EASY TIPS FOR APPLYING MAKE UP

 

Make up is used to enhance your features and sometimes to hide the features that you are not so fond of but in all cases the ideal make up should be applied so that people aren't sure whether you are wearing it or not.   When it is discreet it will nearly always make you look much better than when it is plastered on and so the secret is to know how to apply it effectively.

Depending on your age is when you will decide between using a foundation or a tinted moisturiser.  I myself am of an advanced age and I have only recently learnt that foundations are no longer for me as they really show up the wrinkles much more, so I have switched to a lovely light and fresh moisutriser which has a just a hint of colour in it.  But if you are still young,  you can by all means continue using a good foundation.

Though the first step, what ever your age, and what ever make up you opt for, is to have a very good light and a good mirror.  Many a disaster has been made by applying make up in poor light only to find out when you are in natural daylight that you piled far too much on simply because you couldn't see properly!

For foundations, which are thicker than tinted moisturisers, you need to first apply your every day moisturiser to your face, wait a few seconds for your skin to absorb it and then apply your foundation as that way it will be easier to blend it in evenly.  Remember to make it gradually fade out along the length of your neck as you don't want your face to be tanned and your neck white!

A tinted moisturiser goes on beautifully on your skin, disguises any dark age spots with its colour but at the same time lets your skin breathe and leaves no powdery bits like foundations do.  One of the best choices nowadays is a BB Cream.  Once you have applied this and allowed it to dry a little, usually for about five minutes, you can then apply a soft blusher in either powder or cream form (with a peach tone to it) to your cheek bones, a little on your forehead, bridge of your nose and chin.  With these touches you will already have a nice warm looking tone to your face which you can now work on.

If you have very thin eyebrows a few little lines sketched in with a light brown eye pencil will do wonders.  Smudge them a bit with your finger so that they don't look a harsh straight line but more like real hairs.

Now trace as thin a line as you can with a black kohl pencil along your upper eye lashes and then another line just inside the lower eye lashes.  Apply a soft brown eye shadow on your upper eyelids and finish this off with a good lash lengthening mascara.

To complete the whole look a pale lipstick or even a lip bsalm and you will be ready.

All the colours that you have used are all natural colours such as brown, peach and pale pink so your face will be improved but it won't be a look that people can say 'look at all the layers of make up she has put on!'.  It should, on the contrary, look very natural and enhance the whole of your face rather than leave it looking like a mask.

A DATING DISASTER

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A dating disaster is most often, to those of us who have experienced one, a time in your life when you could quite easily wish that the clocks be put back in time.

My particular dating disaster happened many years ago when I was only sixteen years old and very naive.  I had up until then not been at all interested in boys/men as I was so caught up with my love of horses that I didn't have time to think of the male species, that is, until one summer holiday when my hormones must have begun to stir!!

I was still at boarding school in England but during the holidays I would always travel to Africa where my parents were based.  And it was one particular summer back in 1968 that I first met this Argentinian who had come to play polo as a professional in my father's team.  He was tanned, had green eyes and a very rugged  face although he was also almost twenty years older than me, but as he had bandy legs (from so much riding) that was to be my biggest attraction towards him.  I had always been fascinated by the bandy legs of all the cowboys that I had seen in Wild West films that I had initially begun to watch because of the horses!

Life in Africa for ex patriots, as we were so called, was probably a little different to how it was in other parts of the world and even more so back in those early years.  I had friends of my own age but quite often it was also usual for me to partake in the social life of my parents.  I would be invited along with them to cocktail parties or dinners;  I would sit alongside my parents'  friends in the polo club to watch a match and we would all go to the beach together.

And of course during all those occasions the Argentinian would be there as well!  The more I saw him, the more attracted I felt towards him spurred on by his secret glances at me when my father wasn't looking.  It felt nice to realize that an older and more mature man could be interested in a young thing like me and it was also my first experience of feeling an attraction.

