My last ever Marie Claire blog!

Posted by Lara Masters at 21:41 on 21 Jul 2010

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Welcome to my last MC blog ever. Many things have happened since my previous blog and I have much to tell. Unfortunately, my voice-recognition programme seems to have gone on strike and is just spouting randomness. Perhaps this is reminiscent of my blog anyway and you wouldn’t notice if I just posted these incoherent witterings. No doubt in time it will end up typing the complete works of Shakespeare - and far more speedily than the monkeys as it has built-in spell-check and intuitive grammar but it’s my LAST MC blog so we have not time for such inane experiments. I shall just continue giving myself RSI of the thumb - the digit I use to type with – so I can share highlights of where I’ve been and where I’m going – albeit in a more concise form and with fewer polysyllabic words than is my custom.

1.    I went to the Lake District for my boyfriend’s birthday (he came too) it was tres romantique apart from the bit about the directions, but if you’re not fighting about with your partner over the GPS it doesn’t feel quite like you’re on holiday – or in this case, “stay-cation” - to coin a confusing new term which I thought meant a holiday in your own home, but actually means a holiday where in your own country. Hmmm, catchy. Here we are at Hadrian's Wall which you think will be massive and it is very long of course but is actually quite low and diminishing daily as tourists steal a bit of our heritage brick by brick. It should not be allowed. (But they don't check bags and who can resist a relic that dates back to 122 AD? Everybody needs a doorstop.)

2.    I then went on a vacation to my Mum’s house in France (with my boyfriend). I sat by the pool and sometimes ventured in with my ridiculous children’s armbands which is not my sexiest look but far more attractive than drowning . I thought I was going to drown when my boyfriend tossed me about as if I was a small child and ended up tipping me in head-first. I inhaled water and came up coughing and yelling at him hysterically to stay far away from me and how would he like it if his legs and arms were tied together and someone threw him around the pool willy-nilly? I had to calm down and make up quickly though as wanted to get out. He was very careful after that and we had a lovely holiday so moral of that story; yelling at your boyfriend works.

3.    I filmed (presented) a DVD demonstrating the different features of Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles for Motability. WAV is pronounced as a word like WAG and not spelt out in letters like SUV or DUI or DOA, etc. WAV doesn’t feel all that natural to say and took a bit of practice to get tripping off the tongue - at least WAG is an acronym that makes a word plus it relates to what it stands for i.e dogs and dogs’ dinners. That’s mean but a good way to remember what WAG stands for.

We filmed all over the shop with families who needed new WAVs and I learnt lots about different ways of getting wheelchairs into them and snickered every time “rear entry” was suggested – which was often. So juvenile and unprofessional.

4.     I was in an ad. For Digital TV switchover I believe although it all seemed a bit hush hush. My brief was “Woman in Motorised Wheelchair; she is barely featured” and I was to be “very ordinary” so you can imagine the feat of acting skill involved for me to pull that off. I was filmed wheeling up and down Bromley high street all day being followed by something like an alien-robot that will be “CGI”d in later so I didn’t see it. As the shots were “locked off” and the crew had to stop the general public for a minute so they didn’t wander into frame during a take, we experienced quite a bit of pedestrian-rage with lads shouting things like; “You ain’t a copper and if you was it wouldn’t stop me” and threatening to punch the runners for so rudely delaying them for a few seconds from their next ASBO. (Apparently 17% of the population in Bromley has ASBOs so you do feel these aren’t empty threats. If we were filming in Knightsbridge I’d be more likely to chime in with; “Oh yeah, you want a piece do you?” and feel quite safe.)

So there you have a few glimmers of my hotch-potch version of a life of late. And now I’m saying farewell to MC. I’ll be moving my blog to www.laramasters.com once I know how – which may take a week or a year as I have to learn about Content Management Systems whatever they are. So, if you’re not on my circular but would like to receive my blog in the future, please let me know on FB; http://www.facebook.com/lara.masters1 TTFN.

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