ON RELATIONSHIPS - Nothing good rhymes with Charlotte

Want your relationship to last? Be nice to each other

04/10/2015 by Charlotte 1 Comment

Sometimes I have the audacity to use this blog to offer advice.

The words of wisdom I have to offer today sound so obvious that I might as well accompany this with a post about how you shouldn’t wake a sleeping baby, touch a lit hob, or suggest that perhaps an England rugby fan is ready to laugh about the team’s World Cup performance (WARNING: they’re definitely not).

But the number of times I find myself discussing this issue makes me think that maybe it isn’t, so here it is written down just in case.

This week marked ten years since my husband and I boarded the now decade long party bus that is our relationship. (I considered writing something here about the petrol being our love, the steering wheel being our hearts, and the GPS system being our forever-entwined souls but I decided against it in case it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that I was being ironic. Thank goodness we dodged that embarrassment, eh guys.)

And I realised that above all else, the most useful thing this time has taught me is how important it is to be nice to each other. That at your core, sitting quietly below the surface of your relationship, holding you together like roots under a tree, foundations below a house, or a good pair of pants beneath a very close fitting dress, needs to be a solid layer of kindness. Because without it, it’s just a matter of time before the whole thing unravels – and everybody catches an eyeful of your wobbly bits.

I think that part of the reason why this blindingly obvious statement needs to be made is because of how incredibly easy it is not to be nice – to let exhaustion turn you into a short-tempered, unreasonable fool; to let domestic gripes cast a shadow over your weekend, to think that just because somebody sleeps with their head next yours it means that they can read your mind…

So we have to put the effort in.

I know that any time we’ve had a run in, it’s because one of us hasn’t been nice to the other person. We’ve forgotten to think about how something might make them feel, or what sort of state they’re coming to a conversation in. Or, as is too frequently the case for me, I’ve failed to just keep my mouth shut, go to bed, and realise I’m not actually angry at all, I’m just tired and feel like having a strop. (Because guess what, Charlotte, that isn’t a good enough reason).

We all have to learn what it really means to be a nice person to be in a relationship with. I don’t see how anybody could nail it straight away (unless you really are a mind reader, in which case, you must be awesome at it). You just have to care enough to try, and to put the energy into getting it right. Otherwise, you might as well just pack up, go home, and stop wasting everybody’s time.

Despite having the gall to write this down and publish it on the internet, I do not consider myself to be any kind of expert in this area; I just thought that what I’ve learnt might just come in handy for somebody else:

That life is better when you stop and think about how nice you’re really being – rather than just powering ahead and behaving badly.

That behind every good relationship is a constant stream of feedback (sexy stuff, I know).

That loving someone means wanting them to be happy, and that being kind to them is Step One.

And that no matter how long you’ve been together, or how old you are, it never hurts to be reminded to try not to be a dick.

Marriage, sometimes

06/09/2015 by Charlotte 2 Comments

Sometimes he’ll accidentally throw a loo roll down the toilet and she won’t understand what…how did you… they’re so expens…just pop it in the bin.

Sometimes, a couple of days later, she’ll hurl a sock in the toilet instead of the laundry basket, and they’ll call it even.

Sometimes she’ll break her ‘no food in the bedroom’ rule and devour a whole bag of Maltesers on top of the duvet.

Sometimes he’ll find the empty red packet on the floor and resist the temptation to start a discussion about double standards.

Sometimes he’ll go out drinking so much ahead of her 30th birthday that he has to leave her party early to go home and nurse his aching throat.

Sometimes she’ll keep partying, force him out of bed at 3am to let her in the house, and they’ll call that even too.

Sometimes he’ll buy her a new fancy laptop to prove how much he believes in her writing (and to make her weekly exclamations of MY F***ING LAPTOP IS RUINING MY LIFE stop).

Sometimes she’ll cry when she remembers that he did that.

Sometimes she’ll fall asleep on the sofa until 4 o’clock in the morning, after promising she would go to bed in a minute.

Sometimes he’ll come downstairs to get her, and decide not to let the tirade of abuse that comes when he disturbs her hurt his feelings.

Sometimes she’ll get sunstroke, or food poisoning, or eat something that’s too ‘wheaty’ and turn into a quivering, vomiting, moany mess.

