Once upon a loft

Ever since I can remember I’ve always wanted to write a book. The plot had always swayed between “Life at University” and a guide on “How to survive University Life”, but being the university expert that I am- one university and one degree certificate- it had always begged the question where am I going to get my research from?

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I was going through my loft this morning in an attempt to find my 2007 copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student and I came across a book I had stashed away many years ago called “The Faber Book of Favourite Fairy Tales”. This particular book was not to be confused with any Disney Fairy Tales and in all honesty the reason it had been stashed away was because the illustrations terrified me. We’re not talking Brothers Grimm terrifying here, we are talking pictures that were draw by an old spine-chilling widow who loathes children.

One such tale in the book was called “Baba Yaga, the Bony-Legged, the Witch.” Now don’t get me wrong, the title of this book is definitely called “The Faber Book of Favourite Fairy Tales” but having never heard of this allusive “favourite fairy tale” the need to read on was second to none.

Ten minutes later and my knowledge on dodgy-legged Witches, who lived deep in the woods and residing in huts built on chicken legs, had vastly expanded. The only downside was there was no princess or castle insight. Instead you unearthed the moral that opposed every girl will end up satisfied, incredibly rich and unexplainably stunning over night. The message here was simple: a kind heart is all you need.

But is this what the kids of today really need to be told, that if you’re nice to people and have a kind heart others will too? Why not put them all in glass slippers and tell all of them their dreams will come true?

The most valuable thing I’ve learnt from fairy tales is that every time you reread them you notice something new. Perhaps this is a result of my degree and the practice to break literacy down and scavenge for deeper significance, or perhaps I am yet to read a fairy tale that totally captures the imagination.

If the original sources of fairy tales are fables passed down through generations then maybe it’s time some new ones were written…

Welcome back

They say the modern day woman has the ability to balance life, family and work. And all of this is on top of teaching her children a foreign language, while still managing to have dinner on the table by 5pm. So if this is the case then why can I not balance writing and having a boyfriend?

This has never before been a serious issue and writing about men (in fact all things male-related), has been as easy as the ability to drool over Daniel Craig's biceps. But six weeks and two days later the majority of my literary content is in the form of text messages and very little else!

For some bizarre reason I've always held back writing when I meet a nice man, the thought of him reading something terrible and having second thoughts maybe something to do with it. Perhaps this is a type of test...we shall see.

Anyway, now that I am unable to write about the trials and tribulations of single hood you could say I'm a little stumped on what to blog about. I could write about how couples-culture is utter bliss, or how kissing in public really does make people gag (I actually had a little boy look me in the eye and physically gagged while "The Man" and I were holding hands on a table in Jamie's) but where is the fun in that? If you're in a relationship you will probably think "aw I remember when we used to do that..." and if you're single you'll probably already be clutching your sick bucket.

So warning in advance, if you'd rather read about petit pois than mushy peas you may have to open another book.

Daily commute.

So another day another dollar, will that phrase ever get old? Today my dollars are getting made in our Windsor store, which means over an hours train journey there and back.

I used to do a lot of covering in other branches, it was great sussing out other stores (seeing how badly they were run) meeting lots of new staff and getting a greater idea of all things 'Kew'. So its ironic that I should be spending my last week re-bonding with train timetables and covering another store.

Train stations are an absolute bugger at times and if I know they are my mode of transport the following day I can become a PMS driven woman. But when your sitting on the platform, sipping a coffee that isn't from Starbucks and watching the business world wake up all that Public Transport hatred vanishes.

That's not to say that I willingly got up an hour earlier, willingly burnt my mouth on my imposter coffee or willingly chose to spend 30 minutes (only 5 mins left now!) freezing at Weybridge station.

But that's not the biggest worry, not by a long shot. I'm currently sitting on a train waiting for it to leave and whisk me off to castle central, but this is the woman who left Gloucester at 7am one Sunday morning (to be in work for 11am) and ended up in Cardiff. Not only can I not cook, but my navigational skills also have a tendency to be non-existent: my negative dating credentials have just doubled!

