Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I want more from my lover but he’s got close to his wife again
The bright spring sunshine has shone a light on all the jobs that need sorting at home. The Dark Lord needs a new wardrobe to hang her black cloaks and her broomstick needs a shed, so I’ll be erecting flatpacks soon with my trusty power screwdriver.
It was the best £20 I ever spent, and while I do appreciate an expert tradesperson, there’s no reason why I can’t do all my little DIY jobs rather than paying someone for a day’s work and to eat all my Hobnobs.
The real problem comes when Satan’s Minion wants to get involved with decorating the house and we have to allow for her design input. I can only describe her style as a cross between Gothic horror and a 1980s’ squat house party. It’s unique but it’s also mildly terrifying.
While grey pigeon fart seems to be the trendy colour now, I’m still a fan of good-old fashioned magnolia. It matches with everything and you can touch up the paint when the kids write rude graffiti on the walls.
A poll just out has revealed the worst British home interior trends of all time, ranking fluffy toilet seat covers, taxidermy and Artex walls the top three interior fails of the last 100 years.
If you can’t bear to face the truth of your naff interior choices, then look away now, but the survey by Tapi Carpets and Floors says the top 10 home interior fails are:
Fluffy toilet seat covers (29%)
Taxidermy (23%)
Artex (18%)
Avocado or pink bathroom suites (16%) Waterbeds (13%)
Stone cladding (13%)
Woodpanel walls (11%)
Stencilled quotes (9%)
Red and cream patterned carpets (8%)
Bubble chairs (7%)
Now while I agree that fluffy loo covers and waterbeds are health hazards, I’m a bit worried that we’re throwing baby out with the bath water if we remove all the stuffed boar heads and oak panelling from our stately homes.
I know we only go to National Trust homes for the tea rooms, but no one’s going to pay a £15 entrance fee to look at boring grey walls. A lava lamp though? Now you’re talking…
Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
Dear Coleen
I’ve been having an on/off affair with a married man for several years. The thing is, our arrangement suited me in the past because I was very focused on my job, I knew I didn’t want children and I was very independent.
In fact, I actually told him not to leave his wife for me, even though at one point that’s what he wanted and it was all he talked about.
He’s still with his wife but recently, after much thinking in lockdown, I began to realise that I now want more from him.
I suggested to him that it might be the right time to leave his marriage, so we could be together properly, but I wasn’t prepared for his response.
He said he and his wife were closer than they’d ever been and he wasn’t going to leave her.
He said he thought it was too late for us to make a proper go of things and that we’d “missed our window”.
I’m not sure where that leaves me. I’m nearly 40 now and suddenly feel like I may have messed things up badly. Can you help?
Should I try to convince him that his future is with me, or call it quits and walk away?
Coleen says
Unfortunately, it’s a consequence of getting involved in an affair. You’ve finally discovered you can’t call the shots in this situation; that you’re in a relationship with a man who has a wife and another life.
Lockdown has given you another perspective – maybe you’ve been bored or just had a lot of time to think. But it sounds like it’s had an effect on this man, too, and how he feels about his marriage – he’s realised he loves this woman he married and wants to make it work.
You can’t just have something because it suits you now – you have to accept that it doesn’t suit him.
You clearly now want more from a relationship than to be someone’s mistress, so the best advice I can give you is to move on from this affair and learn from it.
You’ve already wasted several years with someone who’s taken. Use your time now to plan positively for the future – it’s never too late to meet someone else and be happy, so give yourself the opportunity to do it.
While this guy is still on the scene, it’ll be hard to move forward.
He said we’d ‘missed our window’ to make a go of it
MASTERCHEF BBC1, 9pm FOOD enthusiast Gregg Wallace and Aussie chef John Torode are serving up a new series of Masterchef where they’re hoping to discover passionate cooks and avoid an accidental poisoning.
You can almost hear the infamous Masterchef voiceover now, that soothing narration set to guide us through the next six weeks.
Approximately eleventy billion series in, we know the drill. Forty amateur cooks are put through their paces in intense heats, all hoping to be awarded a coveted white apron and ultimately take the crown.
With five contestants in each heat and only four aprons, competition is fierce from the get-go.
The first contestants in HQ are Tom, Mike, Dominique, Madeeha and Ross, who must cook their signature dish. “This is their chance to really tickle my palate and put a smile on my face,” says John.
“There is no reason why their signature dish shouldn’t be an absolute showstopper,” adds Gregg.
From lobster thermidor to spiced chicken, the dishes are all impressive. But only two cooks will win aprons at this stage.
The remaining three contestants will have to pull out all the stops as they whip up a dish having been gifted with their favourite ingredient.
After this, one cook is sent home, and the remaining cooks must whip up two courses to wow John, Gregg and guest experts from the food industry.
Tonight their fate is in the hands of last year’s Masterchef Champion Thomas Frake and the 2014 Champion Ping Coombes.
The heat is on to win safe passage to the quarter-finals...