The Secret To A Leather Jacket You Actually Wear...and Nigella and Frank Bough

What makes for a great leather jacket that you actually wear? I had a black moto jacket at university which languished in my wardrobe for years. Ten years ago someone gave me a teal leather jacket; I wore it once and recently gave it away. But then I bought this half-price navy one from Barneys (own brand) when I was in New York a week ago. I slipped it on and have worn it every day since.

With my imaginary friends...Just after filming at NPR

The jacket is lighter navy than it looks here

What was the difference? It isn't a short bum-freezer, it was as soft as Cy's pyjamas and it was navy blue, the kinder cousin of black. It's more the colour of the first photo. This weekend the NY Times told us to wear all-black, all navy, all white but to mix up all the shades and textures. Don't have the loosey goosey wherewithall for that, I'll be matching my navy, as per usual.

Top photo shows me just after filming at NPR (America's BBC) for a show called Check Please (I know, they insist on spelling it wrong) where three ordinary bods like me review three restaurants. Fun after a few glasses of wine, but at first utterly terrifying. I had done a little telly in London as guest consumer expert for the Julia Carling Show (sweet with a kittykat prettiness, wasn't her husband Will Carling a total drongo for dalliancing with Diana?) and on TravelTV with Frank Bough, who had been the nation's favourite newreader until the tabloids uncovered him in brothel sex parties where he was dressed in woman's lingerie and high on cocaine. Women's undies aside, he was a blimin' well-researched host, incredibly professional.

The NPR make-up artist put some drops in my eyes called Collyre Blue, you can only buy it in France. Friends: it was like liquid coke for the eyes! Who cares what's in it if it makes my eyes as sparkly as Nigella's.

Striding into court a la Joan of Arc. Botoxathon or does she get more beautiful with age?

I remember reading an interview where Nigella told how she was attracted to her first husband John Diamond (who later sadly died of cancer) because he wasn't ridiculously posh and he was the only person in a carload of journalists who could change the tire when it popped en route to a jolly. Ironically he was not terribly interested in food.  One night, after she had spent some time on a intricate roux he told her: "Oh, none of the gravy for me thanks."

She must long for those days.

My eyes needed the sparkly boost because our dog Teddy, has had surgery on both knees and I couldn't bear to leave him in his crate where he is supposed to reside for eight weeks. I carried him for days (he wasn't allowed to walk or jump up) and we were up for three nights straight making sure he was okay. Poor old Teddy, he looks terrible, he's all shorn and scarred. Here is a picture from happier days when he's on guard making sure none of the neighborhood dogs disrespect him by peeing in front of our house. Old Tedmeister, the body of a bunny and the courage of a lion; all he's ever wanted is to bark with the big dogs on the porch.

In happier days. Me watering the plants on the deck with Teddy sitting guard. 

We're off to my hometown of Ohope Beach in New Zealand this afternoon. Bit worried about the Three Day Rule as we're there for ten days. But if there is some strife...She started it first Mum! Will also be mindful of rule: Don't Blow Your Arse On the First Night. My sister always says I get too excited on the first night and drink too much, then have to abstain for days. And as we all know, Kiwi champers is the most arse-blowing kind. 

Will give you a shout, as my Dad says, from the other side. 

Three Day Rule

My friend has a theory about staying with family. The first day is golden and everyone is delighted to see you. The second day your family starts treating you like a child. The third day you start acting like one.

At my Sixties party in Ohope Beach: Pietra, Mum, Sharon and me

Forewarned is forearmed and I'm making absolutely sure this doesn't happen during our stay with family in New Zealand. No siree.

Of course after the euphoria of the first day and as the eldest sister I felt it my duty to give them the benefit of my hard-won wisdom. Be selfish not to, really. To Sharon I've kindly and subtly dropped a few parenting tips: "You know, you might want to..." My sister Pietra now knows my views on the correct arch of eyebrow, bronzing creams and blush. Plus best wall colours for their homes, lovely ways to cook fish and how they could help New Zealand get back on track as the surprise superpower in Oceania.

 

First Day: Me, Pietra and Sharon in Auckland

It's been a tiny bit hurtful to witness their reactions; either snorting, rolling their eyes or, even more stunningly, simply ignoring me. Last night Sharon didn't even lower her magazine when I offered her some advice about her career. (She's a business journalist for radio, but I just wonder if she should have followed her passions as a ballerina. Still time.)

