Yesterday Mallorie and I spent 8 hours Christmas shopping. Because I always wait until the last minute and she needed to tie up a few loose ends. We also spent three hours reading theology books in Borders, trying out every lip gloss known to Nars in Sephora and lunching down on pecan encrusted trout and cilantro chicken at an Aspen-ish eatery.

I did it all over today. Sans trout, lip gloss and Borders.

Me & Mal. But Not Now.

Pa has joined his family for the holiday. After the initial meet & greet (you do this too, right?) he said, in no uncertain whisper, he’d give me a thousand dollar tip if I’d do his Christmas shopping this year. He hadn’t managed to yet and even though he didn’t say it, I know he’d just as soon do right near anything other than stand in the Christmas crush buying presents for over 60 children and grand children.

I didn’t take the cash, because I’m pretty sure I owe him a Masters degree or something….I did buy the gifts. It’s nice to do something for him for a change. Steph did the wrapping - a mean feat. And Pa, of course, picked up the bill.

Platinum and diamond Edwardian pin picked up on Portobello Road.

Vintage Gucci wallet, 99p at Help the Aged in Cheshire - the elderly lady at the till imagined ‘pounds’ to be a misprint and sold it to me for the pence version. I let her. Because I’m bad. Bless.

Complete works of “Artemus Ward”. London. 1893. From my favourite Bond Street bookstore - Oxfam.

It pays to be discerning when it comes to second-hand perusing. Yesterday I brought home two Thonet chairs for a fiver each. I plan on distressing them and making cushions with fabric from the Designers Guild. Fingers crossed I wont run out of steam before the project’s complete. Because, you know, sometimes I do.

I blame Sarah and Katy. Some. Those brilliant little kitchen clips and the 400sq.ft sweetheart of a studio.

But mostly I blame decor8. My current favourite addiction. Holly Becker’s blog is like a giant espresso. (That’s how psyched up I get.) Full of pinks and pastels and other lovely things. It makes my head hurt it’s so pretty.

Hop on over and check out the girls; but not before you look at my new Stepford-Style-Sofa. You know you love it.

My mother bought me lingerie and candles for my birthday.

“Because I want a grandbaby. Buffy!”

“You know, you have six already. Just because grandma has 27…doesn’t mean you have to.”

She keeps saying my biological clock is ticking. Even posted it on a message board once because I got snarky and said she didn’t think my sister was pretty. (The two of us tease our mother: “You like our brothers best”.)

The other day she says one of my BFFs is ‘trying’.

“It’s what I heard. And I heard she’s struggling. That she doesn’t have much time. You may want to think about that yourself. Some people wait too long.”

“Whatever. You make it sound like she’s dying and - FYI - if she can’t get pregnant, I don’t think waiting is her problem.” She’s 23.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think I have a biological clock. Not the ticking kind anyway. And even if I did….NOT in a real big hurry to get shown up by Super Mom (AKA: The Sister Who Is Very Pretty no Matter What Our Mother Says.)

I do like the candles though.

I don’t, as a rule, post photos of other people’s children. But after gaining special permission from their mother, I think you’ll agree I couldn’t pass this one up.

Whenever I’m asked to list a ‘best feature’ I say HEAD. Not because I’m smart or anything, but because my forehead is large and it’s usually the thing people notice first. If I’m pressed to be serious, I say EYES. Because they’re right below my forehead and people notice them next.

A perfectly acceptable optometrist sends me to a specialist because she doesn’t like the “yellow tint” to my eyes. She mentions something about bad livers and bad health and since it’s the NHS I have to wait six months to find out I’m not jaundiced.

My mother, who has known me all my life, insists I wear contacts. “But they look yellow,” she’s always saying. I have to let her rub my eyeballs to prove I don’t.

And you know that Euro of mine, he tells me it was my eyes (so much for personality girls) that drew him to me.

“It was Gatwick. Three a.m.” he says. “You had on a black skirt and no makeup. I remember looking at those big gold eyes and thinking how beautiful they were…how beautiful you were.” He always rolls his own right about here because he’s English and the sentiment is getting him nauseous. “I think I said something to that effect at the time.”

He didn’t. What he said was this: “You have amazing eyes. They’re just like Amber’s.” Amber was his chocolate Labrador.

Lucky for me, he loved that Lab.

On Romance:

My instant messenger just popped up with a note that says ‘Add Me’. I don’t know what it means. But it sounds dirty.