I must admit, and as a 60 year old lady I can now say this without sounding conceited, that I myself was quite attractive.  I had long wavy chestnut hair down to my waist, sky blue eyes (like the Argentinian flag, he used to say!)  a very slim figure and also very long and perfectly manicured nails.

And so it was that one day he actually invited me to have dinner with him in a restaurant on our own!!!  It felt so great to have been asked out to my first date, even though my father was a bit dubious at first, which on looking back was only natural for any father to be.

I wore a little black sleeveless dress with quite a low neckline and some black court shoes which made me look quite a bit older and very sophisticated.  The restaurant was very elegant with candles on each table and we had a lovely meal talking about how the polo tournament was going, horses in general and Argentina.  I felt it was all going very well and that it was amazing that I was able to hold an interesting conversation with a 40 year old man.

The problem started when he asked me to go back to his flat to see photos of the horses that he had back in Argentina.  I kind of knew what this could lead to but as I had never been through such an experience before I was neither very sure what to expect so I was quite silent in the car ride towards his flat feeling tense and that maybe things were getting out of my control!!

And I wasn't far wrong!!! No sooner had we entered the front door of his flat that he got hold of me in his arms and began to kiss me passionately and I didn't like it.  The feeling of that wet tongue in my mouth felt as if I had swallowed a fish.  He then carried me onto his bed and began unzipping my dress which was when something in my mind just snapped and said enough is enough, this is not what I imagined as a romantic experience.  At that precise moment he had his head buried in my chest and without thinking I just dug each set of long nails of each hand into and down his cheeks at which he let out a groan of agony.

I got up, readjusted my dress and waited outside his front door.  I thought that if he didn't have the decency to drive me home I could walk it at a pinch but luckily he came out with the car keys after he had cleaned up his wounds a little.  We drove back to my home in silence and we never spoke to each other again.

The next day at the beach my father asked him what on earth had happened to his face as he looked as if he had donned the local tribal marks - nothing replied the Argentinian, I just cut myself shaving.  I saw my father's lips curl upwards ever so slightly!!!

For the rest of the ten days of my holiday the Argentinian and me never even exchanged glances let alone words and I was glad to hear from my parents once back at boarding school that he had decided to go back to Argentina.

VACATION CRUISE

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Opting for a cruise vacation, let’s say around the Caribbean, is quite a sensible choice if your working life is a constant struggle to try and cram as much into every day as you can and having to continually travel from one place to the other due to the demands of your business.

On a cruise you can forget about rushing, about packing and unpacking, no more worries about missing connecting flights and no lugging heavy suitcases around!

From the minute you arrive on board of your luxury liner you can forget about the word travelling as you know it as you are gently taken from one island to another while sampling all the delights of a luxury vacation. 

Choose a reputable liner and find out during which months of the year they run their cruises and to what areas.  Once you decide when and where you want to go you get a multiple choice, according to your budget, in choosing what type of cabin you want.  On most liners the cabins are usually called ocean view staterooms or interior staterooms and you also get given the option to choose which deck you want to be on, whether you want a balcony or terrace and whether you want to be aft mid-ship or forward.

The Italian cruise liners are renowned for their high quality finish and luxurious design and equally high in their service and attention to their passengers.  Their staterooms are all decorated in very good taste and once you unpack your cases you can forget about them for the rest of your vacation.

Once on board you will find no end of activities to occupy your day while you cruise.  You can lounge around by the swimming pool, use the spa or gym, have a flutter in the day time casino, walk round the shops or eat at the various restaurants and cafeterias available. 

At night you will find that there are shows available to see, night clubs open where you can dance, bars where you can just relax and listen to music and the casino will of course still be open.

Every time the liner docks into a new island you will be taken by a guide on a tour to see the highlights of the island, or if you prefer you can opt out and explore it yourself, but really and truly it is worth sticking with the guide as they know what to show you and besides it is usually during these guided tours that you get to make friends with some of the other passengers that are travelling with you.

