holidays - Nothing good rhymes with Charlotte

The small moments of joy that made 2016 more than bearable

30/12/2016 by Charlotte 4 Comments

img_20160817_133724 I don’t need to mention that this year has been… difficult.

But rather than add to the noise about the horror of 2016 – the deaths of numerous icons, the dream of the first female US president tumbling into the abyss, and the opportunity to spend Wednesday evenings watching people make cake whilst eating cake disappearing forever – I’ve decided to focus on the positives.

Because there’s nothing like a year filled with endless news stories of sadness and despair and a, frankly, terrifying political landscape, to make you appreciate the smaller moments that make up each day. So here are a few of the small but precious moments that made this year unforgettable for me. And I’d love to hear yours too.

Halting mid-order at the bar on Battersea Rise to sing emphatically to Blank Space by Taylor Swift with Ceri. Thank you for your patience, Mr Barman.

Sitting in the British Library with Alexa, working on our separate writing projects alone but together, and rewarding our efforts with door stopper sized pieces of cake.

Hearing my brother walking down the stairs saying “Alright then, dude” to his 10 day old baby son, Jack, who he was about to introduce us to for the very first time.

Having a panic attack at St Pancras station whilst waiting to meet Emma, telling her I was suffering, her saying “You know, I don’t expect anything from you” and it disappearing just as quickly as it came.

Receiving my first ever yes from an editor I’d pitched a story idea to cold.

1am Sunday morning, late January. Standing on the train back to Wimbledon with Sarah, covered from head to toe in sweat after throwing everything we had into Shake It Off. People stare. We regret nothing.

Watching Jack fall asleep on Leon and witnessing the precise moment my husband fell in love with our nephew.

The final seconds of Orange is the New Black series 4. *mouth wide open emoji*

Standing in a cramped pub in Hackney, the windows streaming with condensation, bouncing along as my friend Sara played bass in a David Bowie tribute band and having it confirmed that she is indeed the coolest of chicks.

Purchasing a yellow leather backpack under the guidance of my boldest friend, and never looking back.

Sheffield, August. A whole afternoon with Jen, Matt, Jo and Leon. I discover Hendrick’s, tonic and cucumber. Life becomes even more interesting.

The response I got to a blog called Solitude is good for you, loneliness is not. I thought talking about finding social situations difficult and needing time to myself would make me sound weird. But, as always, it’s never just you.

Reviewing my choice of outfit (below) for a two and a half hour hike between the Cinque Terre in Italy and realising once and for all that nobody will ever accuse me of being outdoorsy.

Dinner, La Loggia, Levanto, Thursday 19 May. We are at our best.

Falling out of a bar at 8.45pm on a Friday night with my two favourite drinking buddies, laughing like hyenas and heading off in search of food, any food, to soak up all the delicious, if ill-advised, margaritas we’d consumed.

Every time I did that particular type of sigh I reserve for when I close a book I’ve loved. (There were 16 this year, if you’re interested).

When Leon and I used our Nutribullet to make margaritas and we learnt the hard way what it tastes like if you line each glass with table salt instead of rock. (Not good, bro).

Watching Jack eat the tiny remaining peas from his dinner that he’d spread around his high chair from the tip of his mum’s finger.

Seeing the way he looks at her.

Demonstrating that I know all of the words to Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre at a wedding and feeling not a single ounce of shame.

The look of amused surprise on my friends’ faces at Thorpe Park when they discovered just. how. seriously. we take roller coasters.

Being taken to Budapest for my birthday and learning that the first rule of wearing a hat in 34 degree heat is: keep the hat on until you can shower your hair back to normality.

Spending a day with my five oldest friends discussing everything – from the super grown up world of marriage, mortgages and babies, to the most immature game of GUESS WHAT XYZ FROM SCHOOL LOOKS LIKE NOW! – and managing to empty a pub with our endless guffawing.

Every single commission, recommission, published piece, and positive comment that confirmed that, writing wise, I’m in this for the long haul.

The three hour masterclass I went to on how to structure a novel. I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes, but at least I know how to find out.