So he says “But you’ve (bungee) jumped with me before” and I say “Yeah, but I’m married to you now. I don’t have to do stupid things to impress you anymore.”

I use to have one of Jon Bon Jovi’s videos Tivoed. Watched it every morning. Then the husband got ticked off and said I was just using it to get in the mood - so I had to delete it.

On Pregnancy:

I know you’re dreading the whole birthing-process. Labor and all that. But don’t . Honestly. By the time you carry a baby for nine months, you’ll be begging them to take it out.

Pregnancy’s a funny thing. With your first everything is so new and exciting. The anticipation of what ‘might be’ is just…incredible. With the second, you already know. So it’s all ‘I’ve created a life. I’m a creator’. By the third one you’re just like…I get it already! Can we please have the baby now.

On Family:

Our brother Davy use to read romance novels. That’s a rumor I’m thinking about starting.

She was convinced he’d never leave her. Seriously. Why else would she introduce him to the family.

On Intellect:

Eating fish and reading big-worded books should help. That and Zoloft.

I’m not saying he’s stupid. But he looks like he might be.

On Fitness:

Yeah. Whatever. I can’t run. I’ve had three kids. My bladder will fall out.

So some people think I’m fit because I wear a size 2. What some people don’t know.. is that I’m a midget!

On Me:

She has this uncanny ability to brainwash her little sister. Honestly. She’s just like you.

Sometimes I listen to the voice mails you leave - and they’re so long - I start to answer you back.

jet lag: also jet·lag (jÄ•t’lăg’) n. - A temporary disruption of bodily rhythms caused by high-speed travel across several time zones typically in a jet aircraft marked by fatigue, insomnia, and irritability.

I don’t travel well with others. Especially when I can scream at them. I can scream at HIM. I try not to. And usually do a pretty good job with the trying. Until HE comes out with something like this:

“Why say four words when you can say a thousand? The mouth on you woman! Go on. It’s your job. Just get on with it!”

My job being the single handed unpacking of 125 kilograms of luggage which mostly belongs to him and which I also single handedly packed. HIS job, apparently, being driving to and from the airport after 21 hours in transit. Getting in at 1 a.m. Or six. Depending on which clock our bodies atune to. And in the process somehow managing to forget that I was stuck right there beside him through the whole thing.

HE’s since apologised in an as-it-should-be grovelling kind of way. And will be doing laundry, ironing and cooking in penance. He will also be cleaning the Louboutins that plug holed a garden at a country wedding earlier this month. He just doesn’t know it yet.

I’ve just finished watching The Holiday. Kate Winslet is lovely. But I can’t bring myself to care for Cameron Diaz and I find Jude Law incredibly pompous and irritating - in spite of that rather touching display of affection in his penultimate scene. I would have turned it off, Winslet notwithstanding, were it not for this. Huge chunks of the film bore a striking resemblance to my life. The good, the bad and the ugly (Eli Wallach pun intended).

I remember all too well the pivotal breakdown. The trying to cope with not having the relationship I thought I needed. Leaving my own country, on a whim, to clear my head in another. Falling madly, deeply. On a two week holiday. With a country and a man.

I was Cameron without the fancy home. Driving very badly on the wrong side of the road and sleeping in a cottage lined by cobbled streets. An accidental meeting with a handsome foreigner. Yup. Me too.

And Kate, who spent three years loving a man who didn’t love her back. Who didn’t want her to stay but wouldn’t let her go either. More me.

But that’s another story.

For those who’ve asked how it feels…….

Turns out being thirty isn’t half as bad as turning thirty. Not least because I’ve finally emerged from jet lag, foreign dialects and rich pastries.

To ease the transition I sampled a lot of red. Got pinched, prodded and lymph-drained. Went to see Shavata for her seventy-five dollar brows. Tried out the CACI facial. And met up with Heidi for that photo rejuvenation I go on about.

All this, just to make me feel young. It worked.

To make me feel special I got ‘the holiday’, a stack of writing books, novels, original D&G (Darcy & Gabby) artwork, the obligatory cash-in-card and fashion accessories to die for.

Then there was The Best Gift Ever - a luxe and lovely handbag he caught me eyeballing at Mulberry. *Girly Sigh*

I normally balk at posting photos of myself. But I’m trying to be Thirty and Loving It. So here we go. Kicking fear and loathing in the face. Buffy Holt. August 2006. Age 30 - but only just.