Baclava Love

Rache rang me very excited saying that Vasilius, the unhappily-married Greek shopkeeper she met on holiday has just sent her a postcard (with a donkey on it) saying he is coming to London to see her. I can’t see that this is exciting at all, especially as Rachel read THE BOOK on Saturday, and seemed at the time to completely take in all it said about having nothing to do with married men. (The book said that, statistically, the only time a married man is likely to leave his wife for you is in the first three months of your relationship. After that, there’s no chance. And anyhoo, married men are an all-round bad bet in the romantic stakes.) Her reply was that she’s only known him three weeks (or 5 days if you just count the days she spent with him), so she’s a long way off three months. And anyway she’s not sure she wants him to leave his family.
I just feel v.sorry for Vasilius’s wife, who looked about twice his age, was shaped like a bolster-cushion, and had a sad, bitter look on her wrinkly face. And spent her whole time scuffling around sorting boxes, stacking shelves, cooking etc etc while Vasilius flirted with the female customers and gave them free slices of baclava.

Tanning regrets

It’s so strange the way, on holiday, the more tanned you get the more beautiful you feel. And the more men stare. So you get this feeling you are just looking more and more gorgeous. (Also start to feel great about being in a bikini because the tan makes the flab OK somehow, also the beach is full of really flobbly people or people of 70, all proudly wearing teeny bikinis. Also monstrously furry Greek men in teeny Speedos but I won’t talk about them.) And on the flight home everyone is smiling, like members of a new club. And then you get into your flat. (Smelling, strangely, of old dog. And of a mouse that Mirabelle somehow managed to find, half-eat, and hide down the back of the sofa, where it now has maggots. Ugh.)
And the first time you look in the bathroom mirror you reel back in horror cos your face looks suddenly all dry and scaly and flakey and coarse. Horrific. I’m completely slathered in anti-ageing cream now. Glistening like a slug at my desk. It’s so cold I’m having to wear tights so no one can see my gorgeous brown legs that I lavished so much basting attention on. And no one has commented on my tan. I can see one freckly thing on my arm at the moment, that just CANT be a liver spot. Surely you don’t get them at 36, do you? Aaagh.