Good Golly Miss Molly!

Where did you get that photo? Well, yes it’s a Christmas photo. Yes, it’s me a couple of years ago and a couple of stone lighter, but hey-ho, me. And, Big Yes, I look a little too smug. – You agree? – I agree. Maybe a little too damn smug- Sort of ‘I’ve got Christmas all wrapped up sort of smug’. -With creamy pearls at a tanned wrist sort of smug. Now before you dash away into blogosphere for fear of becoming as smug looking as Miss Molly, please, let me explain.
It seemed so easy at the time you see. For a few years I have been involved in TV, film and extra work- We’re not talking ‘Big Screen’, nothing major, just the odd programme, magazine article or minor film here and there. But for fear of actually sounding as smug as I clearly appear in this photo I will refrain from dropping any TV or film names at this point.- Merely a hobby that hubs and I use as a little diversion every now and again from the serious stuff of life. It’s helped towards paying for the odd holiday or freebie across the pond even but certainly nothing big time and definitely not something we take seriously.
The agency we were contracted with at that time posed me a question ‘Molly, are you an organised sort of person at Christmas’? He explained that the magazine in question was planning an article to be published pre-Christmas entitled ‘Little Miss Organised V Little Miss Disorganised’. And would I like to be the ‘Little Miss Organised’? Well, of course as any mother of a large family will tell you that us busy Mums live by the creed –‘. Being organised isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life’ and, if the prospect of a cheque waved under the nose by an eager editor who is desperate to fill a couple of pages is not something a girl turns down easily is it? Coupled with the incentive of having my very own makeup lady for the day along with one of the leading daily newspaper photographers waiting to turn a Cinderella into a someone who looks like an organised lady then I certainly wasn’t going decline an offer like that. Who would? Okay, probably a sensible person I admit. But did I say I was sensible? Organised - yes, but sensible?
Before the photo shoot could take place I had to submit my reasons as to why I thought I was worthy and smug enough to deserve the title ‘Little Miss Organised’. No problem, Little Miss Organised had it organised in no time at all and very soon I was given a date for the Christmas photo shoot..
The photo shoot was to take place in my home, which came as a great relief as this is far easier and aids a more relaxing (smug even) look than having to catch early morning trains up to London or beyond. The photographer duly arrived and having found a suitable well-lit area of my conservatory set to turn my home into a Christmas den …and given this was September, no easy task! It took a whole day of being ‘made up’ (I had to look organised after all) clothing changes, more make up on/off before the photographer went home satisfied that she had enough photos to choose from to make the article look just right. I pondered, with maybe a little too much smugness just how Little Miss Disorganised would be. I wondered if in fact she was a highly organised person who had to be roughed up especially for the photo – poor lady! I looked forward to seeing my rival on our double page spread in the December edition of a well known glossy magazine.
The great part of it all was of course that all I had to do was wait for my cheque to arrive – brilliant! Easy. Smug easy. End of story? Not.
A couple of months later I put my Little Miss Organised Cheque to good use –just before Christmas we went on holiday. Yes, of course I had to apply my great organisational skills prior to going away because we weren’t due back to UK until 7am on Christmas Eve –therefore meticulous preparation had occurred prior to us going away; food in freezer, favourite desserts frozen in readiness, shopping order submitted ready for delivery at noon on Christmas Eve, even Christmas cards posted at the airport. Everything was organised. Mum kindly agreed to pop in to take the frozen turkey out of the freezer a couple of days prior to our arrival home so that it could thaw out gently in the fridge. Yes, indeed I was just like the ‘Little Miss Organised’ of the magazine article. Or so I thought. Rather smugly – too smugly.
We enjoyed a wonderful holiday and the plane duly arrived at 7am prompt and we walked into the house at around 10am expecting to bask in organised smugness…To our horror we discovered no Bronze turkey defrosting in the fridge, no scrumptious desserts sitting happily in the freezer awaiting consumption the next day. In fact there was no food whatsoever other than the usual jars and bottles of boring pickles at the back of the fridge. There was, however a hurried note from my poor Mum telling me that she had popped in the previous day to take the turkey out of the freezer only to discover that the electrics must have somehow switched off just after we had left for our holiday two weeks previously – so of course she had walked in to a very smelly, wet kitchen where food had defrosted and had gone rotten! All the Christmas food had gone to waste, including all the handmade desserts were all now sitting in black bin liners at the rubbish tip – so rotten even the local seagull community would have turned their up noses.
Thankfully, and by then far less smug, we were able to find the last remaining turkey at our local supermarket and some goodies for Christmas Day, but had to smile at the ‘Little Miss Organised’ who wasn’t so organised after all.
I’ve often wondered just how that Christmas fared for Little Miss Disorganised. Bet it was a lot better than ours!
The odd thing was that instead of receiving a copy of the magazine where the feature was appearing, I received a letter instead apologising that the article had been ‘binned’ at the last minute – ‘it sounded a bit too smug’ said the editor. -You’re telling me!!

Pride comes before a fall. Yes, indeed it does!

..PS and for those of you who may be convinced you read this post some days ago..you may be correct! - I did post it, but some odd reason it appeared way down on my list of posts, so decided to delete and try again! - Told you I was learning!