And one last word of advice - remember also to pack clothes for different seasons, because although cruises are usually planned during times of the year when the weather is supposed to be lovely and sunny, as we all know the weather can sometimes be unpredictable and so you need to have some jumpers or jackets ready just in case you get a day or two of cloud and lowering of temperatures.   

KNOW IF YOU ARE READY TO OWN A HORSE

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To know whether or not you are ready to own a horse depends on various things, but the most important one is that you really love horses and you want to own your own.

Once you have confirmed to yourself and to your family that you really want to own a horse, you hopefully will also be willing to take on all the responsibilities that owning a horse incurs, which include the following:

1. Have at least two hours per day during which to dedicate to your horse. If it isn't to ride him then at least to visit him and give him some attention and most importantly to make sure that he is okay, has been fed, watered and his bedding cleaned..

2. Be able to exercise or ride it at least three times a week.

3. Have a paddock or corral in which to let it run loose on the days which you are not able to ride him

4. Have enough money to pay for his feed, his bedding, his shoes, his insurance and the vet.

5. Be willing to learn more about horses than just how to get up on them and ride them. Learn a few vetinary basics in order to keep an eye on his health. Sometimes a owner spotting an ailment early on in the horse can make a difference in life or death, such as, for example, in cases of colic.

6. Know that you will enjoy spending tas much time as you can with your horse whether it be on the ground or riding him. Enjoy cleaning his tack, grooming him and washing him down.

7. Always want to ride him with his safety in mind before your own pleasure. Riders who love galloping flat out for hours on end , with no rest for their horse, are not exactly thinking of their horse's well being first. A horse is never a machine and has a whole load of basic needs to be taken into consideration such as getting tired, thirsty or hungry.

8. Have the patience to re-train or educate your horse in a calm and loving manner. The whip is not the best way to train a horse as this only instills fear which is not what you want. Any relationship between man and animal which is based on fear is not going to be a true relationship. What any rider aims for is to create a relationship between him and his horse based on trust, loyalty and respect.

GUIDE ON BUYING A CONDO/APARTMENT

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Buying property is no longer the investment that it used to be in years gone by.  In 'those good old days', as they are fondly remembered, it was commonplace to hear that the best place for your money was not in the bank but in 'bricks and mortar'. But alas the property market reached its maximum peak back in the year 2001 and has never again recovered since its downward journey which has made people realize that they can no longer rely on any single property being sold for any significant profit.  

The only case where this wouldn't apply would be where one had bought a run down condo that was going cheap after having spent some money in refurbishing it and then been able to sell it on for a slight profit. But here again one has to choose carefully as to what kind of condo one should buy, in what area one should buy it in and what facilities and amenities it should have.

One also has to bear in mind that buying a condo in the right area could also prove to be an investment if instead of trying to resell it, one were to rent it out. In doing this you would be guaranteed a monthly income, which in the case of having bought the condo with a mortgage, would help in the repayments.

Though the following are a few guidelines for any prospective buyers of a condo which may prove to be helpful:

1. The area in which you buy a condo should have public transport within walking distance, as not everyone has their own means of transport. There should also be a commercial area nearby which at least provides the basics such as a supermarket, chemist, newspaper shop, bank, and post office.

2. A school, hospital and a sports or recreation area are also quite important to have within the area.

3. At the same time one does not want to be buying anything that is near any airport as you can almost be guaranteed that that sort of property will not be easy to resell!

4. When viewing the condo itself, it should be in a block that is fairly well maintained. Items to look out for are whether the outside of the block has been painted recently. Whether the entrance hall to the block is clean and welcoming and very important as well is that the block has a functional and efficient lift.