Discovering that, in Italy, having a doughnut for breakfast is not just acceptable but encouraged.

A chocolate milkshake with Rachel. It was 50% catch up and 50% “Charlotte, don’t let this opportunity pass you by – I’m going to help you take it.”

Realising that one of my very favourite things to do when I’m alone is to play No Matter What by Boyzone and sing both Ronan and Stephen’s parts. And don’t pretend you’re not now off to do exactly the same thing.

The expression on Leon’s face when he came home to find I was making homemade burritos for tea.

Going to see Frankie Boyle, Bridget Christie, Stewart Lee, Hans Teeuwen and Luisa Omielan and feeling that special type of excitement that only comes from watching really, really good comedy.

A Wednesday night in November. Stepping onto the escalator at Waterloo and smiling because that evening with those two women just happened.

Every other time I walked away from a catch up thinking “I cannot wait to see that person again.”

When the cat that visits our garden came into the flat and sat on our sofa for the very first time and there was an entire five minutes when I didn’t think she hated me.

My younger brother standing on the platform at Leicester station and pointing through the train window at empty seats because he knew I was worried about having to stand all the way back to London.

All the days I managed to continue living my life despite having a migraine every week for six months. You don’t get to win, I do.

Christmas. Every second of it.

Feeling everything on my family’s priority list silently shift and Jack taking his place at the top.

Standing in the upstairs bedroom of what will hopefully be our new home and seeing our future waiting for us.

The most romantic thing you can do: Be kind

11/09/2016 by Charlotte 3 Comments

20160910_133428 As I unpacked the box of Imodium from my weekend bag I thought – Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

I organised every element of our third wedding anniversary getaway. I chose the destination – Whitstable and then Margate – I found the hotels, I booked the restaurants, I packed a dress that was going to require ironing before I wore it – the very definition of ‘putting the effort in’ – and put everything in place for the perfect mini-break.

But there are some things that you just can’t plan for, and food poisoning is one of them. Yes, on Thursday afternoon, the bloated feeling I hoped was just down to excessive cheese consumption turned into more quality time with our hotel bathroom than I would wish on anyone. To say this food didn’t agree with me would be an understatement. This was the Brexit to my Remain – it wanted to leave and it wanted to leave right NOW. And as much as I can try and joke about it, I was gutted. I’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks and to lose a third of it to sickness was just very annoying.

When you’ve been together a long time, you start to feel like you need to book in time to be romantic. You schedule hours, days and weekends during which to be your best selves – to watch sunsets, to sip cocktails, to eat dinner without the telly on. To pay the other person your fullest attention and remind them that you really do love them more than your phone/X-Box/cat.

But as wonderful as that kind of organisation can be – and it really can – things don’t always go to plan. And what matters is how you deal with that.

Leon has a lot of experience in this area as I have been accidentally unwell on numerous profoundly inconvenient occasions. It happened on our honeymoon when a dodgy plate of rice caused me to get as close as a human being can to exploding, it happened last year in Malta when I stupidly forgot to drink water in 34 degree heat and discovered just how well a body responds to that (not well, not well at all), and it happened right here in our house when the first oyster I ever consumed ensured that it would also be my last.

Charlotte and Leon Buxton wedding day His response is always the same – concern, a couple of gentle reminders that freaking out will only worsen my predicament, and then relentless (slightly irritating at the time, totally wise and sensible in retrospect) instructions to drink copious amounts of water to ensure my continued survival. He then amuses himself doing whatever he likes until I improve. He doesn’t get cross that I ruined the holiday or start asking me for an approximate time at which I’ll be ready to hit the gin again, he just offers quiet reassurance that I’ll be back on the Pringles before I know it and that he’ll be there to peel off the lid. And for that I will always be grateful.

Romance doesn’t always look how you think it will. They don’t tell you when you take your vows that at some point in your life the words “I bought the rehydration sachets you asked for” will be the most romantic sentence you’ve ever heard, but it will, believe me, particularly if your stomach is as weak as mine.