Sometimes he’ll use a VERY FIRM tone to tell her that if she doesn’t drink all of the water she needs to rehydrate then she’ll have to go to hospital (and then explain later that that’s just what he sounds like when he’s scared).

Sometimes he’ll show her a clip of a big kick or some good running that a rugby person did.

Sometimes she’ll make the right face to make him believe that she knows why she should be impressed.

Sometimes she’ll manage to figure out the answer to the 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown numbers game within the assigned 30 second period.

Sometimes he’ll look at her like she’s the cleverest person in the world.

Sometimes he’ll suggest going out for sushi instead of cooking food at home.

Sometimes she’ll think – this right here is exactly why I married you.

Sometimes he’ll look at her, panicked and say “I am in no way prepared for our anniversary tomorrow. I’m going into town and may be gone for some time.”

Sometimes she’ll look at him and think – it doesn’t matter. I’d still choose you.

Every single time.

Four years after moving day

03/09/2015 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

I was the hungriest I’d ever been.

You’re always your hungriest at the time, aren’t you. Until the next time when you think, no, this is definitely the one. This time I’m proper starving. That last time was nothing compared to this.

But this was the real deal.

Moving house will do that to you, what with all the packing and piling and dragging of your stuff. It’s enough to make you kiss the cheese and beans on toast that you sit on the floor of your new house at 9 o’clock at night to consume from the only plate you could find. To this day I’m confident: that is the greatest meal I have ever had.

When I walked through the door that September morning four years ago, I went over to the kitchen window of the home I suddenly owned, leant against the washing machine I was yet to be acquainted with and had a little cry.

I doubt there’s ever been a house purchase made that wasn’t loaded with emotion. A shopping trip that significant has to mean something – that a divorcee needs a new address, that a growing family needs more space, or, as in our case, that a young couple was being given their very own one bed, two bathroom step on the property ladder. If that room ratio alone doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, I don’t know what will.

I’d cried when we’d walked out of our solicitor’s office too, after signing all the papers that said that the little maisonette with the spiral staircase was soon to be ours (and also something about ‘conservation areas’ that I still don’t quite understand. Perhaps David Attenborough will pop round at some point? I do hope so.).

“Don’t you realise what we’ve just done?” I said. “We basically just got married.”

My husband wasn’t my husband yet at the time. He was my boyfriend who I’d been going out with for a solid, sensible six years before committing to co-owning any bricks. We’d rented some together – sure – but owning them meant we’d have to paint the walls, and change the lightbulbs, and we’d never really had to do that before (we just moved out if they went. It was easier). There was so much to come.

With a new house comes so many firsts. The first bath in the new tub, the first flower planted in the garden, and the first ‘discussion’ about how, in this house, we replace a toilet roll when it runs out, because we’re not savages now, are we.

And then things get more advanced, more complicated – rooms get renovated, floors get replaced, and tempers get tested like they never have before. What we know is that I have one and that when workmen are late it is short, very indeed.

But this is all part of the game we’re so privileged to play. And four years on with the walls intact and the roof still in place and a pair of sofas that we’re now just days from owning outright (we’ll take it from here DFS, thanks very much), it seems only right to charge a glass –

To the next chapter in this home of ours – to the next Christmas, the next Spring, and the next battle with a complicated bulb. And to that very first night in our very humble abode – with the floor as our chair, and the floor as our table, as we ate the greatest meal we’ve ever had and looked ahead to everything we’d no idea was to come.

45 Years, September and Chance

30/08/2015 by Charlotte 2 Comments

If you’ve read anything about the film 45 Years, you will know that it is most definitely not a comedy.

Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play a couple called Kate and Geoff Mercer who are preparing for their 45th wedding anniversary party. A week before the event, they find out that the body of Geoff’s first love has been found in the ice of the Swiss Alps, 50 years after she fell there. The film is about the impact that this news and everything that came before has on their marriage.

The film is excellent, I very much recommend it. Though I suggest doing what we did and watching it in the middle of the day when there are many hours left in which to feel happy. Like I said, it’s definitely not Wayne’s World.

I love going to the cinema. I love how a great film can leave you with so many thoughts to mull over, and how somebody else’s creation can reflect things that you think and feel about your own life.

It struck me that, more than anything, this is a film about chance. About people you happen to meet, the relationships you have, and the direction your life goes in as a result.