5. Try to avoid viewing or even considering one bedroom condos, because despite the fact that they are obviously cheaper and more appealing to your purse/bank account/pocket or what ever you want to call your source of money! they are NOT easy to sell on and they are NEITHER easy to rent out. Most people look for two bedrooms even if they are just one person. This is because you always need an extra room in which to put up a guest or relative for the night, an extra room in which to keep all your sports gear, extra clothes, sewing, ironing, hobbies or what ever.

6. Plus points to look for in a condo are things such as air conditioning, double glazed windows and solar panel systems (for electricity and hot water) on the roof of the condo. Nowadays these are almost considered basic requirements much as tap water was considered a basic requirement in the past century!

7. Lots of natural sunlight steaming through the dwelling is also a very attractive selling or renting point, as a place filled with light is a happy and welcoming place, so always opt for south facing properties where you can.

8. The higher up you go in the block the better the view and so consequently the greater the resale value of the property in the future!

9. And finally, don't be put off by the condo if it looks in terrible condition inside because a large tub of white paint can really do miracles and transform any dingy place into a modern, light and airy dwelling !

WHY I HATE VALENTINES DAY

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I myself don't like Valentines Day at all because I think that it was purely invented by the commercial sector in order to add another day, to the already many days, when they try and coax more money out of us innocent and gullible shoppers!

 

 
 

Who ever said that Valentines Day had to be the day that you sent a token of love to your loved one? You can do that at any time, at any place throughout the whole of the year and in fact it is more original and more personal if you precisely do it on a date of your own choosing instead of having to do it on a date that has been selected for you by shop owners.

But having said all this I have to admit that maybe for the younger couples who possibly haven't even declared themselves to each other enough yet so as to be considered a couple, this day could perhaps be a good excuse for them to take the bull by its horns, as they say here in Spain! and finally get round to showing their girl friend or boy friend that they mean something special.

For the young it has some use because maybe you have been secretly in love with a girl or a boy for the last year but, as you are young and still timid, you just don't know how to go about putting your feelings into words or even making them known. Well on Valentines Day is when you can go out and pick one of those romantic cards, write a smoochy note in it (and also with a subtle clue as to who it is that has written the card), leave it in your loved one's post box and then run away as fast as you can! If she or he really likes you and realises from the subtle clue that it is actually you who has sent the card, then he or she might make the next move and thus enable this relationship to progress.

So I suppose it is not such a bad thing for the young who are all so shy but which is something that tends to disappear with age, so for the older generation we don't really need things like Valentines Day as we tend to just get right down to the point saying I like you, I love you or how about we start living together! Not greatly romantic I must admit but we eventually get where we want to get.

When one is young everything seems such a hurdle, it is so hard to say what you really mean or feel as you have not yet acquired something called 'self confidence' which comes with age when you realise that you are indeed no lesser than anyone else on this planet, but when you are young you haven't yet come to that conclusion and you feel the complete opposite in that you think that everyone is better than you and that you are a nothing, which you certainly are not!. For all those youngsters out there feeling like that in this moment of time, just remind yourself that this is all part of being young and inexperienced, but that as you grow older, which no one likes doing, although maybe as a youngster you want to grow old!, you will be compensated by being given an extra ration of wisdom which is always very useful to have and makes your life much more comfortable and far less daunting.

So my message here is let the young use Valentines Day as their way, because of their shyness, to declare themselves to the one that they love, and for us older ones who are still around let us remember that we don't necessarily need Valentines Day in order to do this and we should continue to show our love for each other throughout the whole of the year without having to buy a card to say what we feel. Just one tender look, one big bear hug or a touch of the hand will say a helluva lot more to us older beings than just sending a card!

Happy Valentines Day to the young and the older which ever way you want to celebrate it!

DEATH OF A FRIEND

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About sixteen years ago, while my horse was still alive, a young boy called Antonio of 13 years old used to come every day after school to visit me and my horse at the stables because he was just mad on horses and in fact he adored all animals. He had his own horse but he didn't ride her that often because she was still in the stages of being educated by one of his uncles. 