Being romantic isn’t all about buying candlelit dinners and cocktails, although I do recommend a health dose of both. It’s the little acts of kindness that show you care – the text to say ‘Good luck’ before a tricky day, the reassuring hand squeeze across a train carriage table that promises everything will be fine, or the early morning walk into town to buy raspberry flavoured salt replacement solutions that will gradually bring your patient back to life. They may not make it into the photo album, but these are the moments you’ll remember.

This anniversary may not have quite gone to plan but we certainly won’t be forgetting it in a hurry. Not only did it teach us to always choose a hotel that’s near a Boots, but it also reminded us that if we’re kind to each other, we can handle anything. And that’s something I’m up for celebrating every year.

It’s a shame that we missed out on the dinner I had planned and that we didn’t get to see another sunset together, but I can only hope there will be plenty more to come.

And on the plus side, I never did have to iron that dress. Every cloud has a silver lining, you know.

Holidays and learning to love coming home

17/07/2016 by Charlotte 2 Comments

The worst thing about holidays is that they have to end.

I love being away until that part on your final day when you have to admit that you’re not on holiday any more, you’re just a long way from home.

I find it difficult when my welcome in the country or city I’ve chosen for a break suddenly feels like it’s running out. When you’re no longer a resident of your hotel or apartment, you’re dragging your belongings behind you on wheels, and somebody only has to whisper the word ‘passport’ for you to descend into a blind panic, scrabbling around in your bag for a desperate feel of your documents which are, of course, exactly where they were the last fifty times you checked.

We just got back from Budapest. Leon booked us a city break there for my birthday, which is definitely up there with the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. It was 37 degrees on Tuesday and 32 on Wednesday and every part of me felt like it had melted. I recommend only travelling to countries of this temperature with someone who loves you enough to overlook comments such as ‘Even my shoulders are sweating!’ which are really not in keeping with the romantic getaway vibe.

I love these precious times of the year when we get to go away and pretend that we’re the only two people in the world. When our only concern is where we’re going to go for our next Aperol Spritz or, in Hungary’s case, as many glasses of water as it takes to keep us upright. This isn’t real life by any means, it’s an escape from it, and we all need that from time to time.

When the time came for us to come back, I felt the usual combination of pre-flight angst (Could we accidentally go to the wrong airport? Will there be a big queue at the gate? What if somebody sighs when I ask them to move out of my way on the plane so that I can go to the toilet? Do they not realise that will just make me need to go again really really soon?) and post-holiday blues. Why can’t we stay forever, I wondered, as a woman wheeled a trolley filled with miniature shampoos, conditioners, and shower caps by our hotel room. This place has everything we need.

But rather than really feeling down about our trip being over – which would surely be the ultimate definition of a first world problem anyway – I decided to focus on the good parts of what we were coming back to. If we can’t be here, I thought, I want to be in London.

I said to a friend recently that the relief I feel every time I get back to London tells me for sure that this is where I’m supposed to live. She looked at me with surprise because most people feel the precise opposite way. They will say that the relief they feel when they get the hell out of London tells them that they should live LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE LONDON IS INSANE.

We are all entitled to our opinions. But for me this is the place, certainly for now anyway. I don’t mean Leicester Square or Oxford Street you understand, I’m not mad – I mean London in the broader sense. Its billions of opportunities. Its tube system that I like watching documentaries about. The little corner of this city that I call home.

Home is a hard status to achieve. For years after leaving my mum’s house, which was my home for 18 years, I didn’t give anywhere I lived that title. They were just a variety of buildings to which I hauled my complete Beatles CD collection and extensive range of shoes, and in which I slept but did not truly rest.

But with age and relationships and a little bit of cash to make places your own, home comes. I know that my flat is my home now because I fantasise about being in its bath when I’m out at social events. I know I belong in this house because I dedicate specific hours of the weekend to doing nothing but hang out in it. It’s earned the precious title of home because it’s the base to which my husband and I return each day to chat, to eat snacks, and to recover from having to interact with other human beings.

