Halloween in Hollywood Laid Bare

November 2, 2017 hollywoodwife2countrylife1 Comment

WARNING: This post contains partial nudity which may be disturbing.

I love fancy dress! I’ve always loved it. In Los Angeles where Halloween was often branded ‘Whore-O-Ween’ due to the slutty nature of so many of the costumes, I often revelled in wearing the biggest, ugliest, most ridiculous costume instead. If you’ve seen my Mrs. Potato Head kid’s party social media post, this probably won’t come as a surprise to you.

Halloween in Hollywood — Fortunately my friends in LA were as ridiculous as me

Boy did I see some costumes in my time there. Terms normally reserved for a Daily Mail article would best describe them “spilling out”, “busty display” “jaw-dropping cleavage”. You get the picture. But I’m still lost for words at a costume that has been forever been etched in my mind.

One year I ventured to the famed West Hollywood Parade where apparently pretty much anything goes.

There he was, a regular looking man wearing a pair of glasses, his head just poking up out of the crowd.

A simple ‘Jason Voorhees’ hockey mask rested on top of his balding head.

But as the people parted to make way for him, I realized he was wearing the most terrifying outfit I’d ever seen.

He was naked, all except for a very small pouch that barely, and I mean barely covered his privates. This homemade banana hammock would have given Borat a serious run for his money.

As if in a bad dream, I stood unable to move or scream as he tapped his way towards me in…..wait for it….a pair of clogs.

The worst thing was yet to come though as my husband (boyfriend at the time) encouraged me to have a photo with him.

“Go on, get in close, put your arm around him and give a smile,” he said.

God, how I wish I’d had a pair of Marigolds at that moment – or a time machine.

My arm slipped behind his back, and I guess I was so stunned by the lack of outfit at the front, I hadn’t given enough thought to what was going on in the back.

My hand grazed across his bare bottom just as my husband yelled: “Cheese”.

Seconds later, after the camera had captured this moment, ‘Pouch Man’ only went and dropped his tiny man purse and guess where I was stood at this point? Right behind him.

I could then confirm the pouch DID NOT cover everything!

I refuse to let this image (which if you need a bigger photo you can see here) taint my love of Halloween though.

So even now as we live our life in this sleepy Somerset village, we brought a bit of Hollywood Halloween with us. Don’t worry, we didn’t fly ‘Pouch Man’ over.

But we did decorate our house to the nines and much to our surprise and my joy, so did lots of other families.

The village was rife with carved pumpkins and a festive spirit.

The kids still went trick or treating and came home with a belly and a bucket full of sweets and best of all the only balls I had to contend with were chocolate eyeballs!

Somerset Sushi – I’m on a Roll!

August 16, 2017 hollywoodwife2countrylife1 Comment

It’s happened! I can’t believe it, I finally have a decent sushi restaurant closer than 45 minutes from my house. I still have to drive there, but lets face it there’s not much I don’t have to drive to anymore.

It might not sound exciting to many country folk but for me it’s music to my ears because sushi was my go to food in LA and the grub I’ve missed most.

But when I was first informed about this so-called ‘Sushi’ restaurant opening up in the summer, I was dubious. The news came via my mum and while she’s a well travelled and intelligent lady with a love of foreign foods, raw fish has never really been her thing – unless they are Danish herrings.

sushi in the british countryside — ‘Crazy’ excited for some sushi

Dad has always insisted on calling it ’Shh-shi’ and on the numerous times we took him to a Japanese restaurant when he was visiting he never once latched on to why we insisted on telling him to keep his voice down when he was ordering.

It was only when I saw with my own eyes that ‘Daniel Sushi’ was in fact a real place intending on serving up actual sushi that I began to get excited.

This wasn’t just some local fisherman dragging in a bottom feeding carp for us to dine on, the menu looked good and the chef was a professional.

The reviews were complimentary but I have to say the one that really stood out to me was this:

“I’m so happy there’s more than just supermarket sushi now, and even more glad that it’s really really good. I tried some of the beef that my dad ordered and it was out of this world.”

sushi in somerset — No, this isn’t a google image, this is the real deal

Once the laughing subsided off we trotted to ‘Bond Street’ – sadly not the posh one in London.

I nervously sipped on my chilled red wine – yep, they should probably do something about that – and wondered if in 24 hours I’d be doing an impression of the Exorcism of Emily Rose from both ends.

It’s true my Eastern European waitress wasn’t exactly up on her sushi lingo, but the meal was actually delicious and the only reason my tummy was rumbling was because I wanted more.

