May: Emerald (green)
June: Pearl (off white)
July: Ruby (red)
August: Peridot (olive green)
September: Sapphire (blue)
October: Opal (milk white)
November: Topaz (yellow gold)
December: Turquoise (turquoise)
Holidays!
And so to holiday time. Hurrah. Time to chill out, relax and enjoy. But first you have to decide what to take!
The Essential Summer Holiday Wardrobe
A flattering bikini or swimsuit. Take a friend with you when shopping for this for an honest opinion.
A sarong for covering any lumps or bumps while you cruise past boys by the pool or on the beach. It can also be used as a shawl in the evening if it’s cool.
A practical beach bag, big enough to hold all your stuff. It’s worth hunting around for one that zips shut so sand (or a pickpocket) doesn’t get into it.
A light floaty dress for evenings (short or long).
T-shirts and light trousers in the same colours. Minimise the number of clothes you take to either all white, all black or all blue and you can easily mix and match.
A lightweight jacket for cool evenings.
Pretty sandals or flip-flops.
One pair of trainers or comfy shoes for trekking or sightseeing.
A hat (straw, baseball cap or other) for when the sun is strong or your hair has gone mad.
One special outfit for the evening, for if you meet a cutenik on the beach and get a date.
One fab pair of sunglasses.
Some Other Things You May Find Useful to Take
Camera, plenty of film and a back-up battery or memory card.
Ear plugs for if your room is next to a boiler or if you have noisy people next door.
Sun screen and après-sun lotion (v. important).
Books and magazines.
Hair ties for the pool or sea.
An eye cover in case your room is blasted with sunlight at five a. m. and wakes you up.
Lip salve for dry lips.
Eucalyptus oil for the plane. Germs get circulated through the air in the cabin, and eucalyptus is antiviral, so if you sprinkle some on a tissue and inhale every now and then, it will help prevent you from picking up a cold or virus.
A fan.
Travel plug adapter.
Nail file.
Hairdryer.
Tips for Taking Great Holiday Pics
by Steve Lovering
Make sure you have plenty of the right kind of film (or card if your camera’s digital) and a back-up battery. Put it in your hand luggage, because checked luggage is X-rayed at a much greater strength since the advent of heightened security in airports. Sometimes it’s worth buying a disposable camera - you can get ones that take panoramic shots and even work underwater which is great for pool and ocean shots.
Check where your light source is. It is always best coming from the side or three quarter front as this avoids your shape casting a shadow over the picture.
Take your pictures early in the morning or early in the evening when possible, as the light is best then, but make sure the light is in the right place or your subjects may become silhouettes. At high noon, the light is harsh and photos tend to come back with hard shadows under eyes and hats.
Let your pictures tell the story of your holiday with a beginning, middle and end, i.e. packing before going, a tearful goodbye to the dog, cruising at the airport, arriving at the hotel, the places you visit which reflect the culture, then finally arriving back to the angry dog who wasn’t pleased he was left behind!
Think about your composition. Look at what’s around your subject - you don’t want a photo where it looks like someone has a tree growing out of their head, or where the top part of their head has been cut off (unless it’s a pic of my brother Lal - I always try to cut off his head).
See if there are any colours around that will look good against your subject. For example, if someone’s wearing a yellow dress, put them against a contrasting background like a purple flowering bush.
Compose your subject so that they aren’t looking straight into the sun and squinting.
You don’t have to force the subject to pose straight on. Try a three-quarter angle for example. If taking in the whole body be careful you don’t cut off at strange points, making the subject look as if they have no neck or no lower leg (unless it’s Lal again when care must be taken to make him look as ridiculous as possible on all occasions).
Don’t always have the subject dead centre either - try putting them a third of the way in.
Look for lines in the landscape that may lead the eye to your subject, such as a row of hedges or a wall.
Beware of spilling water or drinks on cameras as it can cause damage that is expensive to repair and won’t be covered by insurance.
PART FIVE
Riding the Roller Coaster
by all of us
We all experience crapola days sometimes and periods when the outlook seems cloudy and we lose our usual fight or optimism. Sometimes it can feel like life is a roller coaster with ups and downs, highs and lows, good times and bad. Rejection, loss, illness, stress … they all cast a shadow and can make us feel the world’s a hard place and that life’s nothing but an uphill struggle and we may as well give up.
Trouble is, when in a down patch, it can seem like it’s going to last forever, with no end in sight. At times like this, different people have different ways of coping or a favourite saying that inspires them and reminds them that there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not an oncoming train!
This next section is about how we cope with the down times, plus some of our favourite sayings - so when the going gets tough, the tough can turn to this section and hopefully find something to help.
