It’s still fricking awesome though.

Well, it’s nearly Easter. At least that’s what the supermarkets would have you believe with chocolate eggs already making an appearance. But there’s another gift buying, Hallmark day coming up first. A day to strike fear into most women’s hearts.

The dreaded Valentines Day.

*represses a shudder*

When we were teenagers it was something looked forward to with excitement. Would you get a card this year? Did you have a secret admirer? Would the person you sent the card to intuit it was from you and track you down at break time to declare his undying love behind the bike sheds?

Inevitably, not. No.

These days the fear is much less about not getting anything and looking like a sad dweeb who no-one loves or even fancies, and much more about the fear of the impending gift. One we will have to smile over and, if really unlucky, use or wear with fake excitement.

That’s right, it’s almost time for husbands everywhere to start Valentines shopping. Or should that be browsing porn sites and imaging themselves as the well hung stud and you as the skinny, shaved, inflated boob possessing tart. I can only assume that is what’s going through men’s minds when they buy this shit.

The top 5 worst ‘sexy’ Valentines Day gifts

Crotchless knickers

Never a good idea. Never. Not classy, not sexy and invariably made from cheap, scratchy material. Also not a good look when your lady has a grown-up woman’s hairy minge as opposed to a naked one that porn stars and prepubescent teenagers have.

Sexy costumes

Sexy serving wench, sexy nurse, sexy police woman etc: no! Just don’t do it! Firstly, this is supposed to be a gift for her, not a gift for you. Secondly, there is nothing sexy about serving to beer to drunken idiots, stitching people back together, moping up blood and being puked on or arresting people that have been beating their wives, drunk driving or shooting each other. And thirdly, it’s demeaning. Don’t do it.

Cheap sex toys

Yes, we can tell the difference. No, it’s not just about us wanting only expensive things, it’s about us not wanting bits falling off in our delicate areas. About wanting to be sure that the thing being inserted inside us is not coated in skin blistering chemicals. And no, it’s not normal for the chemically rubbery smell of sex toys to be so over powering that it makes your eyes water.  Get your credit card out you cheap fuck.

Flavoured condoms

Yes, we know exactly what’s on your mind when you hand us a six pack of extra ribbed, mixed flavour johnies, and the answer is always going to be no. Because, I’ll let you in to a secret here, those ‘flavours’ all taste of rubber. Seriously, there is no way I’d put any of them anywhere near my mouth.

Hardcore bondage gear

Unless your lady love has already professed the desire to be tied up and beaten or dragged around on a dog leash and humiliated, now is not the time to introduce her to the darker side of your erotic fantasies. Pulling a gimp mask and leather straps out of that hastily bought, heart-covered gift bag is a good way to ensure that you never have sex again. And spend a large amount of time getting acquainted with the bed in the spare room.

If you really do want to buy something erotic and sexy for the woman in your life, then try some nice lingerie from Ann Summers. It’s on the high street. And all the slebs shop there you know: Emma Watson spotted saucy underwear shopping with mystery man.

Or a childminder and a bottle or two of decent wine. Hey, it would work for me.

Oh, and when buying underwear, do NOT buy anything that zaps you with static.

Unless of course your aim is give the love of your life thrush.

As far as the folks of rural Lapland are concerned, that’s like living in fort knocks. It’s one step away from sitting on your porch with a loaded rifle and taking pot shots at the postman.

“If you started locking your door every time you went out, how would people get in?” was the confused question posed to me when I started asking questions about the lack of home security in my new home village.

And there was me thinking that was kind of the point.

When I first moved here I would stand slack-jawed in amazement as people left their house unlocked when they went out or their keys in the ignition when they parked outside the shop. It was like something from Little House on the Prairie, but with more snow and cars instead of horses. People clearly had no sense of danger, no common sense at all.

As time went by, these things began to feel normal to me and it was just after I’d gotten over my fear or being robbed if I left the door unlocked that it first happened.

We had our first uninvited guest.

I returned from a quick trip to the shop to find an old woman sitting in my kitchen. She’d helped herself to a cup of coffee and a biscuit whilst she was waiting and spent the next 20 minutes grilling me on where I’d been as if I’d broken some unwritten law of the land by not being there when she deemed it an appropriate visiting time.

