FAMILY AFFAIRS

A happy busy time just now as my 12-year old granddaughter Tatiana prepares her rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood. The ceremony followed by the inevitable Big Bash has been the sole topic of conversation for the past six months.

In the Jewish religion, a barmitzvah is when a boy turns 13, comes of age and becomes a man. The girls have jumped the gun, got on the bandwagon and are having theirs a year early at the age of 12.

Crumbling under the weight of filial pressure, my daughter and son-in-law have been mugged into having the most expensive party they can afford. I disapprove totally but cannot voice it. It's tradition, they say, like Christmas. It's commercial, I reply. Like Christmas.

Having already been invited to many other such parties, Tatiana returns home each time with fresh and ever more costly ideas:

"They had a tattoo artist! A belly dancing teacher! Goodie bags containing Gucci keyrings! A herd of performing elephants for each child to take home!"

And so the buzz words are: caterers, marquee, red carpet, dance floor, balloons, canapés, food stations, sushi chefs, mirror balls, microphones, cocktails, bouncers, dresses, shoes, hats, tights, hair and make-up.

And thousands and thousands of pounds being blown away on people who won't appreciate it nor even remember it the following day.

She's 12 for God's sake! When I was 12 I probably had 3 schoolfriends over for a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of jelly. And then maybe we played a game of Ludo.

Do I sound like a grumpy old woman? Possibly, but my poor daughter would rather have spent the money on a fabulous holiday that at least she too could have enjoyed.

Now don't get me wrong. I am looking forward to it. And I've bought myself a whole wardrobe full of new outfits. And I'm sure we'll all have a fantastic time. But all that money...it makes me want to weep.

I just hope Tatiana appreciates it. She has 2 younger sisters so we have to go through this whole thing again. Twice.

And then if we're lucky, there'll be 3 weddings hopefully before my funeral!

I refuse to be 'one of the grandmas' next weekend. I'm determined to get up to mischief of some sort. What do you reckon? One of the neighbour's sons? They're 26 and 28. And both cute. I'll keep you posted.

ROAD TO REDEMPTION

I love make-up and I love sex but what I love most is make-up sex.

I don’t mean rouging my nipples and painting my partner’s genitalia with lipstick and mascara, I mean getting it together again when you’ve been apart for a while.

Let me explain: having so upset my latest flame to the extent that he nearly went out, I feel it only fair to give him credit where it’s due.

The gentleman in question, whose knee so jerked when he became the subject of my blog “Is ‘Good’ Good Enough?” has crept back into my affections and redeemed himself in a rather pleasing way.

Now I don’t want to swell his pretty little raven-haired head any more than it is already (I am conscious as I write this that he is going to read it) but we had a rather fine reunion which definitely deserved an A-. OK. An A then. Alright, alright. An A+.

The very thing I commented on, or rather complained about last time, was the fact that we felt so comfortable with each other. This caused him to deduce that I was dissatisfied because there were ‘no fireworks’. He immediately concluded that there were none on his side either which was, of course, missing the point.

Fireworks are all very well but they burn out far too quickly. Harmony on several levels doesn’t.

We do seem reasonably compatible. Whether we had genuinely missed each other is for me to know and him to find out. And as for the comfort factor, how many people would you feel sufficiently at ease with to break off a hot humping session to talk about fried fish?!

I hasten to add that the segue between passion and battered seafood was not a reflection on the ambient odours surrounding us at the time.

It was, rather typically, a close encounter of the Jewish kind in which food must be mentioned, if not eaten, at all times.

We’re now apart for a week or so while I work on a writing project in Spain.

We’re texting.

It’s getting a bit saucy.

I like this a lot.

Out of sight is not necessarily out of mind. And absence can, in some cases, make the heart grow fonder.

Having said that, I fully expect this pleasant interlude not to last.

In my world, le plus ça change, le plus c’est la même chose...