoes; A comfortable daytime shoe that is smart enough to wear in a sit-down restaurant, an evening shoe, and finally either pool-side or trekking footwear depending on where you going. (I learnt this rule to my peril one shoe-tastic summer in Italy).
21. Try to learn to say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, yes and no in the language of the countries you visit. It will be much appreciated by the locals (usually) and if you can’t be bothered to buy a phrasebook you can get free tutorials on youtube.

Other
22. And finally, don't let me tell you what to do, the rules were meant to be broken :-)

What's your one thing to do in Madrid?

Sometimes, living here, I forget that Madrid rocks! In this video, Charley Boorman (of 'Long Way Round' fame - that series where he travels the world by motorbike with Ewan Macgreggor) shares his pick of the city's delights - courtesy of Amex. It's a short clip but it shows the Palacio Real, the Retiro park, the Templo de Debod (a real Egyptian temple given to Spain by the Egyptian authorities in the 60's) plus the bear and strawberry statue - it actually explains the story behind what has always seemed to me like quite an odd symbol for a city - but hey, if Rome can have two kids suckling a she-wolf then I guess anything goes.

I won't tell you what his 'one thing to do' in Madrid is, but check it out and see if you agree :-)

An evening with me

It's been a hectic week or so and I've been out every single evening for one reason or another. So tonight, I'm enjoying an evening in alone - magazines, a bit of light blogging, then pizza and salad with Top Chef :-)

P.s. the reason I'm bare-legged is because it's 40 degrees here!

Getting a haircut in Madrid – Do’s and Don’ts

Excuse the blurry photo I took of myself post-haircut!

This is something I’ve mentioned before but have been meaning to come back to. Here’s my light-hearted take on getting your hair cut in Madrid:

Don’t expect UK-style ‘customer service’ – in all but the most expensive of hairdressers you will be offered no tea or coffee, you will not be given ‘hair catalogues’ to browse and more often than not you will not get a consultation. In all likelihood someone will wash your hair and the first time the hairdresser sees your tresses they will be wet and he/she will therefore have no idea of your hair texture.

Do expect a great blowdry. I’ve had good cuts and less-good cuts, but one thing that is consistently great here is the news-reader/pornstar blowdry. Ask for ‘las puntas hacia fuera, con volumen’ for Farrah Fawcett style flicks. If you have an event to go to, or just fancy having big hair, DO just have a blowdry, you’ll feel great and it won’t break the bank.

Do expect them to say they’ll only cut off ‘3 dedos’ (3 fingers) only to realise that your hairdresser’s idea of a finger is the thickness of a Lancashire sausage. Isn't that the case everywhere though?

Don’t expect kid gloves. You can get a decent haircut in high street chains, like Marco Aldany, but you may find the treatment a bit rough and ready. If you have knots, they will be yanked rather than teased out of your hair, and your stylist is likely to assume your head has a heat-proof asbestos coating.

Do tip if you want to. A euro is fine, I’ve seen others just pop it into the hairdresser’s pocket so I do the same if their work is good.

In cheaper salons DON’T say yes to all the extras they’ll try to land on you. That means saying no to máscara (masque) and sí to crema (conditioner). The products might be ok, but often some amateurish trainee hair-washer will just plop an expensive hair mask onto the roots rather than ends of your non-towel-dried hair and it won’t take effect.

Do ask for capas finas (fine layers) otherwise your stylist may be tempted to go for ultra chunky ones which may or may not be suited to your hair depending on how thick it is (On average Spanish hair is thicker than anglo-saxon hair so this means the typical layering here is very choppy - which looks great on thick hair, but can leave finer hair looking a little wispy)

If you have dark hair DO ask for 'mechas finas de color caramelo' (fine honey blonde highlights) unless you want thick orange tiger stripes.

Do make use of hairdressing wholesalers – for professionals only in the UK, here you can often go in and buy salon-only products in enormous containers. There’s one on c/Argumosa on Lavapíes – sorry I don’t know the name or number, but if you walk down the street you will see it if you have your eyes open as it’s pretty big – I promise!