Since then we have had a host of religious old ladies peddling their God, the old lady from up the road who suffered from Alzhiemer’s and would spend an hour thinking I was someone else and grilling me on my family history – I’m not sure who left that exchange more confused, me or her. And, most recently, the slightly odd chap that lives on the other side of the village.

He arrived unannounced (of course) a couple of days ago, walked in to the house, through the kitchen and sat down on the sofa in front of me and my astonished children. He smelt like he hadn’t washed in rather a while and even though it was -10C outside his t-shirt was rucked up under his open cagoule showing off his rotund stomach.

Confused old ladies and well meaning religion pedlars I can cope with, portly men that smell of alcohol, not so much. I hustled the children outside to play in the yard and phoned t’husband, demanding he get rid of the chap who simply looked at me like I was nuts every time I tried to ask him what he wanted.

There’s an awful lot to be said for having dead locks.

That doesn’t mean it’s not fecking awesome, hilarious and all round brilliant, mind!

Now that the smoke has cleared, the wreckage been mostly cleaned away and the kids back at school (or at the very least t’husbands back at work), we have time to sit and survey the extent of the damage that Christmas has wreaked. Not just on our wallets, but our wardrobes and homes as well.

The horrors inflicted upon us like those hideous Christmas outfits that someone always insists on buying.

Credit: Awkward Family Photos

The God-awful candle that you will have to, at the very least, pull out of the cupboard every time aunty Marge comes to visit.

Credit: Failblog

And let’s not forget the delightful ornaments family and friends think would look wonderful in your living room. Where do they think you live? Room 101?

Etsy

Etsy

What is wrong with the people that buy this shit? Haven’t they ever heard of the internet? Don’t they realise how easy it is to simply type in gift ideas for her and find something really awesome?

Then again, not being the best of present buyers myself, perhaps it’s the makers not the buyers we ought to be blaming.

I just thank my lucky stars these weren’t my Christmas presents. On the whole I didn’t have too terrible a year on the old present front, the worst things I got were a saucepan and a terrible old-lady jumper that I would post a photo of me wearing if it wasn’t for fear of upsetting the person that sent it to me.

What? No, of course I don’t mean the jumper you sent me. That was lovely. This is another jumper entirely. Ahem.

What I do know however is that I shall be eternally grateful that Christmas is only once a year. Thank god we don’t receive presents from obscure relatives for other religious festivals like Easter or Valentines Day! And t’husband, if you’re reading this, come valentines day, do search the internet for gifts for her, don’t even consider buying me something that looks like this:

Etsy

*shakes head in bewilderment*

So, what was your worst present this year?

For the last four weeks it has done little but bloody snow. And yes it’s all very festive, and yes it looks very pretty. But to be quite honest, it would look just as pretty and festive if it stopped snowing now.

Are you listening, you fickle and irritating God of weather? MAKE  IT STOP

Cause I’m sick of having to dig my flipping car out of the snow every day.

But I know you’re only here to see the pictures of it looking all pretty and snowy and shit, and not to listen to my whinging and whining about the snow, so here you go…

I’m such a people pleaser.

There, I hope you’re happy now. *wanders of muttering to self*

Clearly these are people that never seen parents in Lapland attempting to leave the house with two small children. Well, the parents in this house at least. It’s anything but relaxed and laid back, I can tell you.

Finding the children, separating them from their toys and locating a set of snow pants, coats, shoes, hats and gloves for each child takes a least twenty minutes. And it pretty much goes down hill from there.

Trying to dress two wriggly children whose limbs seem to have turned to jelly into snow pants and coats can take anything from two to 10 minutes each. Getting boots on a limp footed child who has suddenly lost the ability to push or stand is enough to test the patience of a saint. And trying to force the fingers of an uncooperative three year-old into thick winter gloves is nigh on impossible.

But somehow, it gets done. All just in time for the youngest to declare he needs a wee, at which point you have to strip him off again at the speed of light, take him to the bathroom and then begin the whole process again.

In the mean time, the eldest has escaped into the garden, lost one glove, managed to get buried waist height in a snow drift and has snow inside the clothes I just fought her in to. At this point it is difficult to remember why going out was so important anyway.

But, usually about 45 minutes after starting, everyone is finally dressed and outside and I am left panting, red faced with sweat dripping down my back realising that I’ve forgotten to defrost the car.