In a week’s time, aside from being September (hope you’re getting excited about Christmas, chums, because it’s COMING) we reach our second wedding anniversary and in a few more weeks it’ll be TEN YEARS since this little duo of ours got off the ground. A month of Prosecco, cards and Leon saying “I really think one anniversary is more than enough” lies ahead. I can’t wait.

Like so many things in life – relationships, friendships, chance samplings of a new kind of cheese – we could so easily not have happened. The night we met I really wasn’t in the mood to go out, and even less so to meet some new dude. But I did and now here we are. It’s good to have at least one good decision under your belt to help reduce the volume amongst all the horrendous ones when they wake you in the night to remind you what a dickhead you’re capable of being.

And, as a result of this almost near miss, when we got married eight years later our first dance was to Pulp’s Something Changed. Because besides being what Taylor Swift would call a ‘sick beat’, its lyrics perfectly sum up just how much of life comes down to chance meetings, and how one life-altering encounter can all of a sudden make all the other ifs, buts and maybes pale into insignificance. (And also because Jarvis Cocker is from Sheffield, which is where we met, and my plans are nothing if not neat and tidy.) Strap in.

When we woke up that morning we had no way of knowing

That in a matter of hours we’d change the way we were going

Where would I be now, where would I be now if we’d never met?

Would I be singing this song to someone else instead?

I don’t know but like you just said

Something changed.

That right there was reason #487 for me to cry all the way through our wedding (and any time I’ve listened to it since, to be honest). I think a lot about how different things could have been but then I stop because they’re not, are they? Because something changed. It sounds simple when you write it down. That Jarvis really knows what he’s doing.

It’s amazing where a good film can send your mind. And I know I’m going to be thinking about 45 Years for a long time to come.

About how striking Charlotte Rampling is. About how sad Geoff made me feel. About how much it made me want a car and a dog (I live in London, these aren’t things people just have). About what I’d have done in Kate’s situation – or in Geoff’s – if a previous love suddenly came back to haunt us. And about the huge role that chance continues to play in all our lives.

If you see it, and I very much recommend that you do, I’d be very interested to know what you think.

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.

You’re on holiday. And it’s OK.

09/08/2015 by Charlotte 3 Comments

It’s OK to wear that dress that’s a bit too short because you’ve spent most of the day practically naked in a bikini anyway and what of it.

It’s OK to promise you’ll get out of the sun after just one more chapter of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please! (and maybe another one after that…)

It’s OK to have Pringles as an afternoon snack even if they’re in no way representative of Malta’s delicious cuisine because you promise you’ll still have room for some of that later.

It’s OK to look at your husband and think that one of the things you love most about your marriage is your pre-holiday airport routine of food, drinks, and panic shopping.

It’s OK to tell people about the sparkly flip flops you bought before your flight for a FIVER like it’s a great anecdote. You know why? Because it IS a great anecdote.

It’s OK to have a few days when you don’t email anyone. In fact, it’s more than OK, it’s DREAMY.

It’s OK that you took so many photographs of the little muffins that were waiting for you when you got to your hotel room because it’s possible that they are the most beautiful thing you will ever see.

It’s OK to sweat in front of your friends. It’s 34 degrees, you have absolutely no choice.

It’s OK to paint your nails by the poolside because that is an excellent use of time, and in this heat those babies will dry in seconds.

It’s OK to look at the family and friends you’re away with and think how incredibly lucky you are to have these people in your life because you are and don’t you dare forget it.

It’s OK that you bought the insect repellent that is slightly scented because it was cheaper. You can use the money you saved you buy bite cream because guess what, turns out the little bastards quite like the taste of it.

It’s OK to start thinking about your next holiday whilst you’re still on this one, because THIS. IS. THE. LIFE.

It’s OK that you’re appalling at volleyball. You have other skills, it’s just a shame that none of them are of any use at the beach.

It’s OK to forget that euros are real and to spend them like they’re Monopoly money.

It’s OK to let a holiday remind you how important it is that you make sure you do what you want with your life. Alongside pina colada consumption, that is exactly what these trips are for.

It’s OK that despite intending to have a few days without any screens you just had to sit down and write this. You just can’t help yourself, can you. But that’s OK.

10 unspoken promises behind every happy relationship

29/07/2015 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

1. I promise that if you stay out later than you said you would, I will not be a dick about it because I am your wife and not your mother (as long as you text me to let me know you’re alive because you know how I worry).

