The vaginal frontier

There was a time when men and women set forth to conquer unexplored areas. The Antarctic. The Himalayas. The moon.

They invented things - lightbulbs, computers, shoes with wheels in them.

We have come up with solutions to most of life problems and have come up with problems simply to use the solutions that have been created.

But having done these amazing things, there are now few areas left unplundered. Few frontiers unexplored. And until relatively recently, the vagina was one of them.

Or course women have been shaving and waxing for some time. According to Wikipedia, Middle Eastern societies have been waxing since 4000 BC. Us Westerners only caught onto the trend in about 1945, when swimsuits became more revealing and the sight of  pot scourer-like hair flirting out the edges was deemed unsuitable public viewing.

Then, thanks to Sex and the City in the late 90s, the concept of the Brazilian took hold of our imaginations. All of a sudden, a neat bikini line was positively slovenly in comparison to sporting the bald eagle look. And once this particular trend was given an airing, well, all of a sudden the lady garden became the final frontier to be explored.

With the smooth, blank canvas the Brazilian affords, it was inevitable that someone would come up with the next big thing. There, crying out for a bit of beautifying, were millions of naked vajayjays. And thus the words 'Vajazzle' and 'Vajazzling' entered our lexicon. If you don't know what vajazzling is (where have you been?), its a way to pimp your vaj. Bling it up. Make it sparkly. In short, you stick crystals onto it. I won't go into the reasons why you want to do that - Katyboo explains it all brilliantly here (this is a must read). And let's not forget Vattoos....nuff said.

So having gone from not waxing, to waxing, to waxing it all off, to vajazzling and vattoos, not to mention labiaplasty and vaginoplasty, surely we had plumbed the depths of what else could go on in that particular ah-rea.

But no. There's more.

Thanks to a tip off from blogger This Mid Thirties Life, the latest lady garden craze is the Vajacial. That is a facial for your vajayjay. Yes, you read that correctly.

Apparently several US waxing salons are offering these treatments.  For example Stript Wax Bar in San Francisco has a 50-minute long treatment involving four steps:
Skin is cleansed with an antibacterial body wash and witch hazel.
A papaya-based exfoliating gel goes on before the esthetician extracts ingrown hairs.
Then an anti-freckle, anti-acne, or calming mask is applied.
It finishes off with an application of lightening cream.

This brings several questions charging into my brain.

1. Surely there must be a fair amount of 'massage' that takes place as various potions are applied and removed. Couldn't that have .... consequences? And are you charged extra for that?? Nothing like a facial with a happy ending.
2. 
   What if some of that exfoliating gel goes where it shouldn't? That's gotta make your eyes water.
3. Anti-freckle cream?? Really? How many freckles can you get down there? Don't you get freckles from too much sunshine? Quite frankly if you're super freckly down there, perhaps you should have avoided all those nudist beaches. And if your body is naturally freckled all over, surely a freckle free vaj would look odd?
4. Similarly - lightening cream? Why would you want your vaj to be lighter than the rest of your skin? Is it meant to be able to glow in the dark so that it can be easily found, like a fluorescent beacon with landing lights guiding you home? I'm fairly certain that your partner will find it regardless of what colour it is.
5. Why in the name of all things holy would you want to be a vag esthetician? I'll bet it's not a career choice often discussed at career guidance day.

Having given birth twice, I know that a vagina can become very public property. Your 'intimate private' area becomes a shipping lane that might as well be broadcast on the nine o' clock news just in case someone in the world hasn't seen it yet. But that's childbirth. Everyone is too busy looking at what's coming out of your vaj, rather than the vaj itself.

Perhaps I'm simply in the wrong phase of life to consider vajacials and vajazzles and anything else that is designed to beautify this particular area. Perhaps if I was single, in my 20s, living in LA I'd be waiting in line to have exfoliating gel rubbed onto my girly bits.

But I feel - with a rather large portion of relief - that these particular trends are going to have to pass me by. Discussing vajazzle designs and vaginal exfoliating options at the school gate isn't something likely to happen, certainly not in the West Berkshire countryside. And besides, I reckon my poor husband would be happy to see my lady garden at all, horticultured or not.

I shall have to find another frontier to explore instead.