Because obviously, in the stress of leaving and getting everyone out of the door on time, I’ve completely forgotten that the car needs to be plugged in to heat the engine, which takes about an hour and means getting everyone back inside the house and stripping them back down before they lose any more items of clothing in snowdrifts.

An hour later, repeat horrific scenes of trying to pour liquid children into fiddly clothing and deposit said children in garden with strict instructions not to take their gloves off or play in the snowdrifts. Unplug car. Turn on engine. Proceed to scrape inch thick ice from car windows. Fetch children from snowdrift. Locate now sodden gloves. Strap children into car seats. Skid and slide down drive and start journey.

Two hours later than planned.

It’s not that we are more laid back or have a slower pace of life here in Lapland, it’s just that it takes us twenty times the normal amount of time to leave the sodding house of a morning.

We rarely get to do things like this…

Just one of the many benefits of this oddly warm winter we are having here in Lapland.

Others include, but are not limited to: not getting frostbite; not having to wear thermals underneath my clothes inside the house; not having to spend an hour defrosting the car before ‘nipping out’ to the shop.

Win win, really. How’s your winter going?

You know those little foil tops under the lid on things like butter and face cream? Well it’s not them per se, I’m perfectly happy with their function in life. The people that peel them back just a little tiny bit, enough to get out what they want, and then just leave them half attached however, I have a fucking issue with.

For fucks sake, they are not there for fucking decoration, they are there to prove that no-one has opened the damn butter. And now you have you can remove it. TAKE IT OFF YOU LAZY FUCK!

Isn’t it annoying when the toilet roll or kitchen paper runs out? Of course it is. You have to walk (occasionally waddle) all the way to the cupboard and get out a new one, then walk (waddle) all the way back. It’s a ball ache, but it’s something you have to do, right?

Since you’ve put much effort into getting this far can you please explain to me why the cocking hell you can’t use another 0.5kj of energy to remove the old one and replace it with the new roll? Seriously, YOU’VE DONE THE HARD WORK, just put it on the tossing holder!

People that put their seat belt on after they’ve started driving. WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCK IS THAT ALL ABOUT? Why do you have to start the engine, drive a few hundred yards up the road and then do that stupid pulling the seatbelt over with one hand thing? Is it a macho thing? Is it to prove how fecking hard you are? It’s fucking irritating is what it is. Pack it in!

Knob fiddlers. Not men that can’t stop playing with their male appendage, I think it’s a given that that’s annoying as hell, but people that can not sit in a car, walk through a kitchen or look at a stereo without feeling the need to have a quick fiddle. Playing with the air con or adjusting the vents, turning your pan up or down just a touch or tweaking the volume. IT DRIVES ME GLASSY EYED WITH RAGE. Knob fiddlers of the world, you are possibly the most irritating species on the planet. Please try to control yourselves before someone, probably me, punches you in your fiddling little mouth.

Annnd breathe. I feel much better after that wee outburst. What about you, what strange little things annoys the living crap out of you?

For the chance to win a pair of Cushe boots every day in December until 24th, scroll down the bottom of the page for details

When you wear something everyday for six months of the year, two things happen. 1: it wears out pretty quickly. 2: anything less than perfect about it soon becomes incredibly annoying. Which is why I’m on the hunt for the perfect winter boot.

Again.

It’s become something of an early winter ritual.

I could buy more than one pair of winter boots, but to be quite honest, decent winter boots are expensive and I simply can’t afford it. Hence the search for the perfect boot.

The perfect winter boot must be durable, practical, warm, comfortable and stylish. If I have to wear clunky footware for six months of the year I at least want to look good whilst wearing it.

Which brings me on to this years choice. The Cushe IT Boot Cuff.

A pair of boots that I drooled over for weeks, A pair of boots that the wonderful people of Cushe sent to me to try out for free.

Which was awfully nice of them.

I put them through their paces both in the UK and Lapland and here are my findings.

Durability: After 2 months of regular wear on the pavements of the UK the boots look pretty much the same as they did when they arrived, albeit a tad dirtier. The pretty, fancy ties are all still attached – they broke off my FatFace boots within weeks – the rubber sole is still firmly attached to the boot, there are no breaks, cracks, or weak looking points anywhere on the boot.