Do ask for a baño de colour rather than tinte if you want semi-permanent colour.

If you'd like to avoid all of the above, you can go to Aveda on C/Ortega y Gasset, 2 friends have recommended it to me. Also, if you want to get your hair done by Victoria Beckham’s ex hairdresser go to Lorena Morlote on C/Don Ramón de la Cruz - they used to do Posh’s extensions when she lived here. I went there for a Yuko Japanese straightening treatment about 5 years ago and they cut my hair really well, brought breakfast and massaged half my body. And so they should have to that price. Alas, now I save the pennies by going to franchises like Jofer, but using the ‘rules’ above it normally turns out ok :-)

Anthony Robbins cleaned my house – bad news for bad habits

Source

Ok, I lied, he didn’t, but bear with me while I explain :-)

In an earlier post I mentioned my interest in ‘burly republican* motivational speakers’ and said I would explain myself at a later date! So, here I am - not really explaining myself – more like elaborating on the topic. Disclaimer* I neither know nor care if AR is a republican...lol
Anyway, back on topic. Call it personal development/self-help/what you will – it’s a subject that gets a lot of flack. And I can see why, one can’t help but think that a lot of the people in the field simply have a little bit of information and a lot of balls and are out to make a buck on other people’s insecurities. Perhaps so, but recently I have stumbled accross a few gems of wisdom. It with more than a little embarrassment that I admit to be in the midst of reading Tony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within (blush internally). I’m not sure how it is on the other side of the Atlantic, but in Europe we can be a little cynical about self-improvement and even when we indulge in it, it’s often on the sly, secretly beavering away only to suddenly appear before friends saying ‘diet? what diet?’, ‘I had no idea I could be up for promotion...’. We are very modest I think :-) And perhaps this is just me being cynical too.

So back to ATGW... I got to the bit in the book about breaking bad habits and was about to skip through it. ‘Bad habits, I thought smugly....well, I don’t really have any’. I'm sure my friends are doing a lot of eye rolling right now- lol. Yes I have plenty of negative traits (an awful sense of direction for example) but as for habits? These sections of such books always go on about people who can’t stop eating, who can’t stop smoking, who can’t stop whatever. And I have some weird and kind of lucky self-control thing which means it’s hard for me to get addicted to food or anything else. Then it occurred to me. My bad habits are the things I don’t do, rather than the things I do. For as long as I can remember I’ve been messy at home. Big deal you might say, but it really affected me, as quite unusually for a messy person, I ABSOLTELY HATE MESS! ‘Then tidy up you lazy ass!' I hear the people cry. But I found it near on impossible, just like the person that can’t say no to that extra slice of cake or who can’t get off their butts to do some exercise. I would have done anything (and I mean almost anything) rather than get out the broom. Of course things would get on top of me after a few weeks and I’d have a big ‘blitz’, but then, much like the crash-dieter, following this, the cycle would begin again and I’d revert to my old ways.

So in comes Tony Robbins. Using quite simple methods in the past month I’ve gone from messy Merghani (that’s my surname) to Martha Stewart. Well, not really. But honestly, my house has not been so pristine since God knows when and best of all I’m finding it virtually effortless to keep it that way. His basic principle seems ridiculously basic – you need to get leverage against the habit and for the new behaviour. You have to very very graphically think of all the things you stand to lose by indulging in the undesired behaviour (try to think of exaggerated far reaching negative effects and a LOT of them) – so in my case I would picture myself feeling horrible, unable to find my stuff, unable to invite people round without prior notice so it affected my social life, embarrassment if my family came round, what if one day I had kids and I couldn’t keep the house tidy?? I thought of all kinds of disasterous scenarios. Then you think of everything you have to gain: so I pictured impromtu dinner parties with friends, some of my more expensive pieces of furniture would finally be seen instead of covered in piles of paper, I imagined that with a new level of organisation at home I would be more likely to cook decent meals better which in turn would make me look good, and possibly even live longer (Ok, I’m talking major exaggeration here but that’s how it works).