Rio!

This post is still not about Seattle, it's about Rio. Not the place, the movie. I don't often take up PR companies on their offers of freebies but for once, I was offered something that I could go to and I wanted to go to.

We just happened to be in London this weekend as a family (that's us in the pic), so when the offer came in to go to a preview screening of the new animated kids film Rio, I said yes please.

It was very exciting to go to the Empire Cinema on Leicester Square, feeling very much like country mice in the big city. Inside it was crazy with Carnaval type samba dancers shimmying around fake palm trees, while face painters painted and balloon modellers modelled. It was loud, busy and manic and I was very, very pleased to get into the theatre and don our 3D specs.

In case you haven't seen the trailors, Rio features a blue macaw called Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) who can't fly. He's also the last male of his species and is brought to Rio to mate with the beautiful Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the last female blue macaw. Obviously things don't go according to plan, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story (certainly not one suitable for children!)

During their adventures they meet funny birds Pedro (Will.I.AM) and Nico (Jamie Foxx), Luiz (Tracey Morgan) the drooling bulldog and the baddie Nigel (Jermaine Clement), not to mention lots of thieving monkeys.

The story is sweet (almost sickenly so with the perfect ending) and it's not jam-packed with laughs (although I did laugh out loud with the text message the monkeys sent and the stripping security guard with his gold pants). But what made me smile with my whole body was the music in the film. It was toe-tapping, infectious, booty-wiggling samba with fantastic dance routines by multi-coloured birds, all set against the beautiful backdrop of Rio de Janeiro.

I'm not normally a 3D fan (gives me a headached) but the 3D in this was incredible, particularly when some of the characters were racing through the favellas, while the flying scenes made my toes curl they were so effective (not a big fan of heights).

My kids enjoyed it, although my youngest didn't like some of the bits with the baddies. They liked the drooling dog. They would. They're boys. Anything gross is good. They rated it 8 out of 10, losing marks probably because they don't have their mother's desire to shake her groove thang whenever she hears samba.

Perhaps it was just because I'd sailed to Rio that the location had a special place in my heart, or perhaps deep down I just want to be a samba-dancing, bikini-clad, butt-shaking romantic. But this film, with its bright colours, beautiful scenery and general feel-good vibe made me leave thinking: "I loved that" even though when pressed I couldn't really say why.


Rio opens in cinemas on 8 April, just in time for the Easter holidays. Go to http://www.rio-themovie.co.uk/ for more details.

You are a star

Sorry. I know I should be posting the final Seattle installment, but I can't. For many reasons. I will return to the subject again and give you the final verdict soon.

But I wanted to write a short blog post about something that moved me greatly yesterday. I've been in a pretty blah place recently. And it's become apparent that I sometimes (most of the time) see things half empty instead of half full. I doubt myself and generally lack self esteem. And it's been a long time since I felt shiny.

Then last night I watched 'The Wonders of the Universe' on BBC 2 with Professor Brian Cox. If you haven't see it, go to iplayer and watch both this episode and last weeks. It will blow your mind.

Firstly, the man (besides being fairly good looking and is able to play the piano and has a brain the size of the universe - stand in an orderly line ladies) is able to make complicated scientific things fascinating. He makes me want to go back to school and retake science, and believe me, science and I were not friends.

Anyway, last night's episode was called Stardust and the premise of it was that we are all made out of the exact same elements that stars are. In fact the elements that make up our bodies and our world are formed when a star dies. Carbon to iron - it all comes from the collapse of a star. Without a star dying, we wouldn't be here. You need to watch the show to understand it. But it made me think:

If we are really made out of stars, then we all have the ability to shine brightly.

From now on, whenever I'm feeling more black than white, more down than up, more can't than can, I'm going to remember that I am a star. I have all the chemical elements I need to sparkle. And without wanting to get completely yar-fully-hey-shoo-wow on you, we are literally children of the universe. How friggin awesome is that. And doesn't it make the fact that you have a teetering ironing pile pale into significance?

So if you're ever feeling low, just remember that you too are a star. Let yourself shine.