So he would come to watch how I groomed mine, how I exercised him in the arena and then afterwards when I used to take my horse on the lead to nibble at grass as his reward for having behaved so well, Antonio would walk beside me and get me to answer as many of his questions as I could about my knowledge of horses.

The first thing that I always say to anyone who asks me questions, is what my father always taught me, which is that with horses you never get to know it all, you are forever learning more things about them with every new experience that you undergo by their side.
Antonio was one of those young boys that had such a pure and good heart. He was always thinking about his family and his friends and he somehow even managed to get me talking about my own personal life which was anything but happy in those days being married to my horrible ex husband. This was also the reason why I spent as much time with my horse as I could because when I was at the stables I was at peace but when I was at home I was a nervous wreck because I never knew when my husband was going to pick on me for supposedly having done something wrong like for example serving his supper five minutes late!

This young boy was so intuitive that he used to tell me that my horse was my medicine and it was him that kept me going which was completely and utterly true. Although I think back and think that maybe if I hadn't had my horse my life would have been double fold unbearable and I would have left my husband much earlier on than I actually did which would have been a good thing as in the end I actually wasted 25 years of my young life with the wrong man. But on the other hand I have to add that I have learnt that nothing in life is wasted as every thing you go through, whether good or bad is at the end of the day an experience and an extra lesson to be learnt about life. When you go through bad times it also makes you appreciate and enjoy the good times even more. And nothing in life lasts forever, neither good times nor bad times, so as they say you have to learn how to take the good and the bad.

In no time at all Antonio was coming out for rides with me on his bicycle but as time went on his mare had at last been reasonably educated and so he asked whether he could come out for a ride with me on his mare and I of course agreed. I had never had children of my own and at the age of 45 my chances of having any had more than come to their end (which probably was just as well with the husband that I had!). So obviously, as a woman I still had a few maternal instincts left inside of me and I really got to love this young boy and talk to him as if he were my son.

We had fantastic rides down to the beach, over gentle hills, down by the river and even rounded up some cattle together. He had so much life in him and was excited and enthralled about everything. I must admit that there were some times that I used to think to myself 'why can't he be quiet for just a few moments' but for a young boy with so much zest for life this is just too much to ask, and so I forgot about trying to shut him up and just patiently carried on listening to all his stories about the animals that he had rescued, the Dalmatian puppy that his parents were going to get him and the Persian kitten that one day he hoped to have!

Two years went by when one day he arrived at the stables looking quite forlorn and not at all his same bubbly self. I asked him what was up and he replied that he had developed a lump on his knee and that he had to go to a hospital in Seville to have a biopsy. I told him not to worry because I had had an operation on my knee to remove some broken off cartilage and that nowadays they didn't even cut you open any more but just did everything through three small incisions that they made in your knee. 

But nevertheless I began to feel a bit nervous because I didn't think that he was telling me the whole story.
My fears were confirmed when after two weeks of him being in Seville while they did the operation followed by a whole load of tests he returned to the stables with an even sadder face than when I had last seen him. They had done all the tests and had found that he had in fact bone cancer. He was now fifteen and a half years old and on removing the cancerous growth on his knee the surgeons had also had to cut away at a nerve which left him virtually unable to use his right and having to use crutches. He had also had a session of chemotherapy and had to return every two weeks for more sessions. It was one week in Seville, two weeks at home and then back again for another week.
He soon began to lose his hair, his eyelashes and his eyebrows and apparently all his friends were starting to make fun of him as he ended up by being completely bald. I told him not to worry and for him to tell them that it was very fashionable to be bald just like Bruce Willis but I also bought him a baseball cap in order that he could hide his baldness.

Whenever he came back from Seville he would always be very weak for the first few days and so I would forget about riding my horse, leave him out in a corral for him to have a day off exercise and I would go off to Antonio's house to visit him and spend the afternoon watching animal documentaries on the television and talking about life.