2. I promise not to get cross if you lose your keys because one day I will lose mine and I will NOT thank you for your backchat.

3. I promise to take all anecdotes about run-ins you’ve had with customer service representatives seriously.

4. I promise to tell you if an outfit makes you look bad, mad, or like you’ve accidentally left the house wearing your pyjamas because it is my duty to play a full and active role in keeping this couple looking its most handsome.

5. I promise to let you use my shoulder as a pillow whenever and wherever you need to rest your head (although comments about it being too boney to really get comfortable will not be welcomed).

6. I promise that if we are ever in a social situation and I notice that you have food on your face or in your teeth, I will do whatever it takes to let you know – mime, text messaging, writing in the sky, anything.

7. I promise that if you say TAKEAWAY? I’ll say YES.

8. I promise to always be available to help you rationalise not going to the gym so that you can stay in to eat sweets and watch Ace Ventura/Wayne’s World/Beethoven’s 2nd. In this endeavour, you will always have my unwavering support.

9. I promise to remember that the person you become when our Wi-Fi connection is broken is not who you really are.

10. I promise to reassure you when you wake in the middle of the night, sit up, and start talking to yourself about how you’re going to FIGHT EVERYONE as soon as you work out how to take off this costume made of jelly, that no you’re not, you’re just dreaming, now let’s lie down and go back to sleep.

Don’t look too keen: Why dating rules were made to be broken

29/03/2015 by Charlotte 2 Comments

Dating rules can be ridiculous.

Leave at least an hour between text messages.
Don’t accidentally point at wedding dresses whilst you’re out together.
Don’t do too much smiling in case they think you’re a psychopath.

Urgh, I’m glad to be out of it.

The rule I always struggled the most with was ‘Don’t look too keen’.

Now, this is not because I’m a crazy person with a body secretly tattooed with the name of every man I’ve ever admired (I’m afraid of needles, thanks very much) but because this rule is actually unfinished. What it should say is: ‘Don’t look too keen unless you’re ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE that they are equally keen on you in which case, do what you like’.

The game goes something like this.

Meet someone you like.
Appear interested but nonchalant, like a Coronation Street viewer passing the time with an episode of Eastenders. You’re here, you’re looking, but you’ve just got so much else going on.
Commence dating. Brush your hair and clean your teeth but don’t let them think it was all for them. There’s a good chance you’d have done that today anyway.
Begin to incorporate occasional smiling and physical contact into dates. Maybe even laugh at their jokes but don’t play with your hair. It’ll totally give the game away.
Undertake mind reading exercises/ask a couple of their mates if they’ve mentioned you, to confirm that they definitely do like you precisely as much as you like them.
Say something encouraging like “You’re nice” or “Those jeans fit you well around the waist” to let them know that actually, yes, you are interested too.
Enter balanced, game free relationship. Reply to their text messages when you want and perhaps even answer the phone when they ring you (unless Corrie’s on, obviously).
Get married. State just how keen you are in front of everybody you know.
Schedule regular occasions on which to demonstrate your deep felt keenness throughout the year, such as anniversaries, birthdays and Pancake Day.
Specifically do not appear keen on anybody else at all for the rest of your life, with the following permitted exceptions: David Beckham, Leonard DiCaprio (Romeo and Juliet era preferred) and anybody offering free chocolates, as long as you make sure you get enough free samples for both of you.

It’s an exhausting business. But here’s a thing nobody tells you. That isn’t really the end of it.

If you’re somebody who has worked tirelessly for years to ensure you’re always on the right side of the keenness tracks, taking occasional breaks to kick yourself hard in the shin for accidentally misreading a high-five as a marriage proposal, your guard never quite goes down.

Dating rules were meant to be broken I think it’s because dating teaches us to be so cautious that when we do let ourselves relax, an alarm bell rings inside our heads and says WOAH WOAH WOAH YOU’RE VULNERABLE! QUICK, DELETE HIS NUMBER AND START PRONOUNCING HIS NAME INCORRECTLY! YOU NEED TO WIN BACK SOME POWER!

It can come up out of the blue. You can be asking an innocent question about the weekend ahead and your options for mutual socialising, and all of a sudden you’re feeling the need to clarify that you were just wondering what they were up to and you don’t even want to hang out with them anyway, and you have so many other options on the table you can hardly wade through them, whilst they look on, baffled.

