liabilitylizzie-blog

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

Mr Posh and the Antique Sideboard

Dinner with Mr Posh - how exciting... and he was going to cook! It was the first time I’d visited his home, and I was well and truly impressed. The man had class. Beautiful furniture, colour-coordinated accessories, beautiful paintings adorning the walls, and the dining room, full of highly polished antique furniture.

He could cook too! We had miniature cheese soufflés to start - perfectly puffed and melt-in-the-mouth delicious. For a main course, he had prepared a tasty chicken dish with asparagus and new potatoes, and then a sumptuous chocolate mousse for dessert. The conversation flowed. He was witty, intelligent and interesting, and regaled me with tales of his travels, always, of course, being interested in my responses and my contribution to the conversation.

Soft music was playing in the background, and the candlelight was flickering... it was so romantic. Mr Posh wouldn’t let me lift a finger.... he insisted on taking the dishes out to the kitchen and then suggested that we adjourn to the lounge. He disappeared upstairs, and whilst he was gone, I decided that I would blow out the several little tea-light candles on the highly polished sideboard.

Unfortunately, I blew too hard. All those years of clarinet practice had obviously paid dividends as far as my puffing skills were concerned, and in blowing the tea lights out, I also blew out the molten wax from the little containers. The beautiful sideboard was splattered with white wax.

Panic! I needed to clear this up. Bear in mind, please, dear reader, that my normally clear mind was somewhat befuddled with copious amounts of wine and liqueurs. I thought quickly (or so I believed) and decided that the best way of cleaning up the wax without damaging the sideboard, was to apply furniture polish, and polish out the offending residue.

I ran to the kitchen and scrabbled under the kitchen sink until I found an appropriate aerosol and a duster. In triumph, I ran back to the dining room and sprayed the polish liberally onto the sideboard. It streamed out of the aerosol and then began fizzing and hissing on the polished wood..... bubbling and boiling like some sort of mini volcanic crater.... surely it wasn’t meant to do that? I looked in horror at the aerosol in my hand. Furniture polish? No. Oven cleaner. By the time I’d looked back at the sideboard, we were down to bare wood - all the polish and the veneer had been eaten away by the harsh chemicals.

I had some explaining to do, for sure.

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

The most disastrous weekend ever, part 3

I called a taxi and headed straight back to the pub (trying desperately to avoid the landlord and the still broadly-grinning Sam), showered and changed into a spare outfit.  I headed back to the hotel in an unremarkable little black dress, but with a pair of quite special, red, Italian leather stilettos.   I quickly quaffed a glass of wine – well, in my defence, I needed to calm my tattered nerves – and started to relax.  A few more wines later, and I was ready to take the dance-floor, which was a small square of parquet floor, edged with round multi-coloured lights at floor level. Yes!  ‘Girls just wanna have fun’ was playing – and boy, was I going to dance! I took to the floor and started shaking my tail feather, singing along and generally enjoying myself.  Within seconds, I had inadvertently managed to boogie the steel tip of my beautiful stiletto inside one of the light bulbs. I was thrown violently across the dance-floor. All lights went out, and the music (yes, they were vinyls in those days) slowly and unintelligibly groaned to a garbled halt.  The hotel was without power and tragedy of tragedies, the beer pumps were off.

I didn’t get invited to the Christening.

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

The most disastrous weekend ever, part 2

After a couple of swift brandies to calm my raggedy nerves, and a rummage in my suitcase to replace my equally raggedy stockings, I called a taxi and made my way to the wedding.  A beautiful wedding ensued, followed by a lovely meal with quite a few glass of wine and the obligatory champagne for toasting the happy couple.  Then came the speeches.  Now, I quite like listening to a good speech, but these went on and on and on.  The brevity of the father of the bride’s speech (possibly due to the fact that he had very few teeth, but one enormous incisor centre-top which resulted in the nickname of Dai Central ‘Eating) was compensated for by throwing the floor open to any guest who wanted to say a few words. Unfortunately, the bride’s uncle, seated directly opposite me on a round table for twelve, decided he wanted to speak. He loosened his tie, mopped his florid brow, took a hefty swig of his pint, belched, and stood up. Unfortunately, his well-developed beer-belly did not quite skim the unfixed tabletop, placed precariously on its support, and the entire table top rose with him.  Everything on the table – plates, glasses (in varying degrees of replenishment), handbags, floral displays and candles – all tumbled down the now tilted table top and channelled off exactly at one point:  my lap.    I was filthy, wet and stinking of unconsumed booze and gravy.  My clothing was sodden – right through to those navy blue undies.

..... to be continued

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

The most disastrous weekend.... ever!