Another step was to think about the kind of person I see myself as and to ask if that negative behaviour was congruent with that type of person. We all see ourselves as types – the funny girl, the intelligent boy and it’s important for our identity and confidence that we reflect that persona on every level. For example, I like to wear good clothes and generally I’m well-presented and style matters to me. And why not admit it here, I like a bit of glamour. Now would such a person have a messy disorganised home? I think not.

And here’s one final technique, which I think is a really obvious but simple one. Get in the mood. It’s hard to get motivated when you feel below par. So think back to all the things that make you feel good – in my case this is listening to pumping dance music :-) But it could easily be spending time with a pet, calling a friend or going for a massage. I think it would be cheating to include something like eating chocolate cake here ;-) So I put on my favourite music while cleaning - something which people have always done but that I never considered.

Using these methods has changed this little aspect of my life, and the knock on effects have been great: I’m cooking nice healthy meals for myself, it felt great when a friend came to my place for the first time the other day and said how cute it was, I can find my (clean) yoga kit in an instant so I'm never late for class, I feel less anxious, the list goes on. It’s only been a month, but for me 3 months is a habit, so if I can keep it up I really think this will be a permanent change. My example might seem like an odd one, but I’m sure the same could be applied to all kinds of nasty habits from nail biting to overeating. Thanks Tony :-)

Poetry and furniture

Despite a love of words and a love of interiors, for me the two don't mix that well. For some reason I've never been into the written word used as interior decor. I just don't get it when I open a design magazine and see the words pasta and vino stencilled onto someone's kitchen walls. Well, I'm going to eat my words (excuse the pun), as I'm totally in love with this coffee table bearing a beautifully carved (well, hammered)poem, from Sticks and Bricks via DesignSponge. I can just imagine running my hands over those lovely words as I rest my mug of tea on the table :-) The poem is 'a summer day' by Mary Oliver and is a sweet reminder of the fleeting beauty of life and how we need to be 'awake' in order to see it in its full gorgeousness.

I rate... Caudalie skincare

I seem to be rating a lot of products lately. It’s not that I’ve been on any huge shopping spree or that companies are gifting me stuff to review (I wish, on both counts) just that I seem to be enjoying many of the little things I own, and as I’m normally so critical of everything, when praise is due I really like to lay it on :-)

I discovered Caudalie a few months back, I think through the cosmetics review site Make Up Alley which I absolutely swear by (I won’t buy any lotion or potion without checking out the reviews there first). It’s a French line of facial and body care based on the powerful anti-oxidant (and therefore anti-wrinkle methinks) properties of grapes. I’ve been using their ‘energizing’ Pulpe Vitaminée first wrinkle fluid for about 3 months now and I swear my skin has improved loads – much brighter, no-more dray patches, no more evil monster-sized spots (though I’ve probably jinxed it by saying that!). My skinprovements could also be down to other things – washing day and night with Dove soap) and doing tantra yoga – no it’s not that type of yoga. We finish off practice with a full body and face massage – done by yourself unfortunately... I was initially a bit grossed out by massaging myself after working out, but I’ve gotten used to it. Whether it’s the yoga, or the soap, or the lotion, I really like Caudalie – everything smells great and the pricing is quite fair I think (it’s more along the price lines of Galenic than Clarins). Also, Madonna uses it! She uses the Premier Cru range for deeper lines, and if it’s good enough for the queen of pop....

Not satisfied with simply slathering on their creams, I would love to go to one of their vinotherapie spas – which employ the benefits of the nutrients in grapes and wine to make you look and feel damn pretty! They have spa in Spain at the Marques de Riscal (famous Spanish winery) hotel in Bilbao, which was designed by none other than Frank Gehry of the Bilbao Guggenheim museum fame. Spa, good wine and orgasmic architecture – I can’t think of a place that suits me more :-)

P.s. Caudalie products are Paraben free. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I understand it’s something good ;-)

The Marques de Riscal hotel - Source

Source