But maybe that's half the fun of it, being paid to unintentionally tour the UK on British Rail. The sign outside my window currently still says Weybridge, but give it half an hour and who knows what station we'll pull into!

France: Could it be magic?

So here we are, a new time zone, a new language and an awful lot more crepes. In short, the Coussens family have arrived in France!

We left sunny old England at 5am yesterday morning (that's thursday the 25th depending on when this entry gets posted) headed for Dover, woke up in France and ended up in Serris some six hours later. Unfortunately what should have taken two hours had in fact tripled- Mum has some incredible navigational skills and let's leave it at that.

After flexing our French skills, who knew I could be so fluent, we located our hotel and made our way to Disneyland.

We decided to spend two days here before meeting up with the other three families tomorrow and heading on to Nièvre.

I would love to know how Disneyland has the power to transform even adults into children, it truly is magical. All that is stopping me from buying an overly-priced Disney princess dress is my boobs, apparently Cinderella and her princess crew didn't make it to puberty.

But not all is lost. While every little girl under the age of 11 is skipping around dressed as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty or Belle, there is one Disney accessory that does cater for the older woman: the Minnie Mouse ears. Yes, you may not be able to fit into a dress, but you can wear a giant pair of black plastic mouse ears on your head. Great.

We had our final day in the park today and will be heading back later this evening to see the fireworks and parade. All I have to do is control the urge to rugby tackle one of the dancing princesses and rob her of her costume. Knowing my luck I would get caught (once the female victim had been bundled)with the Cinderella costume stuck round my neck- the result of eating far too many croissants- kiss the wrong prince and discover my parade dancing skills aren't as good as I thought they'd be.

So there you have it. I may have to admit defeat on my princess dreams for the time being, but with 10 days still to go in France who knows what magic will happen.

Serious note.

I'm all for writing things down and writing will always be a part of me. Granted most of what I write is female clamor and hormone induced, but that doesn't mean I can't write serious topical pieces too.

I suppose this is the perfect opportunity to write something serious and prove the above statement, but the truth is I would rather snort Smarties than write about politics, the economical crisis or similar subjects.

Obviously having such a nonchalant view on "serious" topics hinders my ability as a journalist and encourages words such as "ditsy" and quite frankly I dread to think what else. Either way, my writing certainly doesn't promote hard-hitting news, paper shuffling and "..from all of us here in the studio, goodnight."

I've been asked a lot recently about the area of journalism I'm most interested in and without a shadow of a doubt the answer is- and will always be- "features." That's the one thing I remember most about journalism in my third year, my willingness to work until dawn on any features that I had to do or needed to be done.

In an ideal world I would become a columnist, but I need to find some strong opinion that doesn't relate solely to men. I wonder if there are courses on how to become mean and opinionated?

But that is all by-the-by and for the time being the column of Captain P**s Off (my newly appointed nickname from the uni girls after my flamboyant rage about the world of retail) is on pause. Its on pause until an employer takes me from a retail scream into a feature writers dream- check out the degree-level rhyming there!

Motorway madness: re-writing the rules.

So its Saturday morning and I'm (yet again!) sitting in Starbucks having my morning dose of caffeine and willingly doubling the size of my hips.

My morning mocha does two things for me, firstly it keeps me from saving up too much money and secondly it makes up for spending the last 30 minutes on the M25 surrounded by madmen.

Now, this could be the part where I rant about female drivers- yes, I'm fully aware of the irony- or I could use this time to introduce my novel idea for a book.

I trust you've heard of the Highway Code and if you haven't then you should be shot. The Highway Code is a list of do's and don't's for road users, allowing all drivers to drive in a safe, albeit a tad slow, manner.

This is great, but is there a published book that tells people how to drive on a motorway?

As a result of my daily motorway journeys I have made a few observations and I believe these could seriously enhance the motorway experience for drivers and passengers alike.

Firstly, have you ever noticed that if you drive at 80 MPH in the middle lane (second lane if you're on M25) then the people in the left-hand lane drive faster to 'keep up'. This is a simple fact and one I believe we can use to our advantage. Not only does this eliminate slow drivers, but it also decreases accidents due to poor (slow) drivers as well.

