Crepeys/Hagsnet - come to the candlelight!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

As the last thread is now full...

I went shopping today. Never a good idea in Paris if you are fat. Your choices are Ulla Popken (weirdly tight on boobs, like tent over stomach and almost down to knees on 5'8" me, and tops with odd prints on - like a picture of a woman in a hat, smoking, or some odd applique'd stuff like a flower where your nipple should be) or C & A (polyester city, with leopardskin prints in every colour). I CBA to go to Marina Rinaldi. H & M was marginally more promising, but nothing in there really did it for me. I ummed and ahhed over a couple of scarves in Galeries Lafayette, but the queue put me off. I also fancied a new perfume, but nothing I smelled really did it for me either.

So I popped into my favourite shop on the way home and bought a designer necklace. And a kilo of cherries for 8 euros . And now I am drinking a nice bottle of pink fizzy wine.

MrsS hope you don't mind me asking, but are you lacking a nipple.....or has it drifted southwards in the way of a glacier (slow, but inevitable)? :)

Drifted. It is not yet pointing at my feet, but I fear that is only a matter of time.

Evening hags, I'm taking refuge at my PC while DD1's birthday party rages on behind me - they are currently having sleeping bag wars (think sack race with screaming), so I've despatched DH to find them a calming DVD.

Swimming was good; I abandoned them in the pool and watched from the safety of the viewing gallery, then force-fed them hot dogs when we got home (that was DD1's gourmet request). I just have DD2's party next month to worry about.

But I do find parties a little easier now they are old enough to amuse themselves. Two hours with a bunch of chocolate-coated littlies wanting musical bumps and nose-wipes is infinitely more stressful.

LOL at stroke victim! Do any of you ever wake yourselves up with a huge snore? Or is it just me.

We have just returned from our quaintly shite local carnival, having been landed with a fishy little problem. Fresh from a jowl workout on the dodgems, I went a bit soft in the head and gave dd a fiver to go and spend as she pleased at the fair. (DH said: "Why weren't you your usual hardline self? Must have been the half of lager. Or a reaction to watching too many people in clown suits and dodgy Star Wars costumes.") Of course, she comes back with a goldfish. I thought giving live fish as prizes was banned. If not, it should be. Especially to impressionable 12 year olds who "felt sorry for them" and have no bloody idea how expensive it is to look after the our piscatorial friends properly.

So if fishy survives the night, I shall have to spend Sunday morning sourcing a decent-sized tank etc etc. Alternatively, I could just lob him into our wildlife pond, where he will most likely get scoffed by a really big toad.

Stropperella - I hate to tell you this, but I won a goldfish at the fair in 1982. It lived in a glass vase for 3 months as we were waiting for it to die. It didn't die so we bought a proper bowl and weed and so on - we didn't have a pump, probably should have. It lived until 1996 and when it finally died, I was really quite . Apparently, they can live for up to 25 years.

"...if fishy survives the night..." sounds a bit Spartan. Thanks to Horrible Histories, I have convinced DS2 that we left him outside overnight on his first day to see if he were tough enough to make it.

I won a goldfish at the fair in 1976. It lived for 17 years, despite being hooked out of its tank by the cat on a couple of occasions. Get an nice tank - you may have to live with it for quite some time.

Hope you are all up assisting your children in preparing a fab fathers day breakfast.... I'm not, dp on day two of conference and he didn't sleep friday night (finishing paper) I leaving him to sleep to last minute, then will hand him cup of tea and energy bar and shove him out the door....

Miss Schaden - so tell me where you shop in Paris - I'm standard UK 12 - 40 in France and nothing fits my shoulders - and then 42 is too big! I have to buy nearly everything in Esprit! By the way liked your jowls story on the other thread so decided I'd better make my way over to Hagsnet and acknowledge the passage of time.