Sleepless in Seattle - part 5

Wednesday rolled in with a bright blue sky and bags under my eyes. We decided to spend the morning revisiting some of the places we'd already seen. We browsed the suburbs. Drooled over houses we could never afford. Stopped at small lakeside parks. Imagined playing there with our boys. Generally drove aimlessly about hoping that a large sign in the road up ahead would say: take this decision -and steer us to the right answer for our family.

We stopped at a supermarket so that I could remind myself of US food products. When we used to the live in the US, I remember being utterly amazed at how many different types of cereal you could get. Most of them with bucket loads of sugar. I also remember always buying sliced turkey from the deli counter yet I NEVER buy sliced turkey in the UK. Why is that?

Heading into the supermarket it struck me again how loud the packaging was in the US. Everything seemed to scream its message in neon or primary colours. Where were the understated whites & creams with simple Copperplate fonts on a box of biscuits? You know - sort of Dutchy Originals. I started thinking that I could move there if only to start up a range of products that came in simple, quiet packaging as they would stand out in a quiet little bubble on the shelf amid all the noisy colours.

I left the shop (store) feeling mixed. Not up. Not down. Just kinda blah. As though new products which ordinarily would leave me over excited, just felt meh. Being influenced by the novelty of silly things like foreign foods might have been fine when I was young, free and single. But this was a decision that would change the course of our children's lives completely. I needed more than pepperjack cheese to win me over.

We headed over to another school. A state elementary. It seemed nice, but beset by problems most state schools suffer from - funding. But apparently the PTSA was 'super involved' and 'super active' to ensure that the kids had a 'super nice time' at school. As we were leaving, the lady showing us around said: "Sorry about all the book bags lying on the floor. They belong to the kids at ski school." "Ski school?" we asked. "Yeah," she said.  "They finish school early on Wednesdays and some of the kids get taken to the mountains for skiing lessons. It's just a 40 minute drive away."

Skiing as an after school activity. Check. Not something readily available in Berkshire. That went onto the pros column.

We headed south of the I90 to check out a place called Newport Shores, a small suburb of very fancy houses right on the lakeside with little canals in between for more moorage space. This was Wisteria Lane, with kids running in the street, shooting hoops, zooming around on scooters. It was a kids' paradise. And it had it's own yacht club. Another plus.

We drove past another of the secondary schools - amazing sports facilities. Honestly, better than most local English sports clubs have. We stopped in at a mall for some lunch. We sat in a Red Robin, surrounded by high school kids. It was fascinating to watch them. The cool kids. The Asian kids. The nerds. The nerds checking out The Girls. It was exactly like in the movies. Only the kids actually seemed really nice and not too posey, but that was because we were South of the I90 and away from Uber Posh-ville.

So there we were, eating our buffalo chicken wings with bottomless fries and bottomless soda, and we asked each other: "So, what do you think? Should we move here?"

And there it was. The ninety million dollar question. How do weigh all the pros and cons up, when some pros weigh so much more and some cons could break your heart?

We made up a list on the ipad.

Pros:
- a 15 minute commute for my husband vs 1.5 hours each way
- a husband/father who didn't travel abroad for work 80% of the year
- great schools (but scarily big)
- much bigger houses
- beautiful area
- better off financially
- the chance of a better quality of life
- the chance for me to find a new career or something completely different to do
- a grand adventure (those who know me know that I'm always looking for the Next Big Thing)

Cons:
- the weather is no better than England
- it is very, very, very far away from just about everywhere
- leaving behind our friends, what little family we have here and the network I've only just built up. Ripping up those fledgling roots just as they were starting to get a good grip
- the plastic feel to the place - no heart or character
- would life really be different or would my husband still work all the time?
- raising children with a completely different culture to either of ours
- our quality of life right now is pretty good, bar the missing husband/father. There's the chance we could make it worse. Why walk away from a sure thing?
- what the heck would I do for a job?

It was a long discussion. One that seemed to drift around in circles without ever feeling as though we'd really found the perfect answer. We just kept coming back over and over and over again: if we don't move, how could we make it work in the UK? How could my children see more of their father and how could I be a single parent less of the time? And there just isn't an answer to that. Not one that works. And believe me, we have brainstormed them all.

So, four large soda pops and two large baskets of fries later, we decided that on balance the pros outweighed the cons. We should do it.