Plus they keep sitting too close to me on my side of the couch.

Okay I've had enough: "You bloody stink bums - get outta here!!!  I'm telling Muuuum!"

Dotcom Travel Drama

The first rule of driving to Tahoe is to pretend you're living in the 1800's. This doesn't mean you have to freeze, starve and then eat your fellow travelers. This a fate that befell the Donner Party in 1846, when a group of American Pioneers set out in a wagon train for California and endured a winter snowbound in the Sierras, forcing them into cannibalism.

1-80 coast is clear Rubber Ducky

No, what I mean is to ignore all our 2010 technology. No matter how much info you get from your TV, phones and computers - endlessly checking Traffic.com and Weather.com and all the traffic and weather apps on I-Phone for crashes, road closures, queues to get over the pass, queues for chains - when you're on the road it's all so different.

What about simply setting off very early in the morning in a four-wheel drive with snow tires, carrying food and sleeping bags and hoping for the best. Because after years of driving up to Tahoe my only certainty is that you cannot predict how anything will go.

We were supposed to leave for Tahoe (from our home in Oakland) last Sunday. But red code storm alert and a late start made us question whether we should delay our departure until the next day. We had organised to rent a ski house in Tahoe Donner for the entire winter so we had a whole season's packing in the car; six sets of skis and boots, six sets of snowboards and boots, cross country skis for Kevin and all the bedding and ski clothes for six people.

'Just take off, you're all packed' our friend Ken advised over the phone. But we hesitated, further debating. "If we don't go today but there turns out to be no storm, I don't want you to take it out on me." said Kevin. And me: "If we go today and we're stuck in traffic for eight hours don't take it out on me". The first option sounded the least antagonistic so we waited the day. Neither of us mentioned the absence of storms that day. Monday we headed off to an earful of more storm warnings.

As my husband Kevin and son Harley, 13, are what you would call 'early adopters' we were being barraged from every I-hoodacky you could imagine. If Kindle started sending out weather warnings from Charles Dickens and J.K. Rowling we would be reading them.

On the road, Harley in the back seat keeps Kevin constantly updated from his I-Phone. Kevin gasps at Harley's every report of weather and traffic "accident at 6-32 intersection", "snarl-up at 59-657 crossing" "chains needed on the 1-3000", "congestion at Auburn Level 8 and building"....and so on.

Yet every accident had been swept up by the time we arrived, there were no queues or delays or even blinding snow, rain or winds. What next to freak us out?  I-Phone updates on burger queues at IN-N-OUT? Hmm...

Harley takes a break from Simpsons to check Traffic.com. 

In the end we reached our ski lease in Tahoe Donner in a record three hours without even going the speed limit. Just one Simpsons and one Harry Potter and no eating, certainly not each other. Three uneventful hours buffeted not by winds but by six duvets and five bags of ski clothes.

We drew up and saw our ski lease for the first time and it was good. A simple modern-ish three bedroom with a hot tub. All you could want. This will be our home most weekends in the winter.

H-factor, Cy-clone, J-dog, T-star

And ever being the good wife, natch, there was no "I told you so".  The myriad of dotcom reports were silenced ...until the 20min drive up to Alpine skislope tomorrow.

Idle Soccer Mum

This weekend we watched three games of kid's soccer. And we'll watch three games next weekend. This would slightly depress me if I didn't have nifty things to say to the other parents. There are no easy games, Brian. But fair dues, they worked their socks off.

I have soaked up all the soccer cliches I possibly could stuff into a sentence because I don't really know what's going on the field. Yes, that's after twelve years on the sidelines. I am not a great advert for the game. But I am good on paper. 

Unbelievably I was a guest soccer columnist for The Daily Telegraph in London during the 1994 World Cup. Those articles were later entombed in a book, which I'm sure is clogging up tables in yard sales around the world.

To explain: my columns were more about the culture of soccer - silly sayings and players' hairdos. I just looked in the dusty reaches of our garage and I can't find any of the columns or the book. Blow, because I was going to re-hash them for your benefit. My British journo friends will be amazed that I can re-jig an article from 15 years ago. But I haven't yet heard all these expressions here in the US, so read on....As the great manager Brian Clough said: it will only take a second.