Hatty - I don't buy anything here apart from the odd scarf or top from H & M. I do all of my clothes shopping in London or New York. Parisian women are like little sticks on legs that can barely hold them up. Their children are similar - DD1, who is 10, is already in age 14 in the French shops, so goodness knows what she will be wearing next year. She is tall, but usually age 11-12 in UK shops.

I have been swimming again . And perhaps rashly, have invited a couple of friends over on the evening of DD2's party (it was that date or not for ages)...I am going to need drink.

Miss Shaden - I agree with you entirely - but I'm stuck here - don't get to London so much as you (although going to UK next week - pathetically excited) . It's just the French women all have these little tailored jackets and I quite fancy one but look like a boxer everytime I try one on - I guess it's just not for me.

DH isn't feeling the Father's Day love today; the DCs are all tired and cranky after last night's sleepovers, and he is feeling like the ref in a WWF wrestling bout.

MrsS - how depressing to be living in the home of haute couture yet unable to find any clothes to buy. I feel the same when I visit Italy; everything is so short/tight/low-cut and.....embellished. I also don't seem to have the build of a typical Italian woman, as I am tall and not particularly narrow.

ew this is a clique thread

they are for C1 C2s

Eh?

Dp staggered out the door this morning - think he was less than impressed by fathers day pressies...
Just been to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and had very nice Bento box (yumm) Tried to buy swimming costume but not easy with ds in tow.....'You are not going to buy that' said in very loud voice

Whats C1 C2s??

My guess would be this.

I thought class and profession were quite separate. Although I have a friend who is an ambassador who claims that this has elevated him to the upper classes. I wonder where the Middletons sit? (Apart from on shapely bottoms.)

mrsSchaden - like your account of trying to shop for larger size clothes in paris (I'm 5'9'' and large). Though I don't live there, go often and find clothes shopping unrewarding - unlike accessory shopping!

I hate Ulla Popken with a passion - who is it for? Always have a look in the Marina Rinaldi when in Paris (rue du Four one of course, not stuffy Victor Hugo) and have got a few good things there, but it's very small and little choice.

Off to Rome and Milan soon - the Milan Marina Rinaldi is my favourite - wide range of styles in all sizes. And cheaper than in London. Will also send me stuff by post, as long as I'm sure what I want.

In London, where I live, when worked in an office got all my stuff from Marina Rinaldi, but now, as a student, actually get most of my stuff online - either from Boden (carefully edited) or M and S Autograph.

Think you have your priorities right re cherries and pink fizz ...

Re clothes hopping in Italy, downside to Marina Rinaldi is one Cointreau has pointed out - ie they are short and I'm tall. But has not stopped me getting some good Marina R. pieces over the years.

How chic, shopping in Paris
I have just returned from Kingston,full of families going sale shopping- children screaming, husbands thinking what a shit Fathers Day they're having.
I did buy a handbag in Esprit and 12 paperbacks in Waterstones.
No sign of cyb in Patisserie Valerie. One day cyb........

I am waiting for the children to stop screaming at each other so that we can go to Disneyland. Should I wear my US flag Mickey Mouse earrings? (Such a thing should, of course, not be mentioned on a style and beauty thread!)

Why do people feel the need to do that? You go on a thread and think 'oh not for me' or whatever, but do you need to post? I think the only clique on this thread is one of slightly older women realising they are not alone! (I find it comforting that I am not the only one who has realised her arms aren't long enough to read the labels in the supermarket anymore, and that age has done something to her body shape that pregnacy and childbirth never could...)

Oh dear, I'd better leave - I'm a B

We went cycling with another family all day - quite a good Father's Day activity if you make sure you keep well ahead of the DC who will be moaning / bickering

I'm actually quite excited to be part of a clique, and I'm mentally pronouncing it "click" like they do in Heathers. It's my first time and I've been on MN since 2003... It's possibly because I have ALWAYS been 40-something, even when I was 15, and I have just been waiting for you lot to catch up.