Izzie
The girls asked me to go first because I’m known as the one who is always asking questions about life. In fact, the teachers at school call me Izzie ‘Why?’ Foster because of my reputation for always asking difficult questions. My mum says I was always like that, even as a small child when my favourite questions were things like, ‘What’s after space, Mum?’ I never did get satisfactory answers and the questions still rattle away in my brain sometimes driving me mad.
The girls call me the ‘wise woman’ because I’m always thinking about deep stuff. Wise woman is a joke. If they only knew how mad I was inside my head. Sometimes, it all gets to me - the bad news on TV, like people getting killed, wars, people with not enough to eat. I think, Why, why, why? It’s sooo not right. None of it makes any sense. And then on a smaller, more personal scale, there’s my own life. Boys, mates, family, exams, school, the size of my expanding bum. How do you cope and stay sane?
Well, of course there’s chocolate for a quick fix, but it doesn’t last for long (except on your hips!). And putting my feelings down as lyrics for my songs also helps, but I’ve tried to find something that gives a lift in the longer term (and isn’t fattening!). As I said earlier in the book, I’m into aromatherapy - in fact, into all New-Age therapies. I find it really interesting how essential oils or crystals or a good massage can affect one’s state of mind as well as the physical self. Out of all the things I’ve looked into, I’ve found that visualisations and meditation have helped me the most, as they calm me down and make me feel at peace. And if I feel peaceful inside, it is reflected outside. In life, I think that it’s not what life throws at you that’s so important, but how you respond to it. And that can all be down to the state of mind you’re in at the time. If you feel chilled, then nothing seems such a big deal. If you’re stressed, the smallest thing can blow your fuse.
Here are some techniques I’ve learned to help achieve a positive frame of mind. They’re particularly good if you have exams coming up or are at the dentist’s or, in fact, in any stressful situation.
Izzie’s Visualisation Technique to Take Your Mind Off Bad Times
1. Lie back, close your eyes, unc
ross your legs and arms. Take three deep breaths, right down into your abdomen.
2. Think of a time when you were totally relaxed, confident and happy. Perhaps by a beach or a river or in the garden in summer.
3. Visualise the colours in your scene. Now turn them up, to make them brighter in your mind.
4. Imagine the sounds. Birds singing, leaves rustling or waves breaking on the shore. Turn the sounds up in your mind.
5. Imagine the smells. Fresh cut grass, the scent of roses or the salty air at the sea. Turn the scents up in your mind.
6. Bring all the sounds, scents and sights together into a complete picture in your mind.
7. Fix this picture with a physical sign. i.e. when you have the picture clear in your mind, make a gesture with your hands - either touch the thumb and index finger together or clench your fist. Every time you do this gesture in future, it will remind you of your positive feel-good visualisation and take you to a cool state of mind quickly.
I read somewhere that it’s not the bomb that’s the problem, but the mind that created the bomb. In the same way, for example, think of a knife. You can use a knife to cut an orange or to harm someone. It’s all down to the motivation that comes from inside, the knife is incidental. If the mind is peaceful, a person will feel peace and their actions will be peaceful. If a mind is agitated, a person will feel agitated and their actions will reflect that. I think that makes sense and I also think that meditation is one way of feeling peace inside. Imagine if everyone felt peaceful, what a fab planet this would be. Cue hippy-dippy song about love and peace. Everyone sing along …
There are loads of different types of meditation out there. It’s worth researching a few methods to find the one that works for you, but here’s one to try in the meantime.
Yoga Meditation
1. Sit comfortably with the spine straight.
2. Inhale and exhale through alternate nostrils as follows. First put your right hand up to your face. Lightly rest your right thumb on the right side of your nose.
3. Rest your index finger on your forehead and have your middle finger ready by the left nostril for when you need it. The hand fits quite comfortably into this position.
4. When you are ready, apply a slight pressure with the thumb, closing the right nasal passage.
5. Now slowly inhale through the left nostril, hold for two counts, then apply gentle pressure on the left nostril with your middle finger (releasing your thumb from the right nostril as you do so) and exhale slowly through the right nostril.
6. Then, with the middle finger still resting on the left nostril, inhale through the right nostril, slowly; hold for two counts, then lift the middle finger from the left nostril and exhale through the left, closing the right nostril with your thumb again.
7. Try a few times to get the movements right, then do it slowly up to ten times.
8. Once you have mastered the technique, you can sit and do it for ten minutes or longer and it will bring about a sensation of calm and focus.
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused painkillers during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.
And here are a few of my favourite quotes. I have them stuck on the noticeboard above my desk in my bedroom to remind me.
What you resist, persists.
