Belgian Spring - March!!! Photo courtesy of Veronika de Brouwer

Good Old Bathtub

Nowadays some people still do take baths. Not perhaps on a daily basis, but often enough - or so I hope.

It seems that people, who are very successful take only showers - they do not have time and most probably they hear the news while they shower and use products which leave the skin soft and well perfumed right away, so that after the blitz shower they can jump out of the premises, into their clothes ( prepared the night before - nothing to be said against this), run to, most probably, their car and drive, bicycle, walk or what ever, to their important jobs to work hard all over the place. It is a question of time!

There are also people who shower, because they cannot any longer manoeuvre themselves out of the tub and would be sitting there like a duck to be shot. Elderly persons normally do not like any longer to take baths, but prefer to shower. SO, next time you think about being old, think about the shower or bathtub question - and you will see where you stand!

I had an aunt, far aunt, who had in her bathroom a bathtub of 1,90 m -  a very long thing, looking like a sarcophagus - not wide, but long. Next to this wonderful instrument was a very comfortable chair, she had upholstered in the fabric towels are made of, you know what I mean, so that even if sitting there soaked, the chair simply dried up and looked normal. Her daughter and she used to have nice chats in the bathroom, one lying in her bath, the other one lolling in the huge and comfortable chair. Of course this was not a bathroom as we have it nowadays, some sort of cubicle of 1x1 m, where you will throw all your wonderful flacons and things on the floor if you just turn to quickly, without a window and without day light. Hers was a room, more for living with the comfortable attitude of being a room and not a "wet-cell" as the pragmatic Germans say: "Nasszelle". So depressing! And if you have bathroom without any natural airing system, you always have to take a wash with that fan noise... not a thing I would love. Or you start a mushroom culture - also a possibility.

But back to the glories of taking a bath. Being a whale or whatever you chose to be, a bath is always glamorous and it gives you the opportunity to think. In fact your are being hyper practical:  you get clean, gentlemen can shave as well, you can read a book, even hear a good disc on your i-pod and if necessary and wished for, have a chair there for that chat. The vast choice of delicious bath oils is worth giving the old bathtub another go -  in a shower you smear the stuff on your poor body for ca 54 seconds, wash it off and I do not believe, that any good is done, sorry. Showering is for getting clean, quickly, and nothing more. Fair enough!

In a bath you linger and can indulge in wonderful perfumes - no wonder that clever Mrs Estee Lauder introduced the famous bath oil ( now not longer available) of the famous "Youth Dew" - it was a revolution at the time as it started to make it "normal" for ladies to purchase scent for themselves, albeit in disguise of an innocent bath product. Until then and for a long time before, it was the husband/lover/admirer who bought and decided on the scent a woman had to live with. With the invention and matter of factly purchasing power of the bath oil - a product to take a bath, not a sinful  luxury thing - she transferred to women the power to buy a scent which was distinctively luxurious, sexy and made taking a bath not longer a chore, but a pleasure.

And if you do not like "Youth Dew" or her clever sisters, try some Verveine tea bags or some Epsom Salts,  a cup of milk (only think of good old Liz Taylor as Cleopatra.....) or some essential oils, a shot of good hairconditioner or a baby bath - the experience is always the same: relaxation and some me time of the best.

Children's birthdays - FUN?

My youngest son had his birthday yesterday - and we had, as it should be, a party. 

He himself had planned all meticulous during the last weeks and month and after careful consideration had invited 8 friends. Not the whole class, but only 8. The idea was to make a picnic and go to the park, playing football, running around and eating seated on a blanket on the grass ( not very comfortable in march, but then one goes along with the desires of the jubilant and accommodates accordingly in time...) which in his understanding means a huge chocolate cake WITH Smarties on top, several kilos of the most unhealthy chips possible, a mountain of Haribos and other terrifying stuff, lemonades and, if really not to be avoided, some bread with butter made by loving old mum.