I went to bed on a salmon tartar and maki roll high. All I need now is for them to start delivering!

Curry in the Countryside

July 20, 2017 hollywoodwife2countrylifeLeave a comment

Unlike other places in America, Los Angeles was the hub of healthy. Friends and family would visit and feel compelled to tell me how shocked they were at how few overweight people there were there. “I thought Americans were supposed to be fat?” guest after guest would ask as another perfectly pert posterior strutted past.

With the statistics showing that a third of U.S adults are obese, I can understand their confusion.

I do remember once waiting at Minneapolis airport and being left completely gobsmacked when I saw a VERY large lady in a wheelchair with a block of cheese in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. She wasn’t just carrying her shopping, it was in fact, her snack! Her head bobbed back and forth like she was watching center court at Wimbledon as she took a bite out of the oversized lump of American cheddar in her left hand followed by a bite of her uncut loaf in her right. It was, for lack of a better word, incredible!

But in LA people were forever ordering their food “without cheese,” with the dressing “on the side” or requesting it sans bun aka “skinny style”. My husband, friends and I used to joke about how far it could be pushed. “Hi. Can I get (because you don’t say “please may I have” in America) the bacon, avocado beef burger. But without the bun, bacon and avocado. Also is it possible to get a veggie patty instead of a beef one? I’d also like that without the mayonnaise and tomato, and actually scrap the patty all together”.

I honestly don’t think the waiters would bat an eyelid if I’d done it.

In England and specifically in the countryside I’ve discovered it’s probably best to just eat it as it comes.

When I asked for ‘white meat’ – a very common request in America, simply meaning breast or tikka meat – from the local curry house, I’m convinced they thought I was being racist.

Me: “I’d like to order a Chicken Madras but with only the white meat please.”

Them: “You asked for chicken, right?”

Me: “Yes, but can I just have the white meat, please.”

Them: “Chicken is white meat”

Me: “I know that but can I have the light coloured meat, not the dark meat.”

Them: “You didn’t order lamb.”

Me: “ I realise that, I ordered chicken. But could it be the chicken like the stuff that comes in the Tikka Masala.”

Them: “The best meat is the darker meat, why don’ you like it?.”

Me: “I do, I just prefer breast meat.”

Them: “I suppose you want white rice and not brown either!”

Kudos to the man on the end of the phone, I thought his closing comment was quite witty.

But by that point I didn’t dare ask for the bottle of white wine they were offering for free for orders over £30.

“I’ll just take an onion bhaji thanks.”

50 Shades of Poo

June 14, 2017June 15, 2017 hollywoodwife2countrylife10 Comments

I’ve witnessed my fair share of brown nosing and bull**** living in LA, but I have never been so bogged down with crap since I moved to the countryside.

When I was discussing this blog post with my my mum she warned me that I should air on the side of caution; not use the word “sh*t” or “shite” and maybe even reconsider “poo”. She told me her generation often sees it as crass and unnecessary. Well then I ask, if plop is so offensive to them why do the ‘Cocoon’ crew all flock here, to the epicenter of poop?

animal poo in the Somerset countryrside — The kids find it all rather fascinating

A walk around our ‘neighborhood’ involves crossing a field, dodging cowpats and Henley asking “what sort of poo is that?” way more times that we were used to in Los Angeles – although to be fair it was always dog sh** there.

By now you all know and are bored of the story of me carrying my son’s poo sample in a mayonnaise jar to hospital, but I haven’t told you about the fox that took a turd in my boxing glove and then stole the other one.

The same fox I told the kids to take a peak at through the fence, “because you can get so close to them here” I said, only to realise it was ripping the head of a bird.

My Google history also contains a lot of questions I was never used to asking. My husband came back from a stroll down to the end of the orchard a few months ago and asked: “Have you ever seen a poo trifle? Well there’s one in the garden. It looks like several animals have been competing for the best poo, one on top of the other.”

My search engine informed me that it’s a badger’s toilet. They apparently dig their own latrine and use it for weeks on end, only there is no flush.

Henley’s fascination with this was so intense, we had to set up a night camera to capture the black and white beasts at work.

Running in the countryside is messy — Running gets a little messy!

We can’t even park the car in the garage because of the swallows that are currently living in there, using our aging Volvo as a bog.

It’s not bad enough I still have one child in nappies – whose bowel movement I had to scrub off the inside of the bath the other day – but the chickens regularly crimp one off in their water bowl and who knows who the tiny ‘code brown’ on top of the pushchair belonged to.

Right, on that note I’m going to clean off the sheep crap that’s caught in the grooves of my trainers from my cross country run yesterday!