One recent weekend was "Silent Saturday" and we parents had to watch the beautiful game...silently. No calling out anything, witty or not. This meant I was at sixes and sevens how to slot in my sporting terms. In the end it yielded a great opportunity for a disco nap before Sat date night.

After rousing myself, I started focusing a bit on people's chairs. A soccer parents' chair will tell you a lot about the inside of their car. Some chairs are pristine, accompanied by their correct covers with a sporty little cup that fits snugly into the holder. You know the corresponding cars possess purpose-designed garbage bags and have never met a banana, rotten or otherwise. Our chairs are an ugly pink and are stained and battered.  Often I forget to pack one, so it's a matter of sitting on the grass in the dog pee.

You can sit next to anyone in soccer. When the conversation gets a little dull or too deep or revelatory - when someone starts confessing about that night in Barcelona and NOT referring to the Manchester United's 1999 Champions league win - you can always give them the early doors with a "Gosh! Look at our team go!" There is an unspoken rule that you can stop listening to the conversation if your child is doing something clever or stupid or ...anything at all, really. You are all facing the field and this usually makes for very comfortable, laid-back banter. We all know football is a game of two halves and you have to pace yourself with the chatter. (Pic below by Sabrina Marcone, 10)

There are the parents who do know the rules, watch the game properly and have insightful comments to make. (I might have even heard the classic It's still all to play for.) Occasionally I have tried to gatecrash the Top 4 but that means a bit more effort on my part and bringing out the big guns like you can't win a title in August but you can certainly lose it.

Snacks calls for whole tomes of discussion and I will be writing on this tomorrow. Nine years ago we started off protesting snacks - can kids not run around a field for an hour without eating afterwards? Sometimes it was amazing the sugar content didn't make them sick as a parrot. We grumbled about the cookies and boxed juice (liquid sugar). Then we caved completely and to this day bring the least healthiest snacks of anyone. Donut holes...and maybe some watermelon. Kids were over the moon, Brian.

And my absolute favourite -  as you're ruefully packing up your garish pink folding chair, debris of coffee cups, Vitamin Waters, bags that contained sushi, bagels and morning buns that you, er, might have eaten all in one hour -  Football is a funny old game...

In Spain they say: "El Futbol Es Asi" a less annoying It Is What It Is.  And in American football you get: "That's why we play the game".

Now Harley and Jackson have joined their friend Tommy playing American football, so expect to see more sideline sayings for that sport...bet you can't wait.

Downieville dreamin'

Last weekend we headed for Downieville which is in the middle of nowhere and the better for it.

It takes four to five hours to get there from Oakland: you drive towards Tahoe, turn left at Auburn and go for another hour.  Is there anything better than tubing down the lazy river, charred BBQ chicken and gooey s'mores? They are the classics and can't be bettered (except for maybe the charred chook).

This was Labour Day Weekend which makes this post a week old, but life, wine and politics have intervened (there, I've found my  gravestone epithet).

Lucky for us we were joining a long-standing group of three families who have been holidaying together since their first babies were born 13 years ago. Joining Anne and team is like vacationing with the cool aunts. They are organised, their equipment is in shiny good order and they take care of everything (except for the charred chook which -  you guessed it -  we cooked) plus they are oodles of fun. Kevin and I are resigned to being the weak link on this trip.  Kevin always says about us: "Just as well we were born when we were. As pioneers we would have withered and died. " That's true, ask me to write a soul-searching 400 word piece in half an hour about the pros and cons of the  Louboutin red sole - I can do it,  I am your person. (Though in all fairness it's something I've thought through extensively - a friend uses a black sharpie to eliminate the red). But ask me to put up a tent, boil a billy of tea, put batteries in a torch and I will run close to tears. I just can't handle gadgetry or common sense stuff.

Speaking of labour,  I wouldn't want you to think I am lazy. Setting up camp is out for me, but I can clean like a demon for weeks. Many summers I worked at a camp ground cleaning the women's toilets all day long, that's all I did. During the school year I cleaned house for the head of the law department where I was a student. One day the head of the law department called me into his office, I assumed to berate me for consistently poor marks. In fact, bizarrely,  he wanted to offer me a top summer job as his research assistant, a position usually only offered to the A+ students. (I hated to tell him I had "collaborated" on my library assisgnment and was very vague about how to use the library). "But" I said to him  "I have really bad marks even when I do pass"  He  conceded the point: "Yee-ees" he said " It's true, I normally wouldn't be offering you the job." " But"... he added, "you're such a good cleaner!"

