AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS..

Christmas was good. It could have been diabolical but it was very good. I didn't have Tom this year and although he's sixteen I still miss him on Christmas morning. Last year we were in Antarctica and we walked along the snow beach of Deception Island, followed by three penguins like three wise men waddling after us.  And it snowed silently and heavily.   This year, no Tom but he called which was wonderful.  Wise young man that he is.    I visited family and friends, like some Vicar of Dibley, dipping in on turkey dinners and feeling a part of the family and being made welcome as part of the family even if I wasn't.     I thank those friends who invited me - Nikki, Julie and  Caroline.  Thank you so much you lovely people.     I now know all families are highly competitive, not just mine, and board games bring this out the win-at-all-costs in even the most timid of folk.  

On Christmas morning I drove round the M25 on a beautiful day.  The M25 should always be like that.    Clear.

Looking at cars brimming with presents and fractious faces.   There are happy families and those playing at happy families.  And then there are those who don't want to play or can't keep it up, not even for a day.   The expectations of happiness at this time of year are over done. Everyone should be smiling like they are on TV, but they are not real, although Eastenders always makes your own Christmas seem delirious in comparison. I'm sure that's why they do it, to put all of the other sugary stuff into perspective.  

Boxing Day more friends.   Teaching yoga, working on psychology stuff that's interesting, evolving and relevant, and knowing I'm lucky.  How cool is that.    Oh, and I bought myself some socks.   With pink seahorses on.

TOM IS SIXTEEN

Where does the time go?   I sort of know where it goes looking back through this blog.   I don't put everything down of course, and this year has been a mare (Year of the Horse so we should have known).   But for a day, I went up to London with Tom who makes me look small.   I am not small.  I am five foot 9 and now wear heels so am not short.  And look at us.   And I'm wearing a hat.  He is head and shoulders above me.  In every way.    His father and I are blessed.

We went to the Frostival festival at the London Eye, as the sun was setting. London looked incredible despite the cranes.  And then onto Its a wonderful life at the BFI which I haven't seen all the way through.   There are some powerful moments in that and yet another film where there's a Scrooge of a banker who doesn't learn his lesson.  Bankers are always depicted as the baddies but actually they are the baddies.  Even Jesus with all his magnanimous compassion kicked them out of the Temple.  The only decent lovely one I've ever met is short and Welsh.  Banker that is, not Jesus.

Southbank is on my doorstep. Its a 15 minute train drive away.  BFI Southbank are holding a feast of Xmas movies (Meet Me in St Louise (how did Judy Garland get her hair to quiff like that?)  Its a Wonderful Life  -all those with financial problems please watch that, or the new version 'Angela' which is incredibly moving but set in a very contemporary setting.    Guys and Dolls (although I don't think this is really a Christmas movie although am I being bah humbug about it.)  www.bfi.org.uk

I love films and hope to be taking Tom to all of them, although he's already seen the Hobbit so I haven't seen the last two Hobbit films but am told they are all part of the same thing so I haven't missed much, just one long very protracted fight.

My son is sixteen on Saturday.   I am blessed and amazed he's healthy, happy, balanced and I haven't killed him with my cooking, and he knows that he's loved and supported by both of his parents although neither of them feel that about each other.  

What I recommend you go do at Southbank a part from see the films this Christmas?   Avoid Winter Wonderland. Expensive.     Go do the London Eye.  Short but good, and book ahead.   Wonderful views and better value than the Shard. www.londoneye.com/frostival   National Theatre has Treasure Island. www/nationaltheatre.org.uk    Southbank Centre has Slava's Snowshow which I went to last year and is wonderful although better for younger children (think 8 - 10 rather than teenagers.   www/southbankcentre.co.uk

Grimms Tales www.coinstreet.org and www.oxotower.co.uk/whats-on/ go see if you can.   Wonderful production going on till 15th February.

Finish off at the bar at the Mondrian Hotel.  Very trendy even if you are not it will rub off.  www.mondrianlondon.com  plus has its own cinema www.curzonmondrianondon.com

BE YOUR OWN DURACELL BUNNY...