It can be difficult to shake the dating game off. Of course some elements apply forever – it’s nice to listen to what people have to say instead of just saying “Uhuh” every ten seconds and continuing to look at Twitter, and washing is always a positive activity, but once you’re in a relationship it’s nice just to have a bit of trust and stop all this fannying about it.

The dating game is just that – a game. Sometimes you win – and by win I mean you meet somebody you like and who likes you and that you enjoy spending time together for an appropriate length of time (whether that be forever, or until you realise that you just can’t get past your differing opinions on who made a better Batman), and sometimes you lose, by which I mean that it leaves you wondering whether you should just marry your cat and be done with it.

But when it does work out, you have to just throw the rule book out and admit that you do indeed like another human being. Relationships do make you vulnerable because you can’t enter into one without admitting that actually you are rather keen. Queen Keen of Keen Town, actually, and you don’t care who knows it.

All you can do is try and find yourself in a situation where everybody is as keen as each other so that that never feels like a bad thing. With somebody who also believes that eight is the optimum number of kisses to include at the end of a text message, and who feels just as strongly about the apostrophe as you do, and who agrees that, yes, Pancake Day really is the greatest day of the year.

How to look after an extremely hungover person

22/03/2015 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

With a long term relationship comes appreciation than some events are non-negotiable.

Birthdays are one, Monday, Wednesday and Friday episodes of Coronation Street are another, and the Six Nations also manages to make its way onto the list, whether I like it or not (spoiler: I do not).

But I don’t grudge the fun that comes with it, on account of my overall life intention to not be a dick about harmless things (with the exception of all the things about which I give myself permission to be a dick, namely: poor customer service, people wearing shoes in my house, and any occasion when I’m feeling a bit overtired).Sure, having life arranged around relentless games of rugby for a number of weekends straight (I’ve lost count, does it go on for 21 or 22 weeks?) is a little inconvenient socially speaking – the games tend to kick off around the sort of time when I particularly like to step out for lunch or change the bed, but these things can be rearranged. I am a reasonable person. Also I’ve learnt that it’s possible to eat lunch whilst watching rugby which makes it a 100% more interesting pastime.

But mainly I just don’t partake, I do other things, I see friends, I read a book, I stare into the abyss – I’m very good at keeping myself entertained. But what I do get involved with is with the side effect of relentless rugby and sporting celebrations, and inevitable all day drinking. The hangover. A condition which, if I may say so, I am exceptional at caring for. There’s basically six steps to it:

STEP ONE: Prepare the ground

Buy up all the ibuprofen, Lucozade, eggs, meat-based breakfast goods and sugary sweets you can get your paws on but, CRUCIALLY, keep them out of reach until the following day, otherwise you could find everything has disappeared in a post-party-time midnight feast, and then you’ll have to leave the house to buy more things and nobody likes leaving the house.

STEP TWO: Turn off your alarm clock
No, not for him, he’d sleep right through that bad boy. Hell, he wouldn’t wake up if you shouted “Rugby has been cancelled forever! Apparently you can pass the ball forwards after all and the whole game has been called into question!” (Ok fine, he might, but mainly because he’d be wowed into consciousness by my exceptional rugby knowledge). No, this is for you. Have a good sleep, you’ll need your energy for all the kind caring you’re about to do.

STEP THREE: Remember, the fact that this was all self-inflicted is irrelevant

You know what you feel like when you’re ill? You know, pathetic, delicate, like all you want is to be tucked in and fed drinkable yogurt through a straw? Well, a hungover person is very similar, except replace ‘tucked in’ with ‘left the hell alone on the sofa in front of the TV under a blanket’ and ‘drinkable yogurt’ with ’50 different types of fluids because I JUST CAN’T DECIDE WHAT I WANT MY HEAD HURTS’. So behave accordingly. Best stock up on glasses in advance.

STEP FOUR: Keep it down

The problem with looking after a hungover person is that it’s a bit dull. They’re not great conversationalists in this state, and ideally they’d like nothing more than total peace and quiet. But if you’re not also recovering from a booze-fest, you might find yourself feeling a bit restless. So, sure, pop on an episode of Corrie, but keep the volume down low. Just the sound of the theme tune could be enough to finish a person off.