The stitching is still holding strong and despite being taken through rain, mud and snow, the nap of the suede is still in excellent condition.

Practicality: Mostly perfect, except for one weird little thing: the sole.

The front half of the sole is non slip rubber and the back half a soft, squidgy (technical term) rubber.

When walking on the flat or uphill on slippery surfaces like a slick pavement or snow they are great; you really feel the benefit of the non slip part. But when walking downhill, when you put your weight on the back portion of the boot you do tend to slip a little. Not enough that you fall, but enough to unnerve you on very slippery surfaces. I’m not really sure what the thought process behind this was.

Other than that – no complaints at all. Mud has cleaned off them easily, the rain hasn’t penetrated them or damaged the suede.

Oh, and the ties at the back stay tied! A big plus compare to similar style boots I’ve had in the past where the tie has come undone at least once an outing if not more.

Warmth: In the UK they were great; lovely and warm on those cold, wet days. Whether it was strolling down a windy high street in the rain or hiking through a forest in the mud, the boots kept my feet dry and warm.

Back in Lapland in the snow and cold, they have faired very well too. Whilst walking, they kept my feet lovely and warm down to -11C. Sitting still however, my feet started to get chilly at about -8C.

Which makes them perfect for people in the UK and places where -6C is extremely cold. And even here, as I don’t tend to do much sitting around at -8C and colder, they are more than adequate.

Comfort: Sightseeing in London, shopping in Manchester, walking through the woods in Hampshire and tramping through snow in Lapland, these boots have been every where with me and I’ve barely had them off my feet. Comfortable? Hell yes!

Stylishness: Just look at them! *drools slightly on screen* If one has to wear flat, practical boots for the winter months, then these babies are perfect.

Conclusion: I LOVE these boots. Warm, durable, practical, comfortable and stylish. If it wasn’t for the weird sole I would give them full marks.

9/10 practically perfect winter boots.

The Cushe IT Boot Cuff is available from www.cushe.com and retails at £90.

Cushe are running an advent calender giveaway. For the chance to win a pair of Cushe boots every day until Dec 24th 2011, visit their blog, follow them on Twitter or visit their Facebook page.

The boots for this review were supplied by Cushe for free. The opinions however are all mine and, as ever, can not be bought or paid for.

Back where things run at a slower pace. Where you can relax and do your own thing in your own time. Where there is nobody hassling you, no traffic and fewer people to catch nasty infections from. And no crazy bus drivers leaving you at Heathrow, entirely the wrong airport, with only an hour to check-in. Honestly, it took a small miracle and plenty of begging the check-in staff at Gatwick to get us on that flight home.

But whilst all around me people in Lapland are happily getting on with the start of winter, clearing snow and preparing for the colder weather on the horizon, I can’t help feeling a little lost.

I miss my hot morning showers to kick start the day – not possible here without lighting a fire before hand and waiting for 30 minutes for the water to heat up. I miss TV that isn’t boring repeats of American crime and hospital dramas. I miss having somewhere to go, a town centre just a bus ride away or a park to take the kids to. And people, most of all I miss people. Specific people and, more importantly, people in general; the milling crowd, the feeling that life is going on around you and that you are a part of something.

Here it is just endless, snow covered miles of nothingness. Forests. Lakes. Empty streets.

I know this despondent feeling of being misplaced will pass. I know I’ll soon shake myself back into life and get on with things. Enjoy the winter and the peace and quiet. Make snow angels with the kids and find myself staying up late peering out of the window looking for the northern lights in the star studded sky.

Ah, the stars. I’d forgotten about them. After a couple of months of seeing the odd bright star shining through the street lit skies of England, the hundreds upon thousands of stars that shone overhead as we drove back from the airport took my breath away. As did the exuberance with which my dog greeted us at the door, knocking me to floor and standing over me drooling, it’s whole body wagging. Even the cat looking mildly pleased to see us.

So it’s not all bad.

And really, self pity, or whatever this is, is not my thing; it takes far too much energy and dedication. So I shall pull myself together and go and get stuff done. The dog could do with a trudge through the forest and if I don’t get out there and start shovelling snow pretty soon it’s going to be rather embarrassing when t’husband has to dig his way into the house when he gets back from work.