I attended an event to launch Reviv, a company that is launching IV hydration and booster shots to the UK market.  With 50 clinics in the UK, they are going global.  We are as a nation - and probably as a race - clinically dehydrated or most of us are.  

IV Hydration, if you haven't heard of it, is the quickest way of effectively rehydrating the body. So ideal of those who work 18 hour days, who fly all over the place, who basically don't drink enough (no one does - or not anyone I know does).     The results?    The boosters have effects such as  improving your sense of well being, getting rid of colds, improving energy levels, improving the quality of your skin, managing weight loss - all by hydrating yourself.

 It was an interesting meeting, Antonia, Cosmetic Coach, Mariconda, had invited an audience that comprised GPs, nutritionalists, beauty journalists, travel journalist (me), people who've had it done (IV hydration) and others who have had everything done.     So we had genuine debate rather than 'show and tell'.

As a result there was interesting debate and question.

"Is this a saline drip with vitamins in?"
"Why don't we know what vitamins are in it?
"Doctors have been doing this for ages, why now are they interdicting it for the general public?
"Is this is the hangover cure?  And encourages bad habits?

GPs I spoke to were a bit sceptical treating it as something that will be a 'trend'.   Sinitta was there and said she and Simon Cowell and a lot of the X Factor crew have an IV hydration session before the shows and think its excellent. And she wasn't being paid to say that (that's what she said).

I had a photo taken with Dr Hilary, who has put his name behind it and who bounced off the questions well, as did all the spokes people, Sarah Lomas and Seb Jones

I'm going to have a session myself and will report back. I am always being told my skin is dehydrated.    Those in the audience who had had IV hydration told me it was safe, that it was excellent for the skin and even the GPs who were cynical identified that 'most of the British population are clinically dehydrated'.    That sounds serious (it is).   And I fly a lot so don't know what I would be 'hyper critically dehydrated' I suppose.  

You chose from a range of products - Megaboost; B-12 pure energy booster; : body booster; slim boost and Royal Flush.  Liked the idea of Royal Flush will sounds like a cure all.

The meeting was held in a beautiful hotel in Knightsbridge where I'm sure a lot of the clients will come from .  Reviv has fifty clinics in the UK and I see this trend growing although unlike the GP I'm not sure it will be a 'fad'.  I certainly think its a good idea for those who travel a lot.

Will tell you more in January and no, I won't be using it as a hangover cure.  

PSYCHO IN THE CITY

So the Priory is going to the City. The Surrey one deals with the banker's wives and the City one is dealing with the banker.  Simplistic generalisation but basically on the money.
The ones who should go, won't because they think there's nothing wrong with them and its everyone else that has something wrong with them. And most of the really psychotic ones have already left having been dismissed for doing the banks bidding with 'wilful obtuseness' I think the financial ombudsman called it.  In other words, lying through their white capped teeth.   Will any of them who become farmers, bed and breakfast owners, interior designers, spiritual healers or whatever ever admit to once being a 'banker'?   I think not.
As for the rest, the ones who go, will not want to admit it because they work in environments that nurture/attract sociopaths who don't give a toss about anything other than their own needs which they will satisfy at any cost to others.
The city is big on self absorb not self aware, and they already know how to mind fuck so I am genuinely more concerned about the counsellor than I am about the 'patient'.  The English Psycho could out manoeuvre the American one any day.   These guys think they are omnipotent. Well, they've got away with screwing the world's global economy, and probably worse, why not?     Trying to get them to believe they are not God is a waste of breathe.  And hey, they don't need help anyway. Its those who live with them who do.

FRIENDS OF TONY BLAIR AND BUGGERING TINY TIM

That name should get the number of hits up on this blog.  I wanted to put two more in, but then thought twice.   Teresa May after all will be going through everyone's dirty laundry soon, although from what I heard this weekend those in the upper echelons  ( must think of a better name for them..) have got the dirtiest laundry of them all.