It’s never too late to change.
The only time that’s real is here and now.
You’ll never learn to sing if you’re not prepared to open your mouth and hit a few bum notes.
Some days you’re the bug, some days you’re the windscreen.
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
– André Gide
Dream as if you will live forever, live as if it’s your last day.
A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
– Mark Twain
Nesta
OK, what cheers me up? Hhmmm. Twenty-five pounds in my pocket and permission to spend. I’m a great believer in retail therapy. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. It can take your mind off whatever’s bugging you.
Now, that may make me sound like a shallow person, but I’m not really. I just don’t believe in dwelling on bad times. I believe in getting on with life. There’s that saying that life is what you make it and I intend to make mine fab. Like, why sit around in your room, moping over some guy when you can be out seeing a new movie or trying on shoes at the mall?
Yes, there have been times I’ve been dumped (yes, moi!) There was a time I was bullied at school (I wrote about this earlier in the surviving at school section), but I decided, I had a choice. Winner or loser? I chose winner. And I really do believe we have a choice.
Life is not a rehearsal. I mean, yeah, who knows how long we’ve got on the planet, why we’re here and all that stuff? What we do know, though, is that we are here so why not see as much as you can, experience all that there is? I intend to make the most of it and be as happy as I can.
Here are my favourite quotes for the bad days:
Quitters never win and winners never quit.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
– Somerset Maugham
Better to live one day as a tiger, than a thousand years as a sheep.
– Chinese proverb
The birds of doom may fly overhead, but you don’t need to let them nest in your hair.
You laugh because I’m different, I laugh because you’re all the same.
Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to meet it.
Choice - not chance - determines destiny.
If you have but two coins, buy a loaf for the body with one and hyacinths for the soul with the other.
If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving is not for you!
Coffee, chocolate, men. Some things are just better rich.
Don’t upset me. I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.
Lucy
My methods of getting through bad times are very simple:
1. Spend time with your mates, having a laugh.
2. Love the people close to you and be there for them in bad times and they’ll do the same for you. I know that there are loads of people on the planet who are having a really hard time, but what about people in the neighbourhood? My brother Lal (who is not normally known for his greatly compassionate nature) was really kind to this oddball old lady who lived nearby. And her cat. It really touched me because everyone else avoided her, but he took a little time with her. I thought afterwards, it’s so easy to feel a great need to help people that we see on the news on the telly, and to overlook the ones who live in the same street who are lonely or sad. Lal also leaves out food for the neighbourhood fox. He got really concerned when the council introduced wheelie bins as that meant that the fox couldn’t scavenge for food in the rubbish bags any more, so was going hungry. Lal now spends some of his money on food for the fox. He can be a real sweetie, sometimes.
3. When I’m feeling low, I love making clothes. I can spend hours looking in fabric stores, at jumble sales or stalls selling old clothes down the Portobello Market, looking for the perfect piece of velvet or lace or piece of material to make into something fab. It gives me a real buzz putting it all together and it always lifts my mood.
4. If dumped, allow twenty-four hours of wailing, listening to sad songs and feeling sorry for yourself. Then get up, turn the page and move on. (Chocolate, ice cream and weepie videos are also good in the first twenty-four hours.)
Here are my favourite quotes:
Fortune favours the brave.
What a difference a day makes, twenty-four li
ttle hours.
Big things come in small packages.
Two mistakes you can make in life: one is to think that you’re special. The other is to think that you’re not.
He who laughs, lasts.
Look for the rainbow in every storm.
Laugh and the world laughs with you.
The darkest hour is just before dawn (so if you’re going to steal your neighbours milk, that’s the time to do it!)
TJ
Low points? Oo. Er … Well, I know the one thing that doesn’t work for me and that’s lying around, thinking about it. That can feel like wading through a pan of cold porridge (not that I’ve ever waded through a pan of cold porridge, it would have to be a big pan, for starters, but you know what I mean!) When I’m feeling down - it might sound mad - but I jog or play squash, football or tennis. Thrash a ball about. It works. Honest. Like, there was this one time when I fell in love with a boy, really in love. Luke De Biasi. I thought he was my soul mate (but unfortunately he happened to be going out with Nesta at the time). Anyway, he really messed us both around, telling lies, telling half-truths, and at the end I felt so mad and confused, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I took myself off to the squash court, imagined he was the ball and bashed the hell out of it. Better than doing him physical damage and I felt a lot better after! Kind of purged and free. My mum’s always saying that bad feelings are better out than in. I think she means that I should express them, like talk them through or something, but I prefer to do it this way. And I always feel better afterwards.
Mates, Dates Guide to Life Page 12