It was just months after my first marriage.  My husband, Dick (so appropriately named) and I, had been invited to the wedding of some close friends, and Dick had been asked to carry out the duties of best man at the ceremony which was to be held in Lancaster.  

We were skint.  We’d spent our last cash on a new bed, and couldn’t afford to stay in the big, posh hotel where the wedding reception was happening.  We managed to get some bargain bed and breakfast at a nearby 13th century pub.  The pub was exceedingly quaint.  The furniture was mismatched, antique and very, very heavy, the windows tiny, and the floors very uneven and creaky.  I hadn’t been able to afford a new outfit, but I had managed to treat myself to some very sexy lingerie which consisted of a dark navy, silk camisole and French knickers, complete with matching suspender belt and dark stockings.  

The time of the wedding was approaching, so Dick toddled off in his posh suit to join the groom for pre-wedding drinks, photographs and general man-things.  I ran myself a fragrant, sudsy bath and lounged for a little while, before drying my hair, putting on my makeup, and then adorning myself with the gorgeous lingerie.   My outfit was, at this point, hanging in the oak wardrobe that almost completely filled one wall of the room.  I opened both doors, reached for my outfit, and took a very sharp intake of breath. The wardrobe, once opened, had been subject to a change of its centre of gravity.  It tilted towards me at a furious rate, doors splayed, and fell on top of me, pinning me down underneath its significant weight.  

My thoughts were running riot under this lump of wood.  I wondered if I could manoeuvre myself onto my hands and knees, push upwards with my back and somehow get myself free.... but this only resulted in a big scrape along my spine.  I considered shouting to see if someone could liberate me, but even as this thought crossed my mind, I knew that my yells would be muffled with the heavy wood, and the decades of layers of carpets that lay beneath me.  There was only one thing to do.  I banged and banged on the floor.  The thuds must surely, at some point, be heard by someone.  I thumped and bumped for what seemed like ages, and then, miraculously, a barely audible voice could be heard.

“Hello?  Is everything all right in there?”

“Yes, I think so…. Sort of…… but  I’m stuck underneath the wardrobe!”

Except that all the landlord heard was “Mmmmmph!”

Eventually, after many mmmmphs, he was sufficiently convinced that something was going on, and I heard the bedroom door open.

“Jesus Christ! Sam!  Help me get this wardrobe up!”

Sam dutifully assisted, and revealed a red-faced, horrified, mascara-streaked version of something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an Ann Summers’ catalogue.  To this day, I have no idea who was the most embarrassed – but I know it wasn’t Sam, who had a very broad and lascivious grin on his chops.

...... to be continued

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

What’s on the menu?

It was before smartphones, in the days where, to get a letter you had to press a number of times on the keys to get a ‘phoneword’.  There was a man I quite fancied, and as the fastest way to a man’s heart is supposed to be through his stomach (not, as my dear mother suggested, up through the rib-cage with a sharp knife), I decided to invite him to dinner.

The text exchange went something like this:

Me: Do you fancy coming for dinner next Wednesday?

Him: Depends on what’s on the menu!

Me: Roast chicken stuffed with whole lemons and garlic, balsamic-drizzled mediterranean veggies, and cous cous.

Except, having sent the damning text without reading it through, cous cous had come out as ‘anus anus’.  

You know when you’re throwing yourself into the lowest, darkest corners of the room, trying to find a spot without a mobile signal? Well that.  But to no avail.  It sent.  Well, it would, wouldn’t it?

His response?  

Hmmm... sounds a bit shit to me!

[liabilitylizzie-blog]

A romantic night in Paris

I have a thing about teeth.  I can't help it.  When I meet people for the first time, I almost talk to their teeth, because I feel that our teeth say a lot about us. 

Recently, I read an article about a dentist who is responsible for the smile of a Very Important Person, and I recognised the name.  I searched for a pic of the dentist and yep, it was someone from my past.

I was 18, it was a balmy, moonlit night, and a gorgeous young dentist took me for a ride in his BMW convertible around Paris.  Romance was in the air as we drove slowly down a tree-lined boulevard.  I wore a strappy dress and was lost in the atmosphere when suddenly, something dropped from the tree above us, right down my cleavage.  It was a massive millipede.  Having a fear of all things crawly, I started screaming.  My French language deserted me, and all I could shout was that there was a monster in my bra.  Almost hysterical, I stood up - we were still moving - and tried to liberate the beast.... a move that was not entirely altruistic.  He offered to help, but I was too modest. Hell yeah, modest, standing up in a car in the middle of Paris with the top of my dress around my waist... the epitome of modesty.  Epic fail with the attempt to impress.