The people that fall into the above category are the ones who drive at 50MPH in the slow lane, whilst listening to pre-recorded stories (read by themselves) in their car tape player and most likely driving a Volvo of some kind or another. This is of course excluding old people and wimps- lets face it neither should really be on the road.

My next motorway observation is the erratic driving and behaviour of the so called "Boy-racers."

Now, for this example I should point out that I currently drive a 2000 Reg, black Golf. It is not the most powerful vehicle on the road, but it does make a fantastic sound and bizarrely has the ability turn heads. Sadly the head turning isn't due to men looking at my car and thinking "Wow, what a set of wheels!" It tends to be a glance in my direction, a wink and a engine rev.

This is where I get a tad confused. Am I meant to participate in this testosterone race (you're in a 1.2 Saxo and you're not going to win) or just act my age and watch them accelerate into a lamppost. Believe me the latter is far more fun.

My initial thought was to discontinue the production of all Citren cars and ban all Saxo models from the road. But just as I congratulated myself on this genius plan a pimped-out Punto rattled past me at 95 MPH. Not impressed.

However, the world is not at an end and there is hope in the active culling of all body-kitted cars in Britain. It tends to come on those motorway-rammed rainy days, when the weather is so miserable you're left questioning your dedication to your job and when the radio stations are all playing the ultimate collection of suicidal anthems. There in the distance, pulled over in the lay-by, smoking away is a little hatchback. Through the blustering rain you can just make out a 17 year-old boy kicking his £5000 Alloy wheels (that's at least 5x more than the car is worth), swearing to the high heavens and wishing he'd bought a proper car.

If you are still not satisfied at the Boy-Racers comeuppance feel free to drive past them slowly, smirking away, windows down and singing through the rain "Things can only get better" by D:Ream. You may be surprised at how good it feels!

Alongside the children in their overpriced-pimp-machines a third motorway observation is the timid mid-life crisis men.

I'm not talking about the men in the DB9s, 911s or the SLRs here, I'm talking about the men who have the engine power but are too afraid to use it. Some cars are built to be practical and some are built to look, sound and drive like a dream. So why have a beautiful automobile if you're going to drive it like a child on its first day at school?

There is also a very simple solution to this one too, give me the car keys so I can race every boy-racer until their car self-destructs and voila, two birds with one stone.

So there you have the synopsis for my book: "How to drive on the motorway." Not exactly a work of art, but definitely something to mull over with a mocha in hand and a full days work ahead.

Cheetah or Man?

It comes as no surprise that since leaving the university world some of my beliefs and attitudes have taken a new turn.

One such thing is my attitude to men in relationships.

This may sound callous but if a guy at university had a girlfriend, who wasn't at Chester University, then that meant you had the green light with him so to speak. There was nothing wrong with a few kisses and cuddles, everyone was young and there was no consequences.

However, now if I was approached by a guy and discovered he had a girlfriend he would be politely shown the door. Maybe this is the romantic inside and my determination not to share my non-existent sex god, or maybe I'm just normal after all?

This all sounds lovely, but there is only one flaw to this picturesque happiness: the good looking, smooth talking, instrument playing (9/10 he will play a guitar!) compulsive-cheating male.

They are out there, there's one in every Village and I can guarantee you will know at least one. These animals tend to be found eyeing up girls (and their mothers), wooing left right and centre, and charming the world with only a smile and a wink of the eye.

If you didn't think Prince Charming existed think again. He may not be straddling a six-foot stallion, but one touch of his bulging biceps and he will be straddling something else!

These are without a doubt the WORST type of men and there is absolutely nothing you can do about them.

I think it is men like this that are wiping out romance, they may not realise they are doing it- who are we trying to kid. With a First class degree in female-ology they know exactly what they're doing... but I truly believe romance is dying because of men like this.

What happened to roses, holding hands, love letters, kisses in the moonlight and that beautiful three worded sentence?

If you are after the meal deal instead of the real deal then join the queue and don't look back. But if your philosophy circulates around love being patient then I don't believe you shouldn't have to compromise your own happiness and your heart.

So grab a brown paper bag to catch your love sick: The time of the non-cheating male has begun!