We pondered our decision as we walked through the Cougar Mountain National Park. The beauty of the place (very Twilight type woods) seemed to reinforce the rightness of moving there. But we slightly questionned it again once we studied the sign at the start of the trail which gave instructions on what to do if you come across a bear or a cougar (do look a cougar in the eyes, but don't look a bear in the eyes - you really don't want to muddle those up).

We then had dinner at another ex-work colleague's house which had the most amazing views over the whole of Seattle, the lakes and Bellevue. It was so jaw-droppingly beautiful that it seemed to reaffirm our thinking.

After another lovely evening with lovely people, we went back to the apartment and actually slept.

We still had a day to go but our decision was mostly made. I just wished that I could silence the niggling rumble of worry in my belly.

Sleepless in Seattle - part 4

Another sleepness night. Jet lag and life changing decisions are a killer combo in the sleep stakes. So day 2 rolled in with a blur. We had to head out to the far side of Bellevue to go see a school. A high school. Our children are nowhere near high school age but we figured we needed to know what was awaiting us down the line.

The school was in a less affluent part of town but the buildings were immaculate and the sports facilities amazing. We met with one of the deputy heads. Apparently the school has 1500 kids (aged 15 - 18) and there are over 60 different first languages spoken by the pupils. It made my mind boggle. Despite the sheer numbers being overwhelming, we left feeling pretty impressed by what we'd seen. For a state school, it looked slick.

We then explored all around Lake Sammamish, the lake on the East side of Bellevue. Although nice, we decided that having one lake between us and the city was enough, so there was no way we'd consider putting two lakes between us in suburbia and life outside the picket fences.

We nipped into another private school for a prospectus (lovely looking school but completely stuck up their own backside reception staff who couldn't have been less pleased to see two prospective parents willing to shell out $60k per year for two kids to attend). So we left and headed for our third school of the day, another private one.

This school turned everything I thought about schooling on its head. For a start, the school building was an old office park. It's curb appeal was low. For a private school charging a LOT of money, where were the beautiful buildings and acres of sports fields? But once inside we began to realise that this was no ordinary school. They teach children in a completely different way. They teach them to think. Not simply to learn, but to question and enquire. We were given a mock science lesson. And both my husband and I sat enthralled as they took as through the content. It made me want to go back to school.

They use tablet PCs for the kids and if a child feels that a teacher is going to fast in class, they send the teacher a private instant message and the teacher knows to recap without the child feeling embarrassed. It's also hands on learning - the kids have built a rock climbing wall, a wormery for all the food scraps, their own black box theatre where they do all their drama productions and they have to build their own canoes. Proper wooden canoes. If they float, they've passed. If they don't, they have a swimming lesson.

Their mission is: think critically, act responsibly, lead compassionately, and innovate wisely. I love that. And it's so current. It teaches and prepares children for today and tomorrow's world.

I left with one thought: I want my kids to go there. Sure they'd have to make the grade (they have to be very bright and have a natural curiousity about the world around them) and we'd have to live on bread and beans to afford it, but wow! It was just such an incredible place.

After leaving that school on a high, we then discovered the suburb of Kirkland which actually had a little downtown area with restaurants and shops and access to the lakeside beaches. And although it was still a bit plastic, it felt more like a proper neighbourhood where you might actually get to meet your neighbours. What's more, it would still only be a 12 minute commute to work for my husband. 12 minutes vs his current 1.5 hours each way (when he's in the country).

And slowly the ticks in the pros columns started lining up.

We ended the day with a couple my husband works with, eating amazing food at their gorgeous house, learning all about what it's really like to live the American way with kids and a job. They seemed so happy and together. And I started to imagine us living in a house like that and it seemed doable.

We collapsed into bed with brains aching from over-stimulation. The see-saw of emotions - could we live here? could we not? - was leaving me feeling a little sick. Or perhaps that was just too much good food and wine. Either way, we had one more full day to make our minds up. Thursday would be decision time.

Sleepless in Seattle - Part 3

As we tried to find our way across the bridge using our delightful, not fully functioning satnav, we got a bit lost. In the process, we managed to see more of the lake, a beautiful park and some really, really dodgy parts of town. The bits you don't want to see ever, much less when you're trying to decide whether to move to a place. So far there were definitely more cons than pros.