After about six months the doctors thought that everything might at last be under control and he was described as being in remission. He slowly started to get his strength back but he was very sad because he said that with his bad leg he would never be able to ride again. 'What?' I told him. 'Having one bad leg is no reason for you not to be able to ride again at all. There are lots of people that manage to do it and so you are going to do it as well'.

With the help of his uncle we managed to teach his young mare to bend her front legs and kneel down on the ground so that her back/saddle were much much lower. Antonio had to stand beside her, put his good leg into the stirrup and we would help him swing his bad right leg over and to the other side. We would then tie the bad leg with a grass twine which was strong enough to hold the leg in position but weak enough to break should anything unexpected happen. Then once he had both legs in position and was sitting down in the saddle we would tell his mare, who was called Furia, to get up and when she did there was Antonio sitting on the saddle and in exactly the right position.

And we were able to continue to ride together for quite a few months more. His hair began to grow again and I felt so happy for him as I really thought he was going to get over this until he began quite a nasty cough and then I began to worry again. It's funny as well that I think that Antonio himself knew that something bad was heading his way because he suddenly said to me one day that he didn't think that he was going to last much longer and that his main worry was that he hoped that his parents would be okay after he had gone. It nearly broke my heart when he told me this although I tried to put on a brave face always for him. and told him not to worry because he was going to get over everything.
My father was in fact suffering from lung cancer at the very same time and every now and then I would have to leave Antonio to get on a plane to go and visit my father in England. When Antonio used to ask me how my father was getting on, I admittedly lied to him saying that he was getting better day by day and it was a horrific lie because I knew that my father was also dying but I didn't want Antonio to know this or else he would have given up all hope himself.

On one of our last rides he told me that he had never galloped and that it was his dream to be able to do it one day and so I told him that if that is what he wanted to do then that is exactly what we would do. His mare was very young and still a bit flighty sometimes and so I thought of how to do this in the safest way possible and I came up with the answer. I told Antonio that we were going to head for a very long and steep hill that I knew of and that I was going to go first. He was going to go behind me and hold onto the pommel of his saddle and just forget about his reins because as he was behind me his mare would do everything that my horse did and if she did indeed get too excited and not want to stop I would just hinder her with the rear of my horse in her face!!
Well it all worked beautifully and just how I had planned it and still to this day I can remember the look of exhilaration on Antonio's face as we both galloped up towards the top of the hill and then both stopped perfectly and without any problems. He was so happy and I was so glad to have been able to give him this joy in his life.

Unfortunately he began to deteriorate quite quickly after that and in fact never rode again. I myself also gave up riding my horse (although he ended up having a month's holiday in the corral) while I went every afternoon to sit by Antonio's bed. The cancer had by now reached his lungs and he had these huge orange tanks of oxygen by his bed which he used for breathing. His breathing was forced and difficult and my heart broke every time I saw him.

On the last afternoon that I was with him he asked me whether we would be able to go riding again soon and I said that of course we could. I described to him a new ride that I had found that would take us through a lovely shady forest and then out onto a long grassy plain where we could have a fantastic gallop together. He smiled as he started to fall asleep from the exhaustion of his forced breathing and I kissed him gently on his forehead for the last time because the next day I had to fly to England to visit my also dying father.

After two days of being in England with my father I received a phone call from a friend of mine - Antonio had died. I can't tell you how stunned I was and there were so many conflicting feelings going through my head. My sadness for my adored father that was going to die any day, which he in fact died one month later, and my sadness for a young pure boy that could have given so much to life but was rudely taken away just before his seventeenth birthday.

To this day I still go to his niche, not on the day that he died, but on his birthday which was the 3rd March because I want to celebrate the life that he had and not his death, and I always leave him a sprig of winter jasmine. I am so pleased that I got to know this young boy and so sad that I had to see him go at such a young age. He was at the end of the day the nearest thing to the son that I never had.