STEP FIVE: Use motivational phrases to boost morale when things get tough

A hungover day is like a metaphor for life. Sometimes you wake up and think everything’s going to be OK and then before you’ve even got down the stairs you realise that you can’t even remember where you left your shoes last night or if you remembered to shut the front door. So morale is going to dip from time to time, and it’s up to you to keep everybody motivated. My go-to words of support are: “You’re doing so well – I reckon you’re through the worst of it now!” and “If anybody can beat this, it’s you – just do nothing, you’re ace at that!” I recommend going for heartfelt but with just a little edge, for your own personal amusement.

STEP SIX: Reap the benefits of your kindness

One day it will be your turn. You’ll step out of an evening, sup on two or maybe even three mojitos and you’ll find yourself regretting all that mint and crushed ice (and probably the rum) come the following morning, and you’ll welcome a little TLC with open arms. You too will want to have a variety of drinks and snacks to choose from, and somebody there to reassure you that, no, life will not always feel this way – the universe isn’t really going to punish you forever for having the audacity to have fun – and you will reap the benefits of the exceptional standards of hangover care you’ve set.

If an event must come around every year then we might as well make it as pleasant-a-part of the calendar as possible, rather than just two months of sighing and stomping off upstairs and muttering about ‘never disappearing to the pub all afternoon to watch my programmes!’

Ok, fine, I said that once. It’s not my fault they don’t show Coronation Street in bars. But if they did, I’d be there. And I might find myself taking up that hangover care a little sooner than I thought.

10 things I have taught my husband (and 11 things he has taught me)

15/02/2015 by Charlotte 1 Comment

10 things I have taught my husband

1. The phrase ‘Softly softly catchee monkey’. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there the first time a person hears these words, but it’s a very special moment.

2. That when I say ‘It would be great if you could…’ (tidy the kitchen/empty the washing machine/stop eating all the chocolate and then leaving the wrapper in the cupboard to trick me into believing that there’s some left) I mean – ‘I’m annoyed that you haven’t already…’

3. That although having somebody say that they love you in person is excellent, from time to time, I will need to see that in writing via a greetings card.

4. That what’s even more impressive than offering to load the dishwasher, is actually remembering to switch it on. *twitches*

5. That watching a woman put on tights is 100% less sexy than it first appears.

6. That house trousers – i.e. a pantalon so comfortable that you can eat a giant roast dinner and 200g of chocolate and still not feel a pinch at your waistline – are an essential belonging (and in no way a sign that you’ve stopped making an effort with your appearance).

7. That attempting to rouse a woman who has fallen asleep on the sofa late at night is a task undertaken at your own risk.

8. That going to the supermarket (or arranging for a suitable representative to deliver their produce to your door) is something that people who like eating food HAVE. TO. DO.

9. That washing a jumper that says ‘Hand-wash only’ on the label at 40 degrees comes with consequences (namely me making shite and frankly terrifying jokes for the next three months about how I’m going to keep the now tiny jumper to give to the daughter that we may one day co-produce. Though, to be fair, he has never made that mistake again.)

10. That despite my limited physical strength, I would fight anything and anyone who ever tries to hurt him (and if they happen to pop round when I’ve just had a nap then GOOD LUCK TO THEM).

And 11 things he has taught me…

1. That you can grate cheese onto soup. What was my life before I knew this?

2. That the level of rage I experience when attempting to update my iPod makes me very difficult to be around.

3. That some people like to sit and let their food go down after dinner, rather than instantly tidying the entire kitchen – and that doing so does not mean that they do not ‘respect the value of living in a clean house’ but that they are full, tired, and will do it in a bit.

4. That there is no limit to the number of rugby highlights a person can enjoy. Like, not at ALL.

5. That really it would be better for both of us if I just went to bed when I was tired.

6. That he is willing to lie to me about how ‘truly’ frightening rides are at theme parks in order to persuade me to go on them (I imagine that the people who run the automatic camera on Oblivion at Alton Towers enjoyed the moment when I found this out).

7. That there is no more effective way to avoid an argument than simply refusing to join in and leaving the room.

8. ….and that following a person who does this around and sighing will not alter their decision.

9. That having an iPad means that I can watch Coronation Street in the bath. (It is possible that this lesson was 40% motivated by knowing I will enjoy my programmes in a warm setting, and 60% by the knowledge that it will free up the television for X-Box based activities).

10. That it is possible to look at a person and wonder how on earth there was ever a time when you didn’t know them.

11. And that I never want that time to come again.