We finally found the bridge and headed over Lake Washington, stopping at Mercer Island on the way. This, we had been told, was one of THE spots to live with fab schools and a very nice area.  But all we saw was one shopping arcade and suburb after suburb after suburb. We decided to call it quits as we were in dire need of food and figured that there wasn't much more to Mercer Island than lots of houses. Nice houses admittedly, but where do all the people in those houses go when they need to pop out for a pint of milk? There didn't seem to be such a thing as a corner shop or local Chinese take-away. It was simply suburbia....for miles.

We finally entered the promised land of Bellevue. Initial impressions were underwhelming. It was a mini city with sky scrapers and a mall and lots of 'retail parks'. By retail park, I mean the kind of places you'd find on the outskirts of a British town that tend to feature a Homebase, sports shop and possibly a Matalan. You know the feeling that goes along with those places. It's not a shopping pleasure. It's a shopping chore. You're going there with the express purpose of getting something, normally not something you want to buy, but something you need to buy. So it was that feeling which seemed to permeate the place. And I was starting to realise that it was places like these that serve as the corner shop or the hub for an area.

It wasn't helped when we returned to our car, having nipped into a pizza joint for a bite to eat, to discover we had a parking ticket. Apparently  we were a 'walk off'. In other words, we'd parked in the retail park but had crossed the road and eaten at the pizza joint facing the car park, rather than going to a shop in the car park. Luckily when we came to pay for this ticket, the man on the telephone found the concept of a British credit card very complicated and he kindly cancelled the ticket. (Incidentally, good pizza.)

We then began exploring the suburbs of Bellevue. Think Desperate Housewives. Think Wisteria Lane. Think perfect houses on perfect streets, with perfect cars parked in front of perfect garages. It was surreal. And strange. Again, no corner shop. No feeling of a suburb/village centre. Do every one of these people hop in their big cars and drive to the mall to get a loaf of bread? Really?

We did see people walking, but where were they walking to? Was there a mystery destination we were yet to find? If there was, we never did find it.

So we drove around confused, simultaneously drooling over the size and marvellousness of the houses, but not quite getting it either. It all just felt a little bit Stepford Wives. There were some suburbs that were particularly gorgeous, with tiny roads winding down to the edge of the lake.  I decided that if we were to move there, then it would be one of those houses I would want and covet. But I'd have to sell several of my internal organs to afford one.

After a lot of driving we finally headed back into Bellevue to check out the mall (cool with good shops) and meet a friend for drinks. She had very kindly arranged for several of her friends to join us so that we could pick their brains as to what it is like to live there. There was me (South African), my friend (South African), my husband (British), an Irishman, an Australian and an American who had mostly lived abroad. And there were two local Americans. All there to give us their perspective.

In general the ex-pats seemed to love it, but had a hard time saying why. In short, they said that living in the US was like falling onto a squishy pillow. It's soft and easy and comforting, but not very edgy. They said life was ridiculously easy and incredibly cheap in comparison to the UK (yes, we noticed that when we filled the car and it cost just $30 as opposed to the £70 it normally costs us). And the tax rate was much lower, so financially you're far better off. And there is plenty to do in the area, like skiing and hiking and sailing. All good.

The Americans took their job, of informing us about the place, very seriously. They were lovely and very kind to give us their time and I couldn't fault them. Except that they weren't like the ex-pats. There was less swearing. Fewer hilarious jokes. Just a little more earnestness in general. Which in itself told us a lot. It is a nation of people like these that we'd be moving to.  Would we fit in?

Luckily the ex-pats told us that there are a ludicrous number of ex-pats in Seattle thanks to companies like Microsoft and Google. They even play rugby and tend to hang out and tell rude jokes, saying words like twat which apparently Americans equate to the the C word over here. Not that I'd want to move all the way to the far side of the US, just to hang out with a bunch of ex-pats. When in Rome, be Roman and all that. But it was comforting to know that we could get our fix of Britain should we need it.

In all by the end of the night, I was feeling more optimistic. They seemed a very nice bunch - all of them - and they all had good things to say about living there, despite the weather.

