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Jayne Dawson: Slice of life
Apparently, life coaches are out now, and so are massages and so are baths by candlelight. All right out and totally over as ways to improve and enhance our lives.
About as happening as a Leeds tram system and, just possibly, a Leeds arena, if you catch my drift.
I won't lie to you, their demise doesn't bother me one bit. I've never knowingly been within motivational distance of a life coach because they frighten me – I feel I'm best kept with a lid on, well away from any opening-up/self-examination/self-improvement situations. Safer all round. I'm not exactly saying "can of worms" but I'm kind of thinking it...
As for massages, well I can take 'em or leave 'em, to be honest. They're okay, but you don't get that much for your money, do you?
They're sort of relaxing, but only sort of. As soon as you get off the therapist's table, climb back into your clothes and start the traffic-jammed journey home all relaxation benefits evaporate, I find.
That's if you managed to drift away at all. One gurgle of the stomach and it's all over, relaxation-wise, in my experience.
Instead you lie there, holding your midriff in tight and praying there will be no repetition. And worrying about how much of you will be revealed to the tiny, slim, toned therapist when you have to do the half-time turnover.
And if at long, sweet last we can all stop pretending to enjoy baths by candlelight – well praise the Lord, I say. I tried it once, just for curiosity, and all I can report is a feeling of great self-consciousness sitting there surrounded by tealights, just feet away from the Cillit Bang and a couple of cleaning cloths.
It was bad, but not as bad as the time I was put in one of those baths enclosed in a dark pod and left to die there of sensory deprivation and, in my case, cold. If that water was body temperature, then I must be a lizard, that's all I'm saying.
The only thing worse would be reading in the bath – why read when you're all wet instead of waiting until you're dry again? And the only thing worse than that would be eating breakfast in bed. Wouldn't you just rather poke your eyes out than endure this frowsy "treat"?
But if those activities are losing their so-called allure, what are we meant to be doing, to loosen our clenched jaws, relax our stiffened shoulders and uncrease our anxious foreheads?
Eating cake, that's what. Cake is the new way to relax. Eating cake, baking cake, and thinking cake.
Cake fits right in with our newly home-orientated, homemade, domesticated world. The one where we are worried about our jobs/pensions/children's futures.
And it's true that cake can be a great tonic – at least the eating of it can be. I know this for certain having survived a bleak period of life by eating my way solo through two Christmas cakes. Luckily, it was October when my life imploded and I was particularly well-prepared for the festivities that year.
By December there was no cake left in the cupboard at all, and I was feeling a lot better. Obviously, I had to lose the half stone eventually and that supermarket stollen wasn't a great replacement, but still – I pass it on as a little tip for your own bleak midwinters.
I'm not sure about the actual baking as a feelgood activity though. I've a feeling that cake baking is the candle-lit bath of the kitchen, so to speak. Sounds a lot better that it really is.
We can all see the attraction of a Cath Kidston pinny moment, of course we can. Who doesn't love the idea of a couple of hours spent with some bun cases and a baking bowl?
But it's not really like that is it? It's never really like 'Nigella world'.
In Nigella world, the storage jars on the shelves are always clean and full, never empty save for a few greasy marks and a couple of sultanas.
In Nigella world, mixture is never whisked in a too-small plastic bowl just taken from the fridge and hurriedly emptied of leftovers, and the result is never much wiping of the tiles with a tea towel as mixture flies out of the too-small bowl in all directions.
In Nigella world, she is never working with disfigured plastic implements, half melted from being left on the cooker top and her spices have never come from jars but if they had, those jars would not be two years out of date.
And as for her sink, well it's never shown, but if it was, it would not have last night's washing-up in it, and a pan left to soak on the side.
So I'm happy that cake is back because life is a bitter business without a regular sweet slice of Madeira, or Victoria, or lemon drizzle, or date and walnut, or banana ...crikey, I'm starving.
But there are very, very good cake shops these days..and that's definitely all I'm saying.
EP 14 Oct 2009
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