We were staying at the Lure Resort right on the Yuba river. While the rest of the group took cabins without bathrooms and kitchen, we are wimping out with all the accessories. I am not the staunch kiwi woman I would like to be. In fact: I don't like camping. There I've said it. I wake up feeling exhausted and I don't like traipsing across the road seven times a night to use the bathroom.

Anyway the idyllic Downieville was named favourite small town for getting outdoors by Sunset Magazine, you can bike, hike, raft and climb; "this town welcomes adrenaline junkies". But this weekend exhausted by the start of school, I was quite content to laze in a chair all weekend, my only decision whether to have one marshmellow or two on each s'more.  Or sipping a supersonic Gin and Tonic, mixed adhering to the rigorous two finger rule (scientific measurement of gin in the glass) invented by Arthur Brettkelly.

Downieville was a busy gold mining town and the first state capitol, but really best known for the fact that it was the only town to hang a woman. Even after the big rush a housewife found $500 while sweeping up her dirt floor. Choice. Housewives tips, my mother used to say when she found coinage in people's pockets while doing the wash.

It's the usual mountain town mix of age-ing Harley Davidson riders -  look how precisely these German bikers lined up their Harleys above-  lycra-ed out boy racers and the odd Deliverance character mooseying around. And of course the locals. Cindy, above, who owns the hardware store is one of the 325 residents, and she has lived here here off and on for most of her life. She has raised three kids here and her youngest is just about to graduate from high school with a class of seven. "Of course the kids miss out on some opportunites but they gain others..." she mused philosophically...I guess we could all learn something something from being forced to be with a very small group of people for a long time.

The others checked all the river and lake boxes: hiking, tubing, fishing and rafting around for hours and being very happy. I even jumped off the rock with the kids but I will save you the pleasure of the photos of my legs and arms flailing.

That night we did the Anne tradition of singing all sorts of camp (as in Cher) songs and doing the Chicken Dance.  Does it get any better than singing along to Cher's Dark lady and trotting around the camp fire.  No, Sir, it does not. Especially if you can return to a comfortable bed and a mechanical comode in the next room.

Vaterstag: Chicken Wing and Skinny Jeans

Yesterday was Father's Day and being hideous cynics and very non sentimental, Kevin and I have a "no hallmark holiday" rule, so I prepared to studiously ignore it. Despite that, I find myself doing two posts on it.

There is no one who loves Kevin like Tallulah, nine. She follows him around, drapes herself all over him, pines for him to arrive home. She has three brothers who are not always charming toward her and Kevin is her advocate and protector.

Kevin and Tallulah also tease each other like mad. Kevin calls Tallulah "chicken wing" and she calls him "skinny jeans".

One ski day at Alpine, Tahoe,  Kevin was just sitting down for lunch on the outside deck. He noticed a girl just like Tallulah walk past a plateful of abandoned chicken wings. It was Tallulah. And she didn't know he was watching her. Some of  the chicken wings had been eaten with only bones left, but some remained intact. Her hand twitched, "ooh" you could see her thinking "those chicken wings look so good". She was going to take one. But then she looked up, saw Kevin and clomped off.

One week later Kevin came down the stairs at home wearing a pair of black, zippered Edun jeans. They were a leap for him, with the side zipper and straight legs, but I had persuaded him to buy them. Tallulah took one look:  "Dad" she said in horror: "Are those skinny jeans?"

Unlike her parents,  Tallulah is romantic and sentimental and longs for a world where we call each other and her darling, dear and sweetheart.

Kevin is teaching her German and here is her Father's Day poem:

"Vaterstag"

"Wie gate es ihnen"
I say to my Vater

As the birds rise
As the mountains shake, I get the feeling it's Vaterstag

As I watch him drink his cup of tea
Eat his brunch I know it's Vaterstag

Candy, clothes and flowers I see on the counter table
Waiting to be eaten, wore and smelled
I remember it's Vaterstag
Last, I stand there, then get the erge to run, I hug my Vater nice and smooth
Knowing it's Vaterstag