There was only one thing I found a bit odd about the evening. The bar we were in had the five girls in our party and possibly another 5 women in the entire place. The rest of the people there were men. Where were the women? All at home being Stepford Wives, getting the casseroles out of the cooker in readiness for the return of the man? Perhaps it was simply the location of the bar being near hotels where business men are likely to be, but it was odd nonetheless.

So by the end of a very, very tiring first day, our conclusion was: net neutral. Not for or against. Just completely undecided. If anything, more in the against column but the evening's banter had pulled it back towards neutral ground.

What followed was a sleepness night in Seattle, a few hours of coma-esque sleep followed by a jet-lag induced 3am wake up call with a waterfall of thoughts cascading through my brain. I was hoping that day 2 would give me more clarity. Because the one place I didn't want to be was sitting on a picket fence....

Sleepless in Seattle - part 2

We spent the first part of our first day walking around downtown Seattle. As we walked from our apartment to the centre of town, I didn't feel massively excited by what I saw. It was a strange place - a beautiful waterfront blotted out by a double decker freeway. Some really fab looking restaurants followed by run down buildings with strange looking people lurking around outside. I'd read on the in flight magazine on the way over that Seattle was a city of misfits and our first impressions certainly bore this description out.

The Seattle uniform is a cross between grunge, punk and hobo in the young people. For the middle and older generations the look comprised flat shoes (moccasins or trainers) with straight-legged jeans or straighter legged trousers, with tucked in shirt and a parka. Usually made of fleece, with a waterproof outer. Seattle-ites don't carry umbrellas, despite the near constant rain. It's not cool apparently. If I had to sum up the general Seattle population with a very broad brush stroke, I'd say it's Geeky. But then again, it's the home of Microsoft, so go figure.

We found a coffee shop and instantly discovered three marvellous things. 1. Coffee that tasted amazing. I mean seriously amazing. I am not one of those people who likes coffee that's strip-the-plaque-off-your-teeth strong. I am happy with a cup of instant. Honest. But this coffee was just right.

2. As I sat down on the squishy sofa enjoying this wonderful beverage and starting to feel less like a jet-lagged zombie, I fired up my ipad. And yip, instant connection to the free wifi. No 'please pay £5 to enjoy this wifi'. Just turn on and start surfing.  3. Finally, having drunk our coffee and surfed maps of Seattle online, we headed out. But we obeyed the sign that said: 'Please bus your own table.' Now that's not a saying you hear much in the UK. We discovered that there were multiple bins so that everything could be recycled. Well there you go, Seattle is a green city - apparently the second greenest in the USA. That went into the pros column.

We ambled further downtown and started remembering what it was like to live in a city, where you can stroll under high rise buildings, nip into cavernous bookstores and grab a cab whenever you like. And all the shop staff were like the TV presenters, perky and friendly, only less irritating.

Our spirits were definitely on the up. This place was pretty cool.

We got into our hire car and fired up the Hertz NeverLost, the delightful satnav system which we quickly renamed Hertz Never F*ingOn or alternately, Hertz Never Shuts Up.  It was temperamental.

We headed over to a posh suburb - Madison Park - we'd been advised to take a look at. The houses were old (as in turn of the century as opposed to the 300 year old cottage we currently live in) and much smaller than the ones I'd seen on the internet, but they had character. And best of all, they all had basketball hoops facing outwards onto the street. I could just picture neighbourhood kids shooting hoops on a quiet cul de sac. It was lovely.

Making our way from there, we stumbled - literally - into one of the top private schools we'd been advised to see. We hadn't managed to get an appointment, but popped in all the same. We were met with more perky friendliness and handed a stack of information including the fees schedule. Weep.

So we left and found the 'village centre' of Madison Park. It was nice. But didn't exactly rock our world. There wasn't much there and it felt slightly lacking in some way that we couldn't quite put our finger on. Nevertheless, we pulled into a Starbucks for another coffee and more free wifi, before deciding to head out across the 520 bridge spanning Lake Washington and into Bellevue, our potential new home.

We were finally going to see the places I'd been studying on Redfin for months, for real. Google streetview and reality were about to collide. This was the big reveal....