OUCH!

Spring is in the air...no more hair!

Buds on the trees, no more snow.
Spring is in the air.


Time to start starving myself, depriving myself of those extra grease-filled calories so that I am brave enough to put on a swimsuit in public..2 months and counting!


But that's not all.
This is also the time of the year when I start slinking past the estheticians checking out the waxing prices...OUCH!


Being quite " fair" this was one of life's tortures I managed to get away from for a very long time. But now at 40-something,there's no running, just screaming!!


The french are obsessed with waxing. If its got hair, wax it!


I remember, with horror, the first trip to the local salon d'epilation..I was there for a mere eye-brow tweak. A woman, who resembled the Brunhilda of my nightmares came out every 5 minutes to call up the next victim, a bit like a school dental nurse..

Mme Dupont, half leg wax...Mme Faure, full leg please....Mme Gigot, eyebrows, upper lip and...chin, Mme Fleurot, bikini and Mme Roget, full arm wax, Mr Thirot, back wax please..and the list went on.

 Everyone else was flicking through Elle and Paris Match. I was sitting there, my kiwi eyes on stalks, trying to, well, " hair spot!"


 Until recently I was just a mere eyebrow client but after hearing my girlfriends after a few glasses of spring chardonnay chatting about their bikini waxes, and seeing looks of horror when I confessed my " virginity," I knew it was time!! 


Now let me be clear here, it was not the pain that worried me. Not at all. I'm afraid to admit it was my terribly anglo-saxon pudeur or sense of modesty that had me reeling. That and the terrible fear of boiling wax being dripped in all the wrong places..


I have a great beautician in Bordeaux. Her name is Leonilda (she is on Place Paul Doumer if anyone is interested)..Leo is Brazillian and by way of word association I thought she would be my safest torturer. I went in to book..oh god, I was so embarrased I couldn't even look her in the eye. Although I asked for an appointment for 2023 she whisked me straight out the back. 


It wasn't actually THAT bad....until Leo said, Susie would you like me to wax your anus ? Although I was frozen with terror my polite ango-saxonisms took over...No I wouldn't, but thank you for asking.



This will sound absurd to anyone living in NZ, Australia, USA, England...but I have just discovered that we can now buy cottage cheese in France. No excuses now...back to cottage cheese salads to prepare the warpath to my bathing suit!!


Cottage Cheese Salad


1 punnet cottage cheese (200gr)
chopped chives
chopped cucumber
sliced avocado
squirt of lemon juice plus some zest
splash of toasted sesame oil

rough ground black pepper
malden salt