So yes, it is a shame to have to leave a hot, sunny holiday and to return to daily life. But what’s most important is that you like the life you’re returning to. Because if you don’t, there’s nothing like having to get on a plane and fly back into reality to make you realise it. And in that case, it’s time to make a change, my friend. Listen to your post-holiday head, that guy speaks the truth.

But if you do like it, don’t take that for granted. OK, nobody’s going to deliver free tiny bottles of body lotion to your bedroom tomorrow morning, but otherwise you’ve got it pretty good.

5 questions to ask each other before you fly together

23/08/2015 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

This post is also published on The Huffington Post.

One of the best things about being alive is the freedom to go on holiday. But one of the worst things about being alive is people who don’t understand how to behave in an airport or during a flight without making everybody around them want to punch them in the emergency exit.

When you’re in a relationship, finding out whether you can go on holiday and remain happy in each other’s company is one of the biggest tests you’ll face. Alongside discovering whether the other person has the brain capacity to remember when bin day is, it’s the issue most likely to break you.

So before you book anything, may I suggest you ask each other the following questions. Best to check you’re travel compatible before you invest to save having to say “Yes, he/she is a MORON” when the good people at customs ask if you have anything to declare.

1. How much of a sense of humour do you have at 3 o’clock in the morning?

Even the most relaxing of holidays can commence with a crack of dawn flight and a ridiculous o’clock alarm. And with that comes a decision – are you going to see past the early start and look ahead to the sun, sea and only using an alarm clock to wake you up in time to make it down for the hotel breakfast two minutes before it closes? Or are you going to be an enraged, under-slept tool from the moment you wake up until the second you go through passport control on the other side? Because if the answer is the latter, do you really want to use up your annual leave allowance finding out what that looks like?

2. Do you like fighting?

There’s a lot of potential argument material during a flight. You could fight about the weight of your luggage and whether you really do need to bring a litre of After Sun with you; about whether you enjoyed being searched by that rather attractive guard at security; or about which one of you deserves to get the aisle seat – the person with the longest legs, or the person who SACRIFICES EVERYTHING FOR THIS RELATIONSHIP. Or you could commit wholeheartedly to just being pleased to be going away and to have the opportunity to justify spending €10 on a packet of Pringles. Up to you.

3. What does airport time mean to you?

Do you see an airport as a brightly lit shopping box, filled with last minute purchasing opportunities, drinking holes, and snacks-a-plenty, or as a pale walled holding pen in which you will stand firmly beneath the flight information screen until your gate is announced and you leg it there, knocking any man, woman or child who dares to get in your way to the ground with the sharp end of your wheelie suitcase? You need to know what kind of person you have chosen to spend your life with (and if they’re in the second group, you need to confiscate their passport).

4. How fond are you of sighing?

You know that gentle breeze that flows through every airport across the world? That’s not happening because someone left a door open or because an air steward is using an extra high powered hairdryer; it’s because at least 50% of the airport population is always sighing. And maybe you like that – maybe you’re one of them. But either way you need to know – either so that you can run for the hills as fast as you can because ohforgoodnesssake, or so that you can set yourselves regular alarms to remind you to breathe in as well as out. Seriously guys, be careful.

5. How much do looks matter to you?

Even the most beautiful of people with the best genes and moisturiser aren’t safe from the horrendous effect that air travel has on the human complexion. But are you going to let that go and remember that everybody will look better after a shower and some real air? Or are you going to feel the need to point out how incredible it is that somebody who looks so close to death is still managing to function? It’s a good idea to talk this one through in advance, otherwise somebody may end up with an aeroplane plastic fork somewhere they do NOT want to find a plastic fork.

So what’s the verdict? Are you heading straight online to book the trip of a lifetime with your soulmate, or are you dividing up your things into ‘mine’, ‘yours’ and ‘for the bin’ and waiting for your parents to come and get you the hell out of there?

If it’s the latter then I’m very sorry to hear it but I think it’s for the best. If you want to feel better, just ask them what day they’ll need to put that rubbish out for collection. I’ve got a feeling their answer will confirm you’ve had a lucky escape.