Who will be going through the emails?  I imagine little elves beavering away in the cellars of Westminster in the midnight hours.   Friends of Tony Blair (FOTB)?    Talking of which….. I attended a charity event at the weekend. It was excellent and the performances were wonderful but it was the after event chat that was as intriguing as the event was grand. I was with people who know everyone, as in know/talk to/listen to everyone who is anyone who is written about in broadsheets and tabloid.  I know no one. In fact one of my dear friends once said to me (she is successful but not corruptibly so) 'I can speak to you openly Sarah because you don't know anyone'  I think she meant in her industry.

Any way, back to the after event chatter, where people were talking about who was suing who, and who was libelling who and who was doing what to whom and why wasn't anyone doing anything about it (I mainly said the last line, to which they always looked at me and said FOTB), I now think (having listened to this conversation) anyone who has reached the top of their game, especially in finance but any industry actually, is revolting - inside if not out. Revolting as in if you listened to stories about them they would make you physically sick, which is what I became. And they will all be OK because they are FOTB.     In order to get where they are, they have sold their soul.  I am trying to find another way of putting it, but no, that about sums it up.     I know a handful of good eggs who are at the top, but actually they're not really at the top. They are just very comfortable.    So they don't count.   Admittedly I don't mix in these circles that call themselves elite - and I'm pleased I don't.   I did for a short while and it was a bit like the party scene from Devils Advocate meets the dance scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I think I've had a bad year, but boy, compared to this lot I've had it good.  Listening to the shenanigans (is that how you spell it?) of the upper echelons in society they must be an extremely bored and unimaginative lot.  I suppose there is only so much champagne you can drink, fancy restaurants you can go to, money and secrets you can hoard or hide.  Well as its Christmas they can all get together for their parties and pretend to be friends or enemies.     Its Christmas and Scrooge is on TV and that historian Dickens would look upon todays society and see how little the rich have learnt.   Scrooge was scared almost to death by the thought of going to hell which kick started him into generosity.  After Sunday, my feeling is now things have got far worse. Ghosts could visit this lot and they would still be bah humbugging, and on the quiet probably buggering Tiny Tim.

BOOK LAUNCH - THE A TO ZEN OF TRAVEL and www.atozenoftravel.com

Waterstones, 6.30pm to 8 friends turned up to hear me talk about the latest book, including two ex boyfriends.  Thank you guys.  I really appreciated it.  And everyone else who came, thank you. To John who came all the way over from Essex and hates leaving his village let alone crossing London.   And Claire, thank you, you are so supportive and always lovely and fit everything and everyone in in your incredibly busy life.   Wish I had half your time management skills although I think like me, you sleep very little.   Julie and Nikki, you're always there for me.  And Ailsa - you are amazing!  Jo and her beautiful daughter - thank you for tweeting. and Chantal - another one who's a compulsive go getter but makes it look easy (its not).  And Richard huge huge thank you and hope the review isn't too bad.   I still remember the one I got from the Telegraph for my first book. It was a stinker.   But I learn from bad reviews, just like I do shitty people and I have had both in spadefuls this year - bad reviews and shitty people. But it makes the good ones shine bright.  I'm getting rid of the dead wood and helping others with yoga do the same.  I read once if you visualise a gravestone with their names on it, its one way of making them RIP, but I heard that a woman did that once and it actually happened.  So I'm not going to go there.  

I have been writing my christmas card list.   For once I am sending cards to people I have seen this year.  People who have been so supportive and kind, not just distant names I knew once.   I've got to know them again.  And managing to do productive stuff. Taught yoga this morning to a lovely class - and they like me.  That's so nice.   I've had a lot of hate. That's the only way I can put it, hate, coming my way this year and although its made me stronger and more aware of myself, it has made me much more aware of others.  After all, hate is fear.    We all have problems don't we.  Just I've become aware others have much bigger issues than me.  And boy do they dump.  But its all material for a writer. I'm here to observe, not judge.