Planning done, I broke my right foot and have to sit in the salon and keep quiet. 

Big disappointment. But then, creativity and play kicked in and my daughter took over, baked a chocolate cake out of one of those boxes you can buy in the supermarkets, they went shopping alone, with my card (!!sweating me at home..) and came back, glowing and happy with their bounty of  sweets and nonsense and  threw themselves into preparations wholeheartedly.

The children arrived, the mothers clustered around my sickbed for a quick chat and the invitees were never again seen in the house, but started to organise to build a camp in the garden - lucky us to have a wonderful sunny spring day - otherwise it would most probably have been a camp under the dinning table with more uncomfortable implications for me sitting right next to it. I think they had great fun and spent the whole afternoon outside in a tiny garden, busy organising their play themselves, solving small conflicts and eating huge amounts of unhealthy stuff - happy to run around, make a lot of noise and only once in a while accommodating to my daughters essays ins becoming a general manager. Though she did pretty well I have to say!!!!

I was musing meanwhile over the fact, that it is so easy to give the children those opportunities and that so many times there are those huge and super expensive parties organised for children, who do then not know how and where to start - and adults taking great care of orchestrating what they should do and play and eat and how and when all this will happen. 

I wonder, if those adults, with rolling eyes and sweating eyebrows, are really doing those parties for their offspring out of fun, or if they do not do it for themselves, having to comply to some unwritten law that children's birthdays are only well lived and well done if everybody afterwards is exhausted, a lot of money poorer and at least sighing with relief that it is all over.

When I was living still in Portugal children's parties were great and I learnt a lot - bear with me for some nostalgic ideas and incentives...

First of of all, the children were invited as individuals, not as a class, as well as siblings and mothers ( and fathers, if they wanted, but it was mainly a mothers thing, with dads popping in and out or if there all sitting at the other end of the room and talking business) - so no problem with the famous babysitting problem with the other children  at home - they simply came too.  Then, it was always at home and if you did not have a big home, you did invite only few kids and their entourage. Were there many people to be expected the weather helped and one went for a picnic in one of the parks and everybody helped with food and drinks. Also it was always clear, that mothers stayed for the party, but could leave with or without the children at any time - after singing and eating the cake, of course - which was always more or less half an hour after the official start of the party, so that everyone was there and the festivities could start. The idea was of spending a comfortable time together, drinking tea, talking about things, having fun while the children had fun themselves and the adults behaving like adults and having fun as well.

Of course there was always one or two children coming over to say hello to mum, show or communicate something important, blow their nose, complain about another kid and/or eat a bit of cake on her lap, but then they left again and everybody was happy and enjoyed themselves. No needs for Mummy to sit on the floor and engage in organising the Lego sessions.. I loved that afternoons, as it was so easy - there was a cake, some bread with butter, tea and lemonade and if we were very lucky, some sweets and chocolates for the children, but more as a decoration than a means to itself. All left relaxed and happy and well fed in soul and body.

I know, things are done today differently, out of lack of time and also inclination? Parents drop of their children at the door with military precision and pick them up impatiently at at the hour which was indicated - doing other things meanwhile the darlings are parked at the party. Do not get me wrong - I DO IT MYSELF!   I DO understand that very well and who am I to accuse anybody - it has just become "normal". Most of us work full time and most of us have several children: a Saturday is not for relaxing but for 1763 things to be done, football for Nr 1, scouts for Nr 3, in between shopping at the Supermarket for the coming week, organising plants for the garden,  if possible the buying the new winter tires, the shopping for shoes for the baby or the present for the godchild's 7th birthday next week, and and and... 

There is simply in our mind no time for pleasure and for a chat and for a sitting down and letting be. I know perfectly well, that I am nostalgic here - I am myself one of those mothers who run around on Saturdays like a headless chicken and try to accommodate all and everybody's needs. 

But is it not a pity, that a child's birthday, a day of joy for parents and siblings and friends, becomes a chore instead